:: Opinion

Is it Ides of March for Advani already?

P.C. Alexander

Oct.07 : A few days ago, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manohar Parrikar compared Lal Krishna Advani to a "pickle that had turned rancid" and said that the party president must make way for younger leaders in the BJP. He also observed that Mr Advani's political innings is more or less over. There was nothing new in Mr Parrikar's statement. Many BJP leaders, both young and old, have been saying this after the BJP's poor show in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

However, what was new and quite surprising about Mr Parrikar's call was the biting language he chose to express his views on Mr Advani, one of the founders of the Jan Sangh and a respected politician who had been enthusiastically acknowledged by the rank and file of the BJP as the most suitable person to lead the party after the exit of Atal Behari Vajpayee, just five years ago in 2004.

It is important to remember that Mr Advani came under sharp attack from his own partymen only after the BJP's miserable show in the 2009 elections in relatively large states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and others. He was reminded of the truth of the saying that "nothing succeeds like success" when many of his erstwhile followers and admirers started their vituperative attacks on him.

Till recently Mani Shankar Aiyar had been credited with the most pungent quote of criticism against Mr Advani. When Mr Aiyar was asked to comment on Mr Advani's resignation after the Jinnah controversy in 2005, he said, "I am not bothered about him, he is politically dead". This was a remark by a Congress leader known for his wit and humour.

But in Mr Parrikar's description of Mr Advani as "rancid pickle" there was neither wit nor humour, only an overdose of ridicule. One is tempted to remind Mr Parrikar, a former chief minister of Goa, that when a political party loses power in a state, the losing chief minister is also expected to gracefully own up his share of responsibility for the debacle. Mr Parrikar also needs to be reminded that use of strong language does not make a statement stronger.

But it will be useful to examine how Mr Advani suddenly found himself at the receiving end of such sharp criticism from some of his own partymen. Firstly, this is not the first time Mr Advani is facing criticism. It is, of course, a first for him that it is now coming from his own party people.

In 2005, during a visit to Pakistan, Mr Advani hailed the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and faced severe criticism for the first time in his half-century of public life. Though none of the statements from his partymen matched the severity of Mr Parrikar's language, he tendered his resignation immediately on return from Pakistan. But Mr Advani's senior colleagues had come forward to defend him and to express their full faith in his leadership. No political leader could have hoped to receive such strong expression of support and loyalty as Mr Advani received from his party then.

If I am to make an assessment of the various statements Mr Advani had made while in Pakistan, I will say that the words inscribed by him in the visitor's book at Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi led to genuine unhappiness in the minds of even his admirers in India, though many refrained from joining his critics out of respect for him. Mr Advani had referred to a few of Jinnah's pronouncements, and statements by others on Jinnah, that showed the changes in Jinnah's stand on secularism at different stages of his political career. Such statements, including references to Jinnah's oft-quoted speech of August 11, 1947 at the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and Sarojini Naidu's tribute to him as the "ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity", reflected different facets of his political philosophy and career. It is a well-known fact that even after his 1947 speech, Jinnah announced that Pakistan was and would continue to be an Islamic state. Probably, if Mr Advani had not referred to Jinnah in the words he chose to use in the visitors' book at Jinnah's mausoleum, the reaction would not have been so severe.

The election reverses of 2009 would not have been so hurtful to Mr Advani if his prestige had not been dented in June 2005. But even being in this relatively vulnerable position should not have encouraged a senior colleague like Mr Parrikar to resort to the present level of attack.

The exit of top leaders from positions of power and influence in the government or the party is a common phenomenon in democratic countries. There have been several reasons for such exits. Normally poor health, as in the case of Mr Vajpayee, can be justified for the exit of certain political leaders. In some cases, allegations of corruption, nepotism and favouritism have been reasons for the exit of top leaders from their leadership positions. Mr Advani, in his long period of public life, has never been accused of any conduct even remotely associated with corruption or nepotism.

Mr Advani is one of the very few top leaders of India's political parties who have maintained their reputation for impeccable integrity. If such a person decides on his own will to unburden himself of his political responsibilities, the least that one should expect from one's partymen is not to add insult to injury by the use of unkind words.

P.C. Alexander is a former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra