Men, Matters & Memories
The Mahabharat within the BJP

By M.L. Kotru

The Prime Minister is known as a poet of some merit. Now he has proven he is good at writing scripts as well. The challenge to his continuation in power has probably brought out the scriptwriter in him.

Let us go to the beginning of the Mahabharat. Vajpayee was then a leader, orator and the boss of the BJP and had the brotherhood of the Brahmins to nurture his political career. Advani a lonely Sindhi, was his trusted and tame follower, with neither base nor brotherhood to support him. Time and events provided them with opportunity to gang up against other prominent BJP personalities, marginalize them, overwhelm them and finally remain in permanent control of the BJP. There are two important and controlling positions in the BJP. They ensured that both these positions were always firmly in their grip. Either of them would be BJP president while the other the leader of the parliamentary party. Even if the odd M M Joshi became president once in a while they would not let it happen again.

After decades of wilderness in the opposition, they latched on to JP and became Ministers in 1977. Power enriched their vision of the world in all respects. Too soon in 1980 they were out of Government and all the trappings that go with it. By themselves and with their narrow support base they could never hope to come to power again. They could lend their support to others like VP Singh to defeat Congress, but not to make it on their own. They realized that after the death of Indira Gandhi and the waning of Rajiv Gandhi, that they must expand their support base to fill in the leadership void in the Indian political system and come to power.

They decided that Vajpayee will continue to be the Hindu leader with a secular, liberal image. Whereas Advani will take over the VHP's popular Ram Janam Bhoomi movement to stick the millions of Hindu voters in to the BJP fold. It is then that the scenario changed. The Guru-Chela relationship between Vajpayee and Advani transformed in to Secular Guru-Hindutva Guru partnership. Both became equal in stature and support base, with a seesaw relationship, when one was more powerful than the other, swapping postions of strength in different situations. By 1996 Advani gained complete control of the organization and overtook Vajpayee in the Prime Ministerial sweepstakes. Vajpayee was furious but helpless. He could not break away from Advani because he needed Advani, if he had to ever come to power. He bided his time sulking on Jaswant Singh's shoulders.

Then came ''Hawala''. Advani lost out. He believed that he was cheated out by Brahmin fraternity led by Narasimha Rao, to help Vajpayee a fellow Brahmin. He could not break away as he needed Vajpayee, the BJP and time to bail out of the Hawala crisis. He proclaimed Vajpayee as PM and bided his time until a future opportunity, to bid for power. After losing power in 1996 they changed strategy. All other parties were treating the ''communal'' BJP as an untochable. The duo then embarked on a grand-plan drawing from the electoral victories manufactured by JP in 1977 and V P Singh in 1989 by forging a grand-anti Congress alliance. Instead of a National Alliance they sold the idea at the State level, by roping in an anti-Congress party in every State in to a State level electoral tie -up. The strategy worked. They came to power through a fragile coalition in 1998.

In power and unchallanged by lack of leadership in the Congress the Vajpayee- Advani relationship came under pressure to break free from each other and gain absolute power. Their respective dining table strategists egged them on. Vajpayee's cronies felt that Advani was a boil on the butt, which must be punctured, if Vajpayee was to continue as PM without a hijack bid from Advani. Advani's cronies felt that Vajpayee was in pain in the neck that had to be got rid off if he had even to become PM. They fought each other, making life difficult for each other, humiliating each other and marg- inalizing each other in the media and wherever they could. Vajpayee humiliating Advani in Government and Advani humiliating Vajpayee in the Party. Some more time in power and they would have broken up, trying to destroy each other. But Sonia intervened foolishly and brought down the Government in 1999.

The fear of wilderness and the lure of power with an incompetent Sonia at the helm of the Congress made Vajpayee and Advani to kiss and make up. They forged a larger anti-Congress coalition, exploited the national patriotic mood resulting from the Kargil War, pitted a Deshi Atal against a Videshi Sonia and came to power. They realized that they need each other to be in power and to come to power. Over a painful trial and error method on quantum and quality of power that they should share. They finally arrived at a harmonious working relationship of PM-DPM. Vajpayee even handed over the complete control of the party to Advani and his cronies. They would meet whenever needed, discuss and decide on matters, men and issues. Where they agreed they carried it out. On whatever they disagreed they either abandoned it or postponed it. Things were going along nicely.

Then came 2003. Just a year to go for the next general elections. Advani's dining table strategists felt that having allowed Vajpayee to be Prime Minister until now it was time for Vajpayee to hand over to Advani in 2004. They initiated the Loh Purush-Vikas Purush gameplan to signal the need for Advani to takeover. Vajpayee's dining table strategists were not content with their spell of access to Prime Ministerial power. They refused to concede.

Vajpayee hit back publicly after his return from the European tour. Vajapyee's strength is public opinion. He always takes his battle with Advani in to the public domain and wins. Advani's strength is from two sources. His capacity of being the unofficial chairman of the Hindutva corporation and his control of the party apparatus. The Hindutva corporation gives him the clout to control the organisation. The BJP Organisation gives him the opportunity to give winning tickets to his cronies to enable hijacking of the Government and Prime Ministership from Vajpayee immediately after the 2004 election. The Hindutva controllers namely, VHP leaders, began a sustained campaign asking Vajpayee to resign and hand over to Advani, Vajpayee realized that he has to get rid of Advani's supporters.

The Rae Bareily court verdict answered Vajpayee's prayers as had the Hawala Court verdict, then. Advani being let off and all others accused, led to the Hindutva crowd feeling betrayed by Advani. Across the country the Hindutva leaders, workers, voters have shifted away from Advani. Today, Vajpayee's chosen nominee, Murli Manohar Joshi is the chairman of the Hindutva Corporation. Advani continues as DPM in Vajpayee's set up but has lost the leadership of the Hindutva Parivar. Advani has fallen from the high Hindutva pedestal. On the political ladder, he has slipped many a rung as the alternate to Vajpayee. Instead, today he is seen to be heading a small faction fighting with his back to the wall, against the faction of Murli Manohar Joshi, while supremo Vajpayee was enjoying an American holiday, far away from the small time bratfight. So much so, that Vajpayee on his return has emerged as the undisputed Great Leader.

Vajpayee now has the opportunity to gain control of the Party apparatus in the December organisational elections when a new President has to take over for a fresh three-year term. The current term of BJP Presidency began with Bangaru, and Jana Krishanmurthy and ends with Venkaiah, Vajpayee has two options. He can now install Joshi as the president. He can threaten to install Joshi and induct a compromise candidate who will be loyal to him.

The RSS is so attached to power and benefits accruing from power, that it will abide by whatever decision the Prime Minister and BJP take.

Vajpayee has once again won against Advani. Whether he will win in 2004 is another matter. For now the scriptwriter Vajpayee holds the audience. The Mahabharat in the BJP continues.

Yours Randomly,
Gandhi-the last Hindu politician!......

By Dr. R. L. Bhat

India is…well, because it is Indu or Hindu, depending upon whether you prefer the Greek or the Arabian handicap of the name Sindhu. Yet it is because of this ethos that we have a free and fair, tolerant and considerate, iquitious and introspective nation here. Because of this ethos we still have an oasis of freedom and democracy, rule and law, love and reverence here. But for this, we may have had anarchy-calling itself wise and worthy, supreme and sovereign while it lasted-in this part of the subcontinent too. Much of that continuity in thought and essence is owed to the modern exponent of Indian way of life, thought and action, Gandhi. When the Indian values still held sway he was referred to as Mahatma and Bapu. At the very least, you never thought of removing the reverential ‘ji’. During the half-century since his death this nation has ‘progressed’ enough to have all deference’s discarded as bondages. A twent-iesh reporter refers to septuagenarian Kuldeep Nayar as Kuldeep and feels suitably modern-suitably un-Indianised, one may say. And that is the shame.

A bigger shame is the easy trashing that the idea of India gets in the mouths and letters of this emancipated lot. Now what does all that have to do with calling Gandhi the last Hindu politician? Everything. This indeed is the beginning and the end. India is not a nation. It never was a nation. The concept of nation as it evolved in the renaissance world is too narrow to define the holistic scheme called India. Here religion is not an incantation. It is not a crusade. Life is not an ambition. Living is not to profit. Advance is not to gobble up air, water, land and all there is in the bag of nature. Achievement is not to wrap everything and everyone else around your own small body and being. The end is not so very important as to justify any means. Instead, means is an end in itself. Here the sole use of mind is not to rule over matter. Good, welfare, service is not a managerial trickestry. Politics is not a design to attain chosen goals. Even god is not defined in limiting anthropomorphic attributes but in negatives-neti, neti…not this, not this. Those learned on the self-help books and personality guides would call it negativism, as they indeed did. Yet it is the most positivist assertion there ever could be.

The latest issue of Sanskrit magazine, Sambhashan Sandesh tells a tale of a devout cobbler who was exceedingly happy in his calling. He was also an accomplished jnani. One of his disciples felt awkward at his guru of much jnana stitching shoe-things and gave him an icon of which one could ask as much gold as one wanted. Visiting him after a year, he found him still happily stitching shoes. He feared that his gold-granting icon had been stolen and asked his guru what had happened to it. The guru told him that it lay in the corner he had left it in, that he had not touched it else his ananda-happiness-would have been drowned in cares of gold. The disciple learning a lesson more valuable than all gold in the world, took the icon and threw it into the Ganges. Now what would our management-gurus call this waste and loss of a most valuable asset? But India of Gandhi’s days, which still believed in itself would have understood. That India understood Gandhi too, for he lived that wholesome life and strove for that happiness. There a farmer lived the life of a farmer. He, of course, failed at being a producer of goods. A cobbler stitched shoes and merrily sang hari-harii. When that life was derided as a failed economy, it was overlooked that life is more, much more, than a compact with economy.

As an economy-the sum-total of profits and losses-it definitely fails. It fails to make you a business magnate, a world controller, a thorough exploiter or a ‘usurper’ as Gandhi called it. Here one is talking of an exploiter of resources. In Gandhi’s time another exploiter was much in news-the exploiter of humans. That person was the capitalist and all struggles, all wars, were directed at this usurper. For decades after Gandhi those wars-revolutions, they were called-continued. Many of the mahatma’s lieutenants were sold to ‘revolution’ and its reverence. Revolution was all material. Material-as ‘ism’ as well as achievement-held the sway. It still has men and minds beholden to it, though they have found that the theory and principle does not sit well with Indians or their ethos. Over the time materialism changed dialectics making the despised capitalist the idol. So it still does sway people. And swindle India, though under a different garb! Gandhi of means and morals is still an outsider here. India is still a reluctant participant in the material emancipation. Though, of course, it is fast catching up. In keeping with this reigning ethos, you have politicians who are more astute players than practisers of morality. Good and sincere, true and principled are ‘out-dated modes’ in this thought and scheme. Yet these were the ideas of Ind, the essentials of Indian-ness-Hindutva if you please.

Hindutva is still invoked in India, but only as a weapon or an anathema, depending upon whether you belong to the Sangh-brigade or are ranged against it. For either of them, it is not a principle for practice; neither a conviction nor a commitment to be adhered to. Indeed, the crux of this fight is over calling it ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Indianness’. Of course, that shows how shallow Indian essence has become. Our politics, as most of our ideas today, have no roots in the ethos of this land. In the half century since Gandhi’s death we have succeeded in driving India away from our immediate thoughts, schemes and dispensations. For, since his death we have never had an Indian-a Hindu-in the arena that most matters to the life of the nation. We may succeed in having a near copy of an America or an England here, but then India would not be in sight. That would be the day when the liberal elite of this land may feel fully satisfied. And, get finally repentant. The greatest shame…nay, pity is that you cannot even tell them that this quest has already made dunces of the world where it has held sway these past centuries. That, this un-Indian endeavor is the most heinous thing to happen to this land, probably the whole world. That India has to be weaned back to ethos and morals, truth of aims and purity of means, sincerity of conviction and honesty of commitments. That, a Gandhi-who inter alia loves Ram of Ayodhya, reads Krishna’s Gita and is ashamed of neither-needs be birthed again to teach this land being Hindu.