The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : "The brand became larger than the product"

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

"The brand became larger than the product"

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, NOV. 10. A political party ends up paying a price, sooner or later, for overloading an individual with ideas and sentiments. The BJP leadership is now reaping what it has sown in the matter of Uma Bharti.

Though a graduate of the "mandir movement," Ms. Bharti has in recent years been given just that extra importance in the BJP because of her presumed capacity to raise the rhetoric against the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. The party leadership had convinced itself of its own nationalistic credentials and Ms. Bharti was the ideal personification of that image. The sanyasin was marketed as a perfect foil to the videshi, Sonia Gandhi. Eventually the brand became larger than the product.

She was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh when she found herself involved in an intractable wrangle in a court of law in Hubli. She had to give up her Chief Ministership because the law would not make a judicial distinction between "political crimes" and "criminal offences." Any citizen who does not answer summons from a court of law attracts judicial retribution, but the BJP leadership sought to put a gloss on Ms. Bharti's non-compliance with law by making it an issue of "tiranga," an insult to national sentiments, a challenge to the national pride. The effortlessly articulate sanyasin attributed all her legal troubles to Ms. Gandhi and her alleged lack of patriotism.

It was obvious to any student of law that Ms. Bharti was in the same boat as Shibu Soren, the Coal Minister who had to resign from the Cabinet after a court of law issued a non-bailable warrant against him; the law demanded their presence in a magistrate's court and both ignored the summons. Both had to pay a price. But Mr. Advani led the entire BJP leadership in insisting that Ms. Bharti was a "martyr." A grand "tiranga yatra" was chalked out, all with the intent of marketing Ms. Bharti as the symbol of national honour and pride. She hit the road with the idea of arousing the nationalistic passions. The citizens refused to be taken in by the claims made by Ms. Bharti and on her behalf.

Yet the BJP leadership remains a prisoner of its rhetoric of "sacrifice" made by Ms. Bharti. The party cannot acknowledge that it had miscalculated the nation's mood. Ironically, moments before she burst out this morning against her colleagues, Mr. Advani was maintaining the fiction of "sacrifice." Political parties and political leaders generate hopes and illusions not only among their cadres but also among themselves. Leaders eventually make mistakes because they start believing their own utterances. Ms. Bharti has allowed herself to be mesmerised by her admirers' suggestion of all the "second rung leaders" she alone enjoys "grassroots" support.

A foot-note: the Uma Bharti episode would hopefully dampen the BJP leaders' penchant for over-exposing themselves to the electronic media. The television cameras were invited to telecast "live" the drama of Mr. Advani recasting his team; instead, Ms. Bharti provided the unscripted bytes. The damage certainly would have been much less had the combustible Ms. Bharti embarrassed the party leadership behind closed doors.

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