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Monday, Nov 29, 2004

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THE OLD BJP

THE ARCHITECT OF Ayodhya has sought to give the impression that he has found a cause equal in electoral potential to the Ram temple movement of the early 1990s. Lal Krishna Advani revealed the game plan at the Bharatiya Janata Party's National Executive meeting held in Ranchi. He proclaimed that the protest campaign launched against the arrest of the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, was a means "through which, as in the Ram Janmabhoomi issue, we will powerfully counter our ideological and political adversaries..." The party had chosen Ranchi as the venue of the meet with an eye on the upcoming elections in Jharkhand and Bihar. The BJP chief denounced the Sankaracharya's arrest as part of a conspiracy to "erase India's Hindu ethos," and thundered against the "general climate of pseudo-secularism," as he tried to arouse the party faithful to holy battle.

The BJP's unceasing miseries — successive electoral defeats, debilitating infighting, and pressures from the sangh parivar — have made it imperative that the party find an overarching issue that would unite it, satisfy the parivar, and stir the common people. But is the campaign against the Sankaracharya's arrest the 2004 equivalent of the Ram temple movement? Nobody seriously believes it is so because the BJP's actions have met with only lukewarm approval whether from the devotees of the Math or from the public at large. Even the Sankaracharya's counsel, Ram Jethmalani, has attacked the party for wanting to make political capital out of the Kanchi Acharya's travails. Secondly, it was an ally of the BJP, and not the "pseudo-secular Congress and the Communists," that diligently pursued the murder charge against the Sankaracharya and put him behind bars. The BJP has aligned alternately with the two major parties of the Dravidian movement — once with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and twice with the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (with whom it has, at least for now, broken relations in protest against the Sankaracharya's arrest). Only recently the BJP and the sangh parivar had extolled Jayalalithaa as the ideal Hindu Chief Minister — not that they had problems with the Dravidian politics of the DMK so long as the latter was seen to add to their electoral strength. It stretches credulity then that Mr. Advani should now accuse both Dravidian parties of pursuing "the politics of vendetta, confrontation, one-upmanship, and social divisiveness."

In May 1998, soon after the BJP took office at the Centre, Mr. Advani outlined a bold, new vision for his party. "The New BJP," he announced, "will be guided not by the issues of yesterday but by the agendas of tomorrow. The new BJP will not only be the party in governance but the natural party of governance." What he meant was clear enough: having realised its long-cherished dream of capturing power, the BJP was ready to opt for pragmatism. This "transformation" was hailed as historic by several pundits; indeed certain commentators likened the change to the Labour Party's reorientation as "New Labour" under Tony Blair. In practice of course, the BJP was not unduly weighed down by Mr. Advani's post-power wisdom. It periodically raised the Ram temple issue. As Union Home Minister, Mr. Advani had no compunction in offering rock-like support to Narendra Modi through the post-Godhra pogrom and proposing that Gujarat should go to the polls against the backdrop of horrific violence. Mr. Jethmalani understands the BJP well. Hence his fervent desire that the party should stay out of the Sankaracharya arrest controversy.

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