The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : The compromise and the compromised

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Saturday, Jun 11, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

The compromise and the compromised

Harish Khare

L.K. Advani has saved his post as BJP president but has lost his leadership edge.

IT WILL be days before the country will know the finer print of the compromise between L.K. Advani and the Bharatiya Janata Party. And it will be a while before it will be known how enthusiastic the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is about this compromise.

And whatever gloss the BJP media-managers may want to put on the compromise, it will be months and years before the unhappy images of the last few days fade from the public memory. The image of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia spewing venom against Mr. Advani; the image of protests in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad against the "Jinnah-lover Advani"; the image of important party functionaries and leaders such as Yashwant Sinha, Babulal Gaur, Babulal Marandi joining issue with Mr. Advani about his views on Mohammed Ali Jinnah; the image of the RSS spokesperson telling a thing or two to the BJP establishment on how to think and what to think; and, above all, the image of his senior colleague, Murli Manohar Joshi, publicly asserting that nobody in the party shared Mr. Advani's views and perceptions.

Never before had so many leaders felt so emboldened to disagree with Mr. Advani. This public display of dissent and disagreement was uncharacteristic of a political party that has always prided itself on its organisational discipline as well as an unfamiliar experience for a man who had built an aura of invincibility about him. The last one week has seriously depleted Mr. Advani's political capital, accumulated over the last two decades.

More than the public expressions, the criticism in private of Mr. Advani by BJP leaders bordered on the blasphemous. It could not have escaped Mr. Advani's notice that none of his known protégés and acolytes in the party, the men and women he promoted, protected and patronised, spoke up in his favour. Obviously these functionaries were more mindful of the RSS views and less grateful to Mr. Advani for all the breaks he gave them in the party. Never before must he have felt so isolated in his own party as he did this last week. He seemed to have more friends among the National Democratic Alliance partners than in his own party.

Mr. Advani has saved his post but has lost his leadership edge. Because this last week had seen the party president and the party hierarchy in a relationship of pronounced antagonism. The BJP leaders came pretty close to renouncing Mr. Advani's claim to political wisdom and the party president behaved as if he was above the organisation. It was perceived as presumptuous of Mr. Advani to announce that while he was resigning from the post of party president, he would continue as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

It was obvious to every party functionary — as it should have been to Mr. Advani — that his leadership claim within the BJP would become untenable once he stepped down as party president. In fact, short of pronouncing "talaq, talaq, talaq", the two had almost reconciled to a divorce. The last few days have rendered Mr. Advani a much-reduced leader and the BJP a much weaker party.

That the BJP found itself constrained to distance itself from Mr. Advani's pronouncements in Pakistan is understandable, given the party's umbilical relationship with the Sangh Parivar. The question is: why has Mr. Advani settled for a rebuff? What political reasons and psychological impulses combined to make Mr. Advani climb down from a daring intellectual attempt to wean the party away from the Sangh Parivar's orthodoxy? Was it the fear of losing all the trappings and privileges that go with political power or was it the hope that he would live to fight another battle another day, perhaps help the BJP transform into an independent political entity?

Given the fact that the party establishment has so emphatically refused to go along with him, Mr. Advani cannot claim have been redeemed either himself or his new ideas.

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