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Lal Krishna Advani's third reprieve

Round III of Lal Krishna Advani's battle with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ended with the Bharatiya Janata Party chief apparently in a position to say, after Mark Twain, "the reports of my [political] death are greatly exaggerated." It is decidedly an anti-climax, judging from the rash of sound bites that have been proved wrong and the rise and fall of journalistic predictions. The toing and froing between BJP headquarters and the command centre in Jhandewalan fed the sense of doom. But the man who praised Mohammad Ali Jinnah for his August 11, 1947 Constituent Assembly address to the outrage of party and larger parivar, was going nowhere — at least for now. This is actually Mr. Advani's third "momentary respite" in the month and a half since he returned from Pakistan — a trip he will remember for more than the warmth of his reception in the land of his birth. So why did the RSS, which has bayed for its once-favourite-son's blood from the moment he visited the Quaid-e-Azam's mausoleum, call off the hunt? Is Mr. Advani expected to revert to shrill Hindutva in penance for describing the founder of Pakistan as a "great man" and his August 1947 vision of Pakistan as quintessentially "secular"?

That the RSS wanted Mr. Advani humiliated and out of the way is clear enough. Earlier last week, it publicly warned the BJP against "ideological deviation." On Sunday, Sangh Sahakaryavah Mohan Bhagwat targeted Mr. Advani: "Swayamsevaks working in organisations inspired by the Sangh ideology should maintain [the] utmost commitment to ideology and also behave in a manner befitting Sangh traditions." If it was Hindutva rhetoric the RSS wanted, Mr. Advani had already satisfied it by visiting Ayodhya, in the aftermath of the terrorist strike, to lusty shouts of "Jai Shri Ram." Such emotional fervour evidently did not carry conviction with the Sangh, which probably saw his Ayodhya act as a survival tactic rather than as evidence of reform and repentance. The Sangh has a point. Until now, there has not been the whiff of a suggestion from Mr. Advani that he regrets the `ideological transgression' that has been the cause of so much turbulence for him, his party, and his parivar. This suggests that greater intellectual deliberation went into the BJP chief's Jinnah-appreciation than his critics are willing to admit. If the BJP chief is serious about `reforming' the party the way he wants, he must go the whole hog. This calls for perseverance, tenacity, and a will to succeed. It could be that in the period ahead Mr. Advani will surrender one of his two posts. If he retains the job of party president, he will have won a strategic victory. He will then be able to influence the answer to the question: how long can a major political party with a mass base afford to be seen dancing to the tune of a shadowy circle of unelected men claiming to be controllers of the Hindutva soul?

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