The size doesn’t fit

I do not know why the BJP does not realise that it looks odd in the clothes of pluralism it is trying to wear. It is a futile exercise if the purpose is to hide its Hindutva fangs. Nobody is taken in by the liberalism a few in the BJP exude to suit a particular occasion.

The party’s real face shows up at the slightest provocation. It would be better and more credible if it were to stick to its original full-throated cry: Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain (say with pride that we are Hindus). The business of forming the government at the Centre made it talk of secularism. Otherwise, it has been quite open about its anti-Muslim prejudice. However, the party deludes itself all the more when it believes that the political groups that support it are in tune with its parochial Hindu policies. The allies are there because of power that gives them and their skimpy parties importance and reach. There is no love lost between them and the BJP. They are only time-servers. They will jettison it tomorrow provided they can find another combination that gives them ministerial berths or the authority which the treasury benches enjoy. Their commitment is to power, not to principles.

Both Gujarat and Ayodhya underline this opportunism. The allies did not ask the prime minister even once to dismiss Chief Minister Narendra Modi who was fiddling when Gujarat was burning. Samata Party’s George Fernandes, who pretends to be secular, did not demand Modi’s resignation when he visited the state in the midst of genocide. Nor did key ally, Telugu Desam, which holds the key to the balance of power at the Centre. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu condemned the Gujarat carnage but was careful not to demand Modi’s resignation. Probably, all those in the BJP’s entourage called the NDA, have come to realise their limits. This time the limit was they could not ask for Modi’s resignation.

Again, the allies did not utter a word on Ayodhya. When the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was given an assurance of a token puja at the undisputed land in the presence of the Kanchi Shankaracharya at the prime minister’s residence, the people could see the farce but the allies did not want to. When the whole thing blew up in their face, a few made poor Attorney General Soli Sorabjee a scapegoat. The government unnecessarily embarrassed him. He was quite right in saying that he was giving his interpretation of the judgment on the acquired land. That many thought he was wrong did not mean that he had become a part of the BJP or that his secular credentials were in doubt. The government was unfair to make him hold the baby when it lacked the courage to do it itself.

Whatever the efforts to create confusion, the 1994 judgment on the acquired land is clear: The vesting of the adjacent areas other than the disputed area acquired by the Act is absolute with the power of management and administration. The government is a mere receiver, not an arbiter. The court did, however, say that the parties could come ‘‘at a later appropriate stage’’ to claim the acquired land in excess of ‘‘the exact area determined to be needed on adjudication of the dispute’’.

Strangely, everyone went to sleep, even the VHP and Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans. They woke up recently to seek political mileage. None of them knocked at the court’s door to ask the government to surrender the area required to give access to the disputed site. Muslim organisations are equally to blame on this point. They could have gone to court to obtain an order for the demarcation of the approach area to the disputed property.

The dispute has acquired such communal overtones that the facts have been lost. The most important one is that the Babri masjid was demolished by a fanatic Hindu crowd in the presence of some of those who today hold key portfolios in the Vajpayee government. Cases against them are proceeding in the court. They should have the guts to resign from the government.

When L.K. Advani can go to the ridiculous extent of comparing his rath yatra with Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi march, he should also have the courage to say that the mosque was demolished to construct a temple. Why should Advani or his cohorts feel shy of owning the responsibility and, instead, hold a dumb charade at Ayodhya? And why the exercise of rushing Shatrughan Singh, a civil servant, to Ayodhya? He behaved more like a Ram sevak, violating all cannons of proper conduct.

BJP leaders are equivocating. This will not wash off the stigma of militant Hinduism. On the other hand, it might cost them votes. The BJP’s rout in the state elections of UP, Punjab and Uttaranchal has shown how much ground it has lost. Its efforts to look secular have alienated its solid support among the hardline Hindus. And the Muslims never trusted them to begin with. This is not a new phenomenon. It happens to those who try to ride two horses at the same time. Hindutva and secularism cannot go together.

The BJP is a political arm of the RSS. Everyone knows that the RSS cadres help the BJP during elections. The RSS assigns some of its pracharaks to the BJP. Modi is one of them. Many who claim to be distant from the RSS stand in their knickers at the RSS parade at the bidding of its chief.

The BJP was at least candid when it parted company with the Janata Party some two decades ago to establish its ‘separate identity’. The issue was that the Jana Sangh (later rechristened BJP) could not have ties with the RSS which had a Hindu face. By 1979, after two years of the Janata government, the RSS operations in the government and the party had become clear. It was undermining the basic philosophy of Indian nationalism and planting its own men in the government and the party. When asked to choose between the RSS and the Janata, Jana Sangh members chose the RSS and founded the BJP.

The manner in which it owned the RSS publicly probably re-won for the BJP the fundamentalists among the Hindu voters. Its equivocal attitude now has harmed it as various elections show. The BJP should stick to Hindutva, its philosophy. Neither secularism nor pluralism come anywhere near it. These are modern ways of thinking, democratic in ethos. But when even its instincts have been communalised, why the facade of liberalism?

The real predicament is that of Vajpayee though. He is a swayamsewak and the country’s prime minister. The time has come for him to choose between the two. He can’t be the mukut and the face at the same time.

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