The Hindu Business Line : The BJP in a crisis

TRANSPARENCY is an eminently desirable virtue only when practised with a due sense of timing and responsibility and when it is the only option left to bring about an intended result.

Otherwise, it becomes indistinguishable from naked display of egotism holding within itself seeds of self-destruction.

These are the sombre reflections arising from the sudden attack mounted by the Sarsangchalak of the RSS, Mr K.S. Sudarshan, on Messrs. A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.

It is a mystery why he chose this particular time and the medium of a TV talk show for publicly and apparently without any provocation, running them down, because it flies in the face of the minimum essential norms to be observed in dignified political discourse.

The lack of sensitivity shown by him for the feelings of persons who, after all is said and done, have rendered significant services, according to their best lights, in positions of responsibility, whether in their party or the Government is equally a mystery, as he ought to have known that it will only foul up relations all round and disrupt the smooth running of the very organisations — the RSS and the BJP — which are no doubt dear to him.

Mr Sudarshan is certainly entitled to his own conviction about the desirability of imparting vigour and dynamism to the working of the BJP by entrusting it to a younger generation of leaders.

He may even feel, and justifiably, that the continuance of Messrs Vajpayee and Advani in leadership positions acts as a deadweight on the initiative and drive of persons such as Ms Sushma Swaraj and Messrs Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan.

Gerontocracy is not an unknown phenomenon in India, and generally in countries of the Orient, and there is no doubt that it is one of the factors militating against clarity of vision and purposeful action.

The Sarsangchalak has also the right to form his own judgment on the effectiveness of Mr Vajpayee as the Prime Minister and as a votary of Hindutva.

But the best way to mend matters is not to take a confrontationist stance in public, but to work tactfully behind the scenes so that the desired improvement in the functioning of the party takes place with a sense of participation by all concerned.

Mr Sudarshan appears to have made his own position untenable with his outburst.

B. S. Raghavan

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