The Hindu Business Line : A blow to the BJP body politic?

GENERALLY, Hinduism is considered to be a liberal and modern religion but the transition from Hinduism to Hindutva is often another story, and factors such as doggedness, intolerance and inflexibility creep in, as the BJP President, Mr L. K. Advani, found after his comments on Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Pakistan.

Mr Advani's humiliation came from the guardians of Hindutva, although of different shades. While the more hardline elements of the Sangh Parivar, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, saw no reason to rein in its fury over what it interpreted as a sell-out of the Hindutva cause on `enemy' soil by Mr Advani, and called him all sorts of names, the RSS was, characteristically, more dignified.

The VHP carried its battle to the public domain, with its General-Secretary, Praveen Togadia, suggesting that the BJP President "change his name from Lal Krishna Advani to Lal Mohammed Advani", and demanding to know from the BJP leader that if he thought Jinnah was so secular, "why did he run away" from Pakistan after the Partition; he should have stayed put in that "secular country".

But the RSS, using restrained language, stood its ground, saying Jinnah could not be described as secular by any stretch of the imagination and to do so would be to move away from the Sangh's ideological ground. Politely, but firmly, the RSS leadership let the world know that however tall a leader of the BJP Mr Advani might be, the RSS would not look the other way and let him get away with not one, but two controversial statements in Pakistan that conflicted with its ideological postures. The second statement pertained to Mr Advani's reiteration that December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished, was the saddest day of his life.

The RSS stepped up pressure on the saffron party to make it clear in its resolution, even while rejecting Mr Advani's resignation as the BJP chief, that the party did not consider Jinnah secular by any stretch of the imagination and held him responsible for the Partition of the country along religious lines. So rigid was it on its "ideological" stance that it did not provide any window of opportunity to the BJP leaders, including their protégés who owe their very political existence to Mr Advani, to say a word in support of their mentor.

It was left to Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a person who had been repeatedly snubbed by the Sangh Parivar, including the RSS, to speak out in defence of Mr Advani by calling Jinnah both "nationalist" and "secular". Obviously, Mr Vajpayee must have been smarting under the RSS chief, Mr K. S. Sudarshan's recent statement that the old leaders should bid goodbye to the BJP and hand over its reins to second-generation icons.

In disbelief, Mr Advani, as well as the rest of the country, watched senior BJP leaders ducking questions from the media when it came to saying a word in support of the party president. To add insult to injury, leaders like Mr Yashwant Sinha criticised Mr Advani's comments and even wondered how he could now remain an "effective Leader of the Opposition" in the Lok Sabha.

Ultimately, the BJP did rally round its Loh Purush, but only after chipping away at his iron cast quite a bit. The Advani who emerged after the four-day crisis, accepting a compromise resolution that hailed his Pakistan visit and yet firmly distanced itself from his comment on Jinnah, was a despondent and stunted leader.

But if his image was diminished, that of the party suffered much more because it had abjectly surrendered to the RSS and could not even get a fig leaf of an apology from the VHP leaders for their intemperate outbursts against their party chief.

Hardly had the crisis in the BJP been resolved, at least for the time being, and Mr Advani withdrawn his resignation, than the RSS dropped another bombshell. To tell the whole world what the Sangh ideologue thought of its political arm, the RSS chief told Sangh workers in Sikar that politics was no better than a prostitute. "We have kept ourselves away from politics as salvation cannot be attained through it. Politics keeps changing every minute. Like a prostitute who keeps changing her form, politics also keeps changing its appearance. There is no permanent element in politics," he said.

Who knows, if you ask sex workers, they might feel insulted to hear their profession being compared to one that has famously been described as the last resort of scoundrels. And yet politics is used, even manipulated, by "cultural" organisations like the RSS when it comes to winning elections and straddling the corridors of power to push its ideology.

Anyway, this column is not about prostitution and politics. It is about the kind of hatred that fills our hearts. We carry the baggage of the Partition within us, a raw wound that we keep worrying so that it never heals. For if it does heal, how would our premier organisations — political and cultural — continue to derive mileage by perpetrating hatred through highlighting the religious differences of the two communities?

Meanwhile, let us take a look at the reaction in Pakistan on the aftermath of Mr Advani's visit. The furore in the Parivar has given Pakistani leaders a chance to strike a posture of incredulousness and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. Pakistani politicians have seized this opportunity to tell their gullible constituents: "Look at the belligerence in India; they cannot even accept our most revered leader being called secular, and that too more than half a century after his death."

The Pakistan daily Friday Times reported that addressing a seminar titled `The Kashmir dispute in the context of Pakistan-India dialogue', Pakistani Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said the fact that Mr Advani had to resign from the BJP's presidency just proved the "bigotry and prejudice" that existed among Hindu hardliners in India.

Claiming that "no such furore" would have resulted in Pakistan if Nehru or Gandhi had been praised, he significantly blamed "both Hindu fundamentalists and the Congress secularists" and said they were "equally responsible for demonstrating this prejudice. In Pakistan, people don't erupt when Gandhi and Nehru are praised," he concluded sanctimoniously.

While hardly anyone in India is impressed by such sermons — we have often watched the bashing of Pakistan leaders, particularly Gen Pervez Musharraf, for the "sell-out" on Kashmir — the bitter fact is that the import of such words can hardly be disputed.

What takes the entire drama to a new and absurd high, however, is a PTI report quoting BJP insiders on what eventually helped dissipate the crisis in the BJP. Apparently, this was no great statesmanship or fire-fighting by the BJP stalwarts but, of all things, vaastu shastra. Some bright spark discovered that all "controversial meetings" of the party had a particular seating arrangement. So the "conflicting positions" were changed, in consultation with a vaastu specialist and, voila, all was well!

But Mr Advani's problems are hardly over. The VHP continues to attack him; while some of its leaders demand his resignation from the Gandhinagar constituency, others want him to take political sanyas. Not in his wildest dreams would he have imagined the heavy price he would have to pay for reminding Pakistan about Jinnah's vision for a "secular" country. "Secular" is hardly a word that BJP leaders such as Mr Advani like; they are more comfortable with `pseudo-secular'. He now has reason enough to drop it from his lexicon altogether.

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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