BJP after Advani’s exit

UNDER fire from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and party hawks after he praised Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah during his Pakistan trip, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L.K. Advani has been forced to quit the top party post. Advani’s unceremonious exit as the party’s helmsman and former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s decision to bow out of electoral politics are significant developments with far reaching implications for the future of the BJP and India’s domestic politics which may also cast their shadow on the India-Pakistan peace process.

Ironically, the men who pulled the rug from under the feet of Hindutva’s tallest leader, who shaped the party’s vision and laid the ground for its electoral success, were none but his own in the parivar family, forcing him to announce his exit as president of the BJP.

Once the darling of the RSS, Advani was unhappy with his former ideological mentors as he declared: “It is time for the RSS to keep away from meddling into the BJP’s day-to-day affairs.” Matters came to a head when Advani angered party colleagues and the BJP’s ideological mentors by describing Pakistan’s founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah as “a great man” during a visit here last year.

It was a sad end to the 60-year political career of one of India’s principal politicians who loomed large over the country’s political horizon for over a decade. Initially, Advani tried to turn India into a rightwing Hindu country by preaching “cultural nationalism”, a euphemism for Hindu civilizational supremacy. But after the BJP’s May 2004 electoral loss and deprivation of power at the centre, Advani decided to reorient the party as he had reached the conclusion that it was time to part with the party’s parochial Hindutva image because with the Hindu-only approach, the BJP could never occupy the dominant position in Indian politics.

One of the major reasons for the BJP’s electoral failure in the last general election was the complete alienation of the Indian Muslims from the party after the Gujarat tragedy. The visit to Pakistan and the Jinnah tribute were part of the strategy to win over the Muslim vote in India. This was an extravagant leap for a man who had left the Janata party in 1979 when asked to sever links with the RSS; who had gone on the Ram rath yatra prior to playing an important role in the demolition of the Babri mosque; and who had taken pride in recreating and reselling Hindutva.

But credit must be given to Advani that despite all the hue and cry over his Jinnah tribute, he has stuck to his praise for the creator of Pakistan. After quitting as party’s president, Advani told reporters at a press conference that he stuck to his remarks about Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah made during his visit to Pakistan, saying if what he had said was “followed in letter and spirit”, it would help normalize India’s relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It is significant that the BJP has chosen a low-key team player to succeed the hawkish Advani as the party’s new helmsman. The new party chief, Mr Rajnath Singh, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is perceived within the party as being on good terms with the RSS.

Mr Singh has taken charge at a time when the BJP is faced with an unprecedented crisis. The party’s biggest problem is the absence of a guiding hand after Vajpayee’s announcement that he would no longer be available for electoral politics and after Advani’s exit as party chief. The BJP is now without any towering personality to guide it in difficult times. It seems as if a free-for-all prevails in the party, and indiscipline and insubordination have become all too common. The party appears to be without direction and ideologically and ethically compromised. Six BJP MPs have been recently expelled from parliament in the cash-for-questions scandal.

The most damaging setback to the BJP is that Vajpayee, the party’s most successful vote-catcher and its most acceptable face, will no longer be available as a prime ministerial candidate. It helped that Mr Vajpayee belonged to the Hindi heartland and being a Brahmin was an asset in the cast-ridden Indian society. He was a wonderful speaker who could use his silver tongue to good use in parliament as well as during public meetings. He had a certain grace and dignity that most of his party colleagues lacked. Above all, Vajpayee was the only BJP leader who had acquired an all-India persona. His voluntary exit from the political scene is an irreparable loss for the party.

Since its May 2004 election loss, the BJP has become polarized between the moderates wanting the party to move to the centre, and the hardliners who feel a return to the core values of hardline Hindutva will win more votes for them. After the departure of Vajpayee and Advani, it will be easier for the RSS to influence the BJP’s policies. The hardliners are now expected to have the upper hand in formulating the party’s vision.

The first indication of the increasing influence of the hardliners was provided recently by the BJP in its criticism of the Manmohan Singh government’s foreign policy. The BJP accused the Singh government of going soft on Pakistan’s alleged support for “cross-border terrorism in Kashmir”. The national executive of the party told the prime minister that Jammu and Kashmir was a symbol of India’s nationhood and its status was not negotiable in peace parleys with Pakistan.

The BJP has also criticized the government for saying that the peace process with Pakistan was “irreversible” and that “acts of terrorism” would not make India abandon this path. It said that what the Indian government had abandoned was the issue of “cross-border terrorism”, an issue that is of critical importance to India’s security.

Stressing that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India, the BJP said it would “never allow any compromise with this fundamental tenet of India’s nationhood. Improving ties with Pakistan and strengthening people-to-people relations between the two countries is one thing; bartering away Kashmir or even agreeing to discuss the state’s future status is altogether another matter.”

The BJP’s strong criticism of Manmohan Singh’s Pakistan and Kashmir policy indicates that the bipartisan understanding on the peace process between the ruling Congress party and the main opposition BJP has come to an end. Friendship with Pakistan is anathema to the RSS. Only Vajpayee, with his formidable pan-Indian status and political dexterity, could get away with his peace initiatives. There is no one else in the BJP now who could follow in his footsteps.

The danger is that the Manmohan Singh government may now come under increasing pressure from the RSS-controlled BJP over the ongoing peace process with Pakistan. It will be hardly possible for a non-Hindu prime minister (Manmohan Singh) and Congress president (Sonia Gandhi) to make any concessions to Pakistan on Kashmir, even if they want to. The disappearance of Vajpayee and Advani from the political stage may prove an inauspicious development for the success of the peace process.

The real grievance of the RSS is that the BJP, while in power at the centre, hardly paid any attention to Hindutva ideals. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that the BJP formed to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha adopted a common minimum programme which excluded three of the BJP’s principal demands: building a temple at the site where the Babri Masjid stood before its demolition; insistence on scrapping Article 370 that gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir; and the adoption of a common civil code for the whole of India. There is a strong possibility that under pressure from the RSS, the BJP may revert to its three demands. In view of the Uttar Pradesh elections next year, the temple issue is likely to be revived first as a vote-catcher. This will inevitably lead to communal tension.

The post-Advani BJP will be lacking in cohesive thought and action. The new party chief is not a leader who is accepted or respected widely. Mr Rajnath Singh is saddled with a Hindi-Hindu image dear to the RSS but unlikely to make an impact on the people in most of India, especially outside the Hindi belt. After the departure of Vajpayee and Advani, the BJP has been left without any formidable pan-Indian political leader. This means the leadership debate in the BJP is far from over. The real problem for the party will be to present a prime ministerial candidate who is widely known and respected.

The writer is a former ambassador

Let’s pretend

LET’S say you’re rich. Not just rich, but filthy rich. Then let’s pretend what will it cost you.

You started with nothing, but then made your money by investing other people’s money for them.

How did you get these clients? You promised them you would double their money. People who have money always like to make more.

The market is at its height, and you invest their money in stocks that have to do with the computer business.

Word is out that you can make a killing for them, and the rich folks come to your door begging you to take them on.

Before you know it, you’re investing six hundred million dollars for people all over the country.

It makes you feel good and it makes them feel good.

You buy yourself homes in Florida and Paris and a duplex penthouse on Park Avenue. You own a yacht, and you have paintings by Chagall, Picasso, Modigliani, Renoir and Jackson Pollock on the walls.

A private plane is always at your disposal.

There’s only one thing wrong. You get no respect. You’re a nobody, and you want to be a somebody.

A friend who is a somebody says, “You have to become a philanthropist. The only way to get into the newspapers is to pledge money to America’s cultural and educational institutions. I’ll take you under my wing.”

You thank him gratefully and tell him, “When I become somebody, I will never forget you.”

He says, “To start with, pledge fifty million dollars to the Museum of Modern Art and another fifty big ones to Harvard. Do you like opera?”

You answer, “I love opera.”

“Then announce you are going to give seventy million to the Met.

“Don’t stop there,” your friend tells you. “MIT can always use money. Give to the ballet, and also to a fund to save Venice. Once the word is out that you are an easy mark, everyone in the arts will come to you.”

Now remember, you are very, very rich, and your investments are doing very, very well.

You start to notice a difference in the way people treat you. Headwaiters always have a table for you. You get into all the gossip columns, and your picture appears in the newspaper every time you go to a party.

You know you are a somebody when they ask you to put your hands in cement on the sidewalk in front of Lincoln Centre.

All your friends are somebodies. You no longer have to circulate with nobodies.

So you are a very rich and contented person. Life is good, and you have fulfilled the American dream and more.

Then all hell breaks loose. The stock market where you invested everybody else’s money goes down the drain.

Once you made millions — now you lose millions. The only problem is that you, as the Good Samaritan, have pledged money to all these institutions, and they would love to collect it before you go bankrupt.

Now here comes the bad news. Instead of investing all your clients’ money in the market, you used it to keep up your lifestyle.

One lady discovers her money was not invested in the market as you promised. She calls you a crook.

The attorney general of New York State has a thing about your stealing other people’s money. He announces he is going to make an example of you.

If we follow this scenario to its end, you go to jail and still owe Harvard fifty million dollars. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Conversation with Manmohan Singh

PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh has been always effusive and warm whenever I have discussed India-Pakistan relations with him. This time I found him a bit distressed and disappointed. He is not as optimistic as before because he says he does not know what is in the mind of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf.

The prime minister says he was impressed by President Musharraf at their meeting in New York and that he may go to Pakistan to meet him. “After all, I have an invitation for a visit,” he adds. But he regrets that despite President Musharraf’s promise, cross-border terrorism has not stopped and the machinery to sustain it has not yet been dismantled.

Maybe, General Musharraf is under pressure from within his own country, the prime minister feels. He is full of praise for President Musharraf for trying to modernize his country. He may well turn out to be another Kamal Ataturk. “I wish him well,” says the prime minister. “But he must appreciate my difficulties. I have told him that I could not change the borders, nor divide the state on the basis of religion. I have no such mandate from the nation.”

The bomb blasts in Delhi a few months ago are uppermost in the prime minister’s mind. He says that relations between India and Pakistan were improving at a good pace. People were shedding their mistrust. “Then the bomb blasts at Delhi take place,” says the prime minister. “We reacted to the situation calmly and responsibly.” But where do we go from here? Pakistan has to make sure that there is no cross-border terrorism. America too has “assured us on this point.”

The meeting with the prime minister was a day before the Bangalore shootout. I told him that people-to-people contact on a large scale, in thousands, along with free trade between the two countries would provide the sinews of peace and normalize the situation. In reply, the prime minister said that he was already being attacked for opening up points along the LoC. Increasing incidents of terrorism in India were being linked with his liberal policy. As for trade, he said, he had proposed “several business packages” but Pakistan had turned them down on the ground that there had to be a settlement on Kashmir before the resumption of trade.

The main purpose of my seeking an appointment with the prime minister was to know from him what he considered the most distinctive feature of his one-and-a-half-year rule. Without any hesitation he said: the economy. India’s annual growth rate was more than eight per cent and that prospects of doing still better were good. By the time his government finished its tenure, he said, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Act would have covered the entire country. More and more opportunities would be available in different fields and different areas, particularly in the countryside. He was confident about India’s bright future and there was a glow in his eyes when he said that.

Foreign policy was doing well, he said. In the last one and a half years of his government’s tenure, America, Great Britain, Russia and Europe, all were “very friendly” with India. With China, the prime minister said, discussions were going on over the border and Beijing had itself taken up “substantive points” of the problem.

Still L.K. Advani has said that Manmohan Singh was a nikamma (inept) prime minister. The remark still rankled the prime minister, although he was laughing when he repeated the words. He did not want to comment on the Bharatiya Janata Party the disarray in which the party was. His elegance did not allow him to do that. But he did not think much of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government’s record. “We are determined to end the role of money in elections,” the prime minister said. He mentioned the effort his government was making in that direction by trying to allocate funds for financing the poll campaign of political parties.

“The communists think that you are the World Bank man,” I said.

“Where does this remark fit in when everything we are doing is according to the common minimum programme to which we agreed before the formation of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)?” countered the prime minister. He was averse to join issue with the communists but wanted to know where the government had strayed off course. He said none could deny that America was the most powerful country in the world and that its economy was the strongest. Probably, lest he should be misunderstood, the prime minister said: “I am not under US pressure of any type.”

When I touched upon Sri Lanka, I got the impression that India did not want to “get involved.” The prime minister recalled what India had gone through in the past. He mentioned the Indian Peace Keeping Force which was made to quit. This conversation, incidentally, took place a day before the arrival of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajpakse. My impression has turned out to be correct because India has offered all support to the peace process without becoming part of it. All assistance would be available from outside and a tab would be kept on the progress made about the parleys between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE.

The general belief in Colombo, where I was after Rajpakse’s visit to India, was that New Delhi wanted to wait until after the elections in Tamil Nadu. (The ruling United Progressive Alliance has 40 MPs from Tamil Nadu and most of them have a bit of sympathy for the Lankan Tamils.) The prime minister was not unduly worried over Bangladesh. He said he held a long talk with Prime Minister Khaleda Zia during his visit to Dhaka. He had invited her to visit India and hoped she would come soon.

What worried him about India was the “increasing provincial and parochial outlook.” Political parties did not see things “in totality”. They tended to perceive a situation from their own point of view. “Certain issues have to be kept above politics because they relate to the country’s welfare, its growth and progress,” the prime minister said. He felt exasperated that parties did not rise above their “petty self.”

When Vajpayee was the Prime Minister, I heard him making the same point: certain things had to be kept above politics because they concerned the country’s interests. He, too, talked about consensus. Why does the same political party begin to view things differently when it is out of power, I wonder? Why can’t the country’s interests be kept above that of the parties?

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.