The Advani roller-coaster dips, dives, loops around and stops at no station.Those of his detractors who thought he would fade away, having retained party presidentship on dishonourable terms, rubbed their eyes with his belief at the Bhagavad Gita launch where, seeing himself as latter day Arjuna, he decided not to retreat from battle. RSS chief Sudarshan, by comparing politicians to prostitutes, had more or less signaled to the VHP to continue their target practice on Advani and the VHP did exactly that at their Hardwar Kendriya Margdarshak Mandal meeting.Now comes the Advani counter punch: I stick by what I said. From the din emerges Venkaiah Naidu: BJP will take its own decisions. The basic conflict is between the ideological purity preached by the RSS-VHP, and the BJP’s desire to lead the NDA to power, if and when the opportunity presents itself. Except for Narendra Modi and his cohorts, nobody believes that a hard line internally and externally is the recipe for power.Why then did the BJP’s Generation Next watch with glee the spectacle of Advani eating crow? Well, Generation Next joins ranks if someone like Murli Manohar Joshi is projected as the alternative to Advani. But when it comes to selecting one among them for the top job, there is danger of knives being plunged into anyone who resembles a front-runner.In this the BJP appears to be no different from the Congress during P.V. Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesari phases. The entire CWC grumbled privately but each CWC member had a knife ready for his neighbour reclining against the sausage cushions, should the neighbour show signs of ambition. The image does not apply to Sonia Gandhi’s court because she, by that act of renunciation, has placed herself so many notches above the adoring circle.When Advani thought he could pull off what Atal Bihari Vajpayee did by visiting Minar-e-Pakistan, he forgot a few things. First, that Vajpayee visited Pakistan as prime minister. Power alters the terms of endearment. The fact that his visit occasioned large scale rioting in Lahore organised by Islamic groups, that the Minar “desecrated” by Vajpayee’s “unholy” touch was washed to be “purified” again, was all played down by the media.The irony is that Advani received popular warmth that Vajpayee did not. This has been obscured by the controversy around the visit. Much of the hullabaloo surrounding the visit is due to another mistake Advani made. Even though the 20 odd-strong media team was handpicked by him, he forgot the first trick in media management. He forgot to brief the journalists accompanying him on the “higher purpose” of the visit. The sort of debate Advani sought to initiate on as risky a subject as Jinnah is in normal practice given a trial run at academic seminars. Pranab Mukerjee had a point when he said — “have such discussions in academic circles; don’t create confusion among the public” who do not know the finer points.Even so if Advani had decided to write what he wrote at the Jinnah mausoleum and deliver the sort of lecture he did at the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, the accompanying media should have been briefed on his actual intention: that he wished to hold up a mirror to his audience, reminding them of Jinnah’s vision for Pakistan which has been abandoned by his countrymen. Lurking somewhere behind those who attacked Advani are hazy silhouettes of the Foreign Policy team which had navigated policy towards Pakistan during six years of Vajpayee. Remember how Yashwant Sinha fired the first salvo!This lot is for the peace process but wishes to accumulate loads of dry ammunition to attack the UPA on its methods of dealing with the Hurriyat, for instance. When Hurriyat leaders were given local documents for travel within the two Kashmirs, where was the need to issue passports at the last minute? They ask,”What is the point of issuing passports for travel to Islamabad when Islamabad has given the Hurriyat team no visas?” The Foreign Policy group’s agenda on the peace process would have become difficult to pursue if the BJP president is allowed to pour so much honey on the Indo-Pak track.The Foreign Policy gang would like a slight stiffening of the diplomatic stance with Pakistan. The RSS-VHP finds hostility with Pakistan essential for its communal politics. The intentions of the two are different. But in an atmosphere where soundbites can put a spin on a statement the principals never intended, there is room for considerable confusion. Navigating the party through this tricky turf will, over a period of time, expose Advani as a hardliner or a reformed realist.
