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Journalism of Courage
With a towering statue of Swami Vivekananda and the confluence of oceans in the backdrop, BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani began his Bharat Uday Yatra from the southern tip of India. His speech began with ‘‘brothers and sisters’’ like Vivekananda’s Chicago address but swiftly moved on to incorporate Tamil icons, interspersed with swipes at Sonia Gandhi.
The beginning of the yatra showcased BJP’s own Muslim leaders, two Christian community leaders from Kerala, Rev. Thomas David and Thomas Abraham and Zain-ul-Abedin, Dewan of Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer. The leader who is eager to shed the hawk image he acquired with his Rath yatra over a decade ago invoked saint-poet Thiruvalluvar and Subramanya Bharathi, sugarcoated all references to AIADMK and J. Jayalalithaa, paid tributes to C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran and remembered K.Kamaraj.
As BJP and AIADMK flags and cut-outs of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani himself struggled to hold themselves against winds from the seas, Advani, in a spirited speech, equated his yatra with the march to a Great-Power status. He called upon people to ‘‘walk’’ along with him ‘‘on this journey to achieve this mission.’’ A highly-motivated crowd of a couple of thousand of party workers, drawn from all over Tamil Nadu, cheered, whistled and waved at the slightest opportunity. Advani spoke in English, rendered in Tamil by state party general secretary A.Raja, but the most popular slogan with the audience, thanks to RSS work, was ‘‘Bharat mata ki jai.’’ There was hardly a man who did not wear a saffron scarf or a saffron-green cap over his head. The caps had the Sangh Parivar war cry—Jai Shri Ram—inscribed over the top.
BJP president M. Venkaiah Nidu, notwithstanding the controversy sparked off by his dual-eadership-remark (Lauh Purush-Vikas Purush) earlier, brought Advani back in to his new chant. Before flagging off the yatra, he said, ‘‘We have Atal, agenda, alliance and Advani—it is advantage BJP.’’
His admirers and supporters, opponents and the politically non-committed— all stepped out of their homes and shops and lined up on either sides of the road up to the Kerala capital to see him. They turned up in large numbers to hear him wherever he addressed them from atop his bus. He left roads choked with people behind at his stops en route.
Some of those who came to hear him, cheered him, fewer still waved at him, only the committed party supporters shouted slogans, but most watched him on curiously. Even Muslims, men and women alike, came to the roads to have a look at Advani.
On the way, Advani mounted a strong attack on Congress president Sonia Gandhi while speaking at Nagercoil. Praising Vajpayee’s leadership, he said, the prospective candidate of the opposition for the prime ministership ‘‘does not understand India, does not belong to India.’’ He went on to say that ‘‘she is even shy to declare herself as a candidate.’’
Naushad who runs a stationery shop at Balaramapuram, close to Thiruvananthapuram, said: ‘‘The response is good. I vote the Congress at the Centre, and CPI(M) at the state. But Vajpayee is a good man.’’ About BJP prospects, he says there is a ‘‘chance in Thiruvanathapuram (where Union Minister O Rajagopal is the party candidate).’’
A Christian couple, Sanil Kumar, an English tutor, and Smitha Rani, a nurse, stood at a distance at Neyyattinikara, wanted Vjpayee to continue. ‘‘He is providing good government,’’ they said. Advani’s yatra, they said, ‘‘would improve BJP prospects in Thiruvananthapuram.’’
