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Journalism of Courage
The Mumbai convention was meant to give the BJP a respite from its year and a half of disasters. The party8217;s 25th anniversary celebrations were meant to signal a break and offer a hopeful glimpse of a more harmonious future. Instead, this week the party has been forced to stare long and hard at the faultlines in BJP-RSS relations that the past few months have put in ever sharper relief.
It should have been a moment for self-satisfaction. After all, after a 25-year journey which catapulted the party to power for six years, the baton is being passed on to the next generation of leaders. Instead, the party could not have been caught in a more unenviable situation 8212; a sleaze video involving its general secretary, who is a Sangh pracharak loaned by the RSS, floating as the RSS was reading out sermons to the party on morality and ideology; the camera catching six of its MPs taking money for asking parliamentary questions; expulsion of Uma Bharati, one of its more charismatic mass leaders. All this in a matter of just two months.
Some of the problems that beset the BJP today stem from the dilution in the authority wielded by the party8217;s leadership. The defining moment came in April 2005, when the Sangh chief, K. Sudarshan, snubbed both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, the party8217;s two most senior leaders. After all, they have half a century of public life and innumerable elections behind them, and also happen to be senior to the RSS chief. When Sudarshan asked them to make way for younger leaders, that too publicly, he undermined their authority and unleashed forces which the party has yet to get a measure of. Leaders cannot be created overnight.
Vajpayee has had a love-hate relationship with the Sangh for many years but Advani8217;s alienation from the Sangh leadership is a more recent phenomenon. His elevation as party president last year was effected without the Sangh8217;s concurrence and was seen to be something of a coup. His remarks on Jinnah during a summer visit to Pakistan came as the last straw for the Sangh.
It was then that new divisions emerged in the BJP. Having cocked something of a snook at the Sangh leadership, Advani may have thought the party would stand by him just as it had when he became president in 2004 or when Sudarshan asked him to quit. But he chose the wrong issue and the wrong place, miscalculating the groundwork it takes to reform a mindset. Advani8217;s own thinking has metamorphosed in recent years, and he has made statements showing that he is seeking a wider support base for the BJP even as he has tried to cultivate a 8220;Vajpayee image8221; for himself. In the past Advani on many occasions built bridges between Vajpayee and the Sangh. He also enjoyed considerable rapport to influence the Sangh8217;s thinking on issues as critical as the extent of the RSS8217;s say in the party8217;s line. It is significant that no one has been able to occupy that sort of space in BJP-RSS relations. The BJP8217;s gen-next leaders would like autonomy but are wary of antagonising the RSS in any way.
The Uma Bharati affair, which is going to cost the party dear, could have been handled differently. There was a time when both Advani and Vajpayee were prepared to send Uma back to Bhopal as chief minister. Uma played her cards badly, but Advani, beleaguered as he found himself to be after the Pakistan visit, was by now much more dependent on BJP8217;s gen-next leaders who were determined to see her out. Neither Vajpayee nor he spoke much in the meetings. The situation became irretrievable after Uma upped the ante with her taunts.
The disarray in the party is not going to end with the exit of Advani. Rajnath Singh will be more pliable for the Sangh than Advani has been during the last year, though at Mumbai Advani also tried to buy peace with the RSS to remain leader of the opposition 8212; though he did make it a point to describe his Pakistan visit as a high point of the year gone by. Rajnath will also have to take along the Vajpayee-Advani duo and Murli Manohar Joshi who with his brahmin credentials is a factor in Uttar Pradesh and BJP8217;s gen next 8212; the three factors in his selection. This will not be easy.
The Sangh8217;s determination to play an assertive role in the BJP8217;s affairs to return it to its roots will have a fallout on the BJP8217;s relations with its allies. General elections may be far away but the party will have to align with the AGP in Assam and with Mamata Banerjee8217;s Trinamool Congress in West Bengal 8212; two of the five state elections that are due this year 8212; to be anything of a player.
Besides, the second generation leaders will not allow Rajnath Singh to settle down. If he starts to consolidate his position, he will be the natural contender for the party8217;s presidency when elections take place for a three-year term in 2007. The BJP president is the natural prime ministerial candidate if its coalition is in a position to form a government. None of the second rung leaders will easily allow Rajnath to be assured of presidency, post-2007.
The Sanjay Joshi episode is representative of the kind of salvos that may be fired in the coming months in the no-holds-barred battle within the BJP.
Out of power but co-opted by its perks, driven by the Sangh, jolted by personality conflicts, unclear about the ideological line it should pursue, and without the old and experienced leadership guiding its affairs 8212; that is the BJP8217;s dilemma today.
Mumbai reflected it.
