I, Advani

For one, disgruntled elements in the BJP would openly attack the party chief and a hundred Madan Lal Khuranas would bloom. The RSS would formally withdraw its numerous pracharaks and let the party flounder 8212; minus cadre, bereft of the comforting embrace of family.

It was a prospect that filled most BJP members with dread. Even Advani acolytes could not imagine life outside the Parivar. And so Advani was left with little choice. He had to go.

BUT Advani had ideas of his own. Yes, he would step down, but at a moment of his choosing 8212; and what better date than the culmination of the BJP8217;s silver jubilee celebrations in December? And no, he would not go gently into the night.

In an unprecedented broadside against the RSS, Advani told BJP delegates in Chennai, 8216;8216;Lately an impression has gained ground that no political or organisational decision can be taken without the consent of RSS functionaries. This perception, we hold, will do no good either to the Party or to the RSS 8230; Both the RSS and the BJP must consciously exert to dispel this impression.8217;8217;

A week has gone by. No one in the BJP or RSS has sought to dispel that impression. Yet beneath the official silence, there is confusion and anxiety and turmoil, because everyone knows the Sangh Parivar cannot go back to being the happy Hindu undivided family.

Advani may be on his way out, but his parting shot has thrown up two related questions 8212; what exactly is the nature of the BJP-RSS relationship today and what has caused this strain?

There are no clear answers. If some see it in terms of an ego clash between K.S. Sudarshan and Advani, others insist it is the inevitable stress that comes from changing dynamics in a 8216;8216;familial8217;8217; relationship. If one section views it as an ideological clash, another regards it as an organisational battle that uses ideology as fig leaf.

The truth is all four aspects 8212; personal, familial, idelogical and organisational 8212; have played a role in disturbing the multi-layered RSS-BJP relationship.

TAKE the personal first. It is no secret that Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee have never quite accepted Sudarshan8217;s supremacy, despite his status as head of the Parivar to which they belong. Not only is Sudarshan younger than the BJP8217;s Big Two, he has not enjoyed the 8216;8216;respect and awe8217;8217; commanded by an RSS sarsanghchalak in the past.

Besides, Sudarshan assumed the top post when the BJP was in power. A prime minister and deputy prime minister did not feel the need to pay obesiance to him. Sudarshan8217;s outbursts against Vajpayee8217;s PMO didn8217;t help. And when the BJP lost power, it was Sudarshan8217;s turn to hit back.

8216;8216;Jinnah to sirf ek bahana tha Jinnah was only an excuse8217;8217; is a common refrain in the Advani camp. Sudarshan, they point out, had called for Advani8217;s exit in a television interview long before the BJP chief8217;s Pakistan visit. 8216;8216;Sudarshanji is a great intellectual but he has a fragile ego and talks too much,8217;8217; a senior BJP national executive member said.

And Advani is not willing to take orders from Sudarshan. The current RSS chief, he feels, is no Guru Golwalkar, and even Golwalkar treated leaders of the then fledgling Jana Sangh with great respect.

But the personal is embedded in the familial, for the Advani-Sudarshan clash is part of bigger family equations. Advani made this explicit in Chennai, when he described the BJP-RSS relationship as 8216;8216;symbiotic8217;8217; 8212; mutually beneficial and between equals. This was a departure from the traditional 8216;8216;umblical8217;8217;.

BJP members defend Advani8217;s new formulation. Senior leader J.P. Mathur says, 8216;8216;In every family, an umblical tie eventually becomes symbiotic. When a child grows up, his mother has to treat him differently. The BJP has matured and so its relationship with the RSS too has to change.8217;8217;

The RSS does not think so. For it, the BJP is just one of many affilitates. Referring to Advani8217;s remark that the BJP is accountable to the people, an RSS insider acidly says, 8216;8216;We are all accountable to the people in our own sphere. The VHP is accountable to its constituency of sadhus and sants, the BMS is accountable to the workers it represents. What is so special about the BJP?8217;8217;

The crux of the problem, perhaps, is that the Sangh Parivar operates less like a family and more like a solar system. The RSS regards itself as the sun from which various satellites draw light. Children grow up and go their independent ways; satellites can never leave their orbit.

BUT Advani sought to defy planetary laws by doing just that with his comments on Jinnah. This brings us to the third 8212; ideological 8212; aspect of the story. The Advani-Sudarshan clash, many feel, would have simmered without resolution if it had not been for the BJP chief8217;s formulations in Pakistan.

For the RSS, already convinced the BJP had lost power because it strayed from ideological moorings, Jinnah was the last straw. Sudarshan may have been isolated when he spoke out in public against the BJP leadership, but the entire Sangh Parivar including large sections of the BJP was united on this one.

And Advani was equally unrelenting. Not once did he retract his comments on Jinnah8217;s 8216;8216;secular8217;8217; vision. In fact, he did the exact opposite. He even published a booklet containing Jinnah8217;s 1947 speech, circulated first to BJP MPs in Delhi and then, a week ago, in Chennai.

Advani has told many a visitor that his greatest regret is his party 8216;8216;lost a great opportunity8217;8217; by rejecting his Jinnah thesis. Overwhelmed by his reception in Pakistan, he remains convinced that the BJP should have seized the chance to change its 8216;8216;anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan8217;8217; image.

But efforts to portray the Advani-RSS clash as one between 8216;8216;hard8217;8217; and 8216;8216;soft8217;8217; Hindutva have few takers. Advani, his own colleagues point out, may have begun to see Jinnah and Pakistan through rose-coloured glasses, but his views on Ayodhya and Gujarat remain deep saffron.

BUT more than ideological fuzziness, Advani8217;s real failure lies in the realm of organisation. His critics say he has placed his own vision above the party. His comments on Jinnah in Karachi and on the RSS in Chennai were made entirely suo motu 8212; he discussed them with no one, made no effort to take the party along.

Advani, sources say, had prepared his concluding remarks a fortnight before Chennai. It was only on Saturday, September 17, that a few colleagues got wind of it. M. Venkaiah Naidu, Sanjay Joshi and Jaswant Singh tried to dissuade him from speaking out against the RSS but Advani was adamant. If Advani seems isolated today, he has only himself to blame, party colleagues argue.

ADVANI8217;S tendency to go solo has only deepened the fourth 8212; organisational 8212; fissure. According to RSS insiders, the problem began when the BJP decided to do away with the post of 8216;8216;organisation secretary8217;8217; 8212; usually held by an RSS pracharak 8212; in the 1990s.

8216;8216;The organisation secretary facilitated inner party discussions and was a fulcrum of the organisation. The RSS did not need to interfere in the day-to-day working of the Jana Sangh or BJP because everything was handled by him,8217;8217; a Parivar veteran remembers.

Organisation strongmen such as Sunder Singh Bhandari and Khushabhau Thakre held the post, and they enjoyed immense behind-the-scenes clout.

But once the BJP came to power, and the party became 8216;8216;a few leaders-centric8217;8217; instead of 8216;8216;organisation-centric8217;8217;, the rot began 8212; or so the RSS feels. Sycophancy and selfishness replaced the earlier idealism and fealty to 8216;8216;core values8217;8217; 8212; leading to the kind of 8216;8216;ideological deviations8217;8217; indulged in by Advani.

Advani8217;s exit in December might end the open battle, but the larger problems will take a long time to solve 8212; if they can be solved at all. Mathur 8212; older than both Vajpayee and Advani 8212; is the only one to speak on record: 8216;8216;We are going through a storm. After every storm, there is some destruction but, over a period of time, things settle down.8217;8217;

Younger BJP members, helplessly watching their leaders self-destruct, are wondering just how long Mathur8217;s 8216;8216;period of time8217;8217; will last. A year? A decade? The rest of Kalyug?