Missing in action

The Centre, it seems, will hold but the prime minister has never looked weaker. The NDA government may have survived the crises over Ayodhya...

The Centre, it seems, will hold but the prime minister has never looked weaker. The NDA government may have survived the crises over Ayodhya, Poto and Gujarat, but Atal Bihari Vajpayee is showing the strain.

The statesman who once seemed to speak with a moral authority that rose above the adverse situation, and irresistibly commandeered the attention of his audience, is now the tired leader who resorts to emotional outpourings under pressure.

Inmates of the relief camps in Ahmedabad were visited on Thursday by an anguished prime minister who sounded almost as helpless as they. 8216;8216;I have come here with a broken heart to share your tragedy 8230;8217;8217; he said, an expressionless Narendra Modi by his side, to Muslim refugees carrying placards that proclaimed 8216;We are also citizens of India8217; and demanded that he 8216;Remove Modi8217;.

8216;8216;With what face will I go abroad,8217;8217; he asked, 8216;8216;after all that has happened here?8217;8217; They were emotional words, and undoubtedly heartfelt. But more than a month after the bloodletting began in Gujarat, after thousands of Muslims have been rendered refugees in their own land, and with no evidence or hope so far of the culprits being brought to book, they sounded deafeningly empty.

The emasculation of Atal Bihari Vajpayee hasn8217;t exactly been a secret. There have been many markers and many reminders, from friends and foes, from friends more than foes. It was Farooq Abdullah who unleashed an angry tirade and got away with the bluster most recently. Abdullah lambasted the NDA government for not having the 8216;8216;courage8217;8217; to go to war with Pakistan and the Vajpayee government listened.

Earlier, throughout the crisis that almost was at Ayodhya, sundry worthies of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal felt free to make snide asides about the prime minister when they were not openly railing at him. At the time of writing, the tug and pull over the Budget proposals continues.

Every ally worth its votebank has a rollback scheme and is not afraid to go public with it. On Poto, there was victory, but not really. With chief ministers of opposition-ruled states audaciously announcing their refusal to apply the Central law in their states, the sheen of that victory too has instantly dimmed.

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But it is on Gujarat that the prime minister appears most shrunken, most diminished. He is unhappy with the Narendra Modi government8217;s mishandling of the hellish violence in the state, say reliable sources.

Yet, prime ministerial displeasure is crowded out by the certificates Modi continues to receive almost daily from his friends in high places within the BJP and its sister organisations.

Vajpayee8217;s displeasure, if it exists, has not been able to make itself heard so far above their clamour of support.

It is ironical that the leader who had always seemed larger than his party should look so overwhelmed by it. It is sad he should have been immobilised by the same organisation he helped empower.

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Most of all, it is tragic that at a time when the people of Gujarat need to look up to a leader who can show them the way back to a sane world, they must reach out to one who is himself under siege.