So many right turns

So the decade from Babri Masjid to Gujarat has been determined, to a large extent, by the interplay between the Congress and the BJP. It has been marked by some competitive communalism for votes.

Of course, there was that critical interlude when I.K. Gujral and Deve Gowda led United Front governments supported by the Congress and the CPM from the outside. There was that moment of panic, a spasm running through the New Delhi establishment and key western embassies, when Jyoti Basu emerged as a candidate for prime minister. The 8216;danger8217; was short-lived; the central committee of the CPM shot down the project.

But the Basu candidature created such a scare in the Indian establishment, always located way to the right of centre, that UF governments in New Delhi became a bit of an anathema with the establishment 8212; because the Left would be an important part of it. The entire national discourse was shifting decisively to the right.

Since Independence, we in India have not had a coherent establishment until recently. Nehru was inclined one way while the Tatas, Birlas and Ramnath Goenkas were inclined the other way. To some extent this was inevitable in a world order split in two camps.

Little wonder then that a coherent Indian establishment, the political class, captains of industry, media barons began to take shape only after the collapse of the Soviet Union which made P.V. Narasimha Rao8217;s economic reforms inevitable. The country had moved right.

But, internally, even within the Congress party, a churning process was on. When Indira Gandhi split the Congress in 1969, nationalised banks, abolished the privy purses of Indian princes, and generally separated herself from the party bosses 8212; the bulk of the Congress8217;s right wing 8212; her actions were not devoid of ideology.

It might interest observers of Gujarat that the first major communal riot in the state took place in the wake of the Congress split, the state unit having sided overwhelmingly with the Syndicate. Gujarat was possibly the first state in the country where the terms of political discourse had shifted to the right as early as the sixties. The Bihar movement of the early seventies was the counter offensive against Indira Gandhi8217;s leftward lurch. Since her charisma after the Bangladesh victory was proving unbeatable, those opposing her fell into deep thought.

Prominent among other values that the Indian mind reveres is renunciation. Jayaprakash Narayan had just that image. RSS leaders like Nanaji Deshmukh, newspaper magnates like Ramnath Goenka, the Jana Sangh today8217;s BJP, socialists, all got together to pit JP8217;s charisma against Indira Gandhi8217;s.

The pressure worked. Came the Emergency, Indira Gandhi8217;s ouster in 1977, the coming to power of the Janata government under Morarji Desai, the return of Indira Gandhi, her assassination in 1984 bringing Rajiv Gandhi to power with a two-thirds majority.

Never was political capital so quickly frittered away. By 1987 Rajiv was fighting with his back to the wall, worrying about the Muslim vote upturn the Shah Bano verdict to please the Muslims and the Hindu vote open the locks of the Ayodhya temple to please the Hindus. Then, in panic, he decided to outdo the Hindutva brigade by starting his 1989 election campaign from Ayodhya promising 8216;Ram Rajya8217;.

By the time P.V. Narasimha Rao became prime minister in 1991, the caste pyramid had been shaken to its foundations by a rapid mandalisation of politics. Vote bank politics was causing the Hindu structure to disintegrate into its caste constituents.

Empowerment of the lower castes was the success of egalitarianism, all right. But in an ancient society it entailed replacement of entrenched elites at a very rapid pace. This spectacle was unnerving for the establishment, of course, because it was composed of upper castes. But it was a matter of survival for political parties who had remained in power with the caste structure as it was.

The mandir issue was picked up with two ideas in mind: first to stall the pace of mandalisation, to gain time for social engineering and, secondly, if the first political crop from the mandir agitation was good, a bid for Hindu consolidation targeting minorities could be pursued with greater vigour.

On the mandir issue, the Congress vacated space because P.V. Narasimha Rao thought that caste interests would be better served by the BJP as opposed to Mulayam Singh and Kanshi Ram. With this unstated collaboration, the BJP gained enormously from the mandir agitation of which L.K. Advani8217;s Rath Yatra was the key element.

But one image the BJP must learn from the world of gastronomy. The souffle rises only once. The mandir issue cannot be reheated again and again to any useful purpose. Militant politics is essentially against the Hindu grain.

Just look at the record since the fall of the Babri Masjid. BJP lost the state elections thereafter.

More recently in February when our troops were on the border, the Ayodhya issue had once again been brought on the front burner, the party was routed in UP, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Manipur and two assembly seats in Gujarat. The party persisted with its hardline and look what happened in Jammu 8212; a solitary seat by 204 votes! By this logic it should be prepared for a surprise in Gujarat.

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