The diminishing returns of defiance

Kalyan Singh defied the Supreme Court’s instruction in the course of the Ayodhya dispute. As Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, he was not supposed to allow any alteration at the site of the disputed structure on December 6, 1992. He was found guilty of contempt of court, but its most notable effect was that he would be entrusted more responsibility in his party’s politics.

In both 1996 and 1998 general elections the first two after the Ayodhya incident Kalyan Singh stood only next to Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani in thepecking order of the BJP. He was asked to campaign in both the North and the South and was introduced in most places as the `hero of cultural nationalism’.

The fact that he belongs to the Lodh community contributed to Kalyan’s rise, especially after V.P. Singh’s government announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report in 1990, a year after the BJP made the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya its electoral plank (at its national executive meeting at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, in June 1989).

Singh proved to be a meeting point of two crucial currents of the politics during the period Mandal and Kamandal. The latter depicting the visibly sadhu-controlled politics of the BJP. The only other politician with the potential to make a dent in Mandal politics that the BJP could discover was Uma Bharati, but she was far too junior quite literally in her political probation in those days. So Kalyan Singh was the unanimous answer to the emerging `secular heroes’ Mulayam Singh Yadav and LalooPrasad Yadav in their heyday.

More or less, Singh had a free hand in the selection of his party candidates for the state Assembly in November 1993, a privilege that no other state BJP leader has enjoyed. But the gumption he showed in his defiance of the Supreme Court and the Union government, his willingness to prostrate himself before the sadhus who were controlling BJP politics between 1992 and 1996, in addition to his OBC origins, were in his favour.

Two years ago, L.K. Advani, who had still been campaigpning personally for a politics of `probity in public life’, felt compelled to defend Singh when he headed a jumbo cabinet packed with the known criminals of UP because Kalyan Singh was still the hero, and his defiance a virtue.

Actually, Singh’s problems began when he started defying the party bosses. That was a tad different from defying the Supreme Court or a directive of the National Integration Council to protect the disputed structure. He began questioning the authority of the central leadershipto dislodge him when the dissent became too visible last year.

The BJP leadership seemed to have made upp its mind when Singh started defying Vajpayee, the person the BJP projected as its leader. In fact, in the BJP politics of the past decade, the only person projected as indispensable, other than Vajpayee, was Kalyan Singh himself. Advani has always exhibited his willingness to remain in the shadow of Vajpayee, and unilaterally proposed his name as the Prime Ministerial candidate a couple of months before the 1996 general elections, when there was speculation that he might stake a claim himself after having successfully created a Hindu wave through his ceaseless rathayatras. But Kalyan Singh’s approach was radically different.

Singh was allowed no role in the selection of the candidates this time, and not even his closest men, like Sakshi Maharaj, were given tickets. The party asked him to resign as Chief Minister soon after the elections. Kalyan Singh proved to be wrong in thinking that he could stayahead of trouble this time as well with a bit of ritual genuflection before the sadhus in Ayodhya.

Times change, and visits to the disputed site are no longer a viable insurance cover. Like Kalyan Singh, the law of diminishing utility applies to sadhus as well. And beyond a point, defiance ceases to be a virtue.