The BJP's projects

Its eyes set firmly on the temple project, the BJP plans to go to the electorate on the planks of the Bomb and Ayodhya; it is up to the Opposition to show that there is an alternative.

A. G. NOORANI

THE Sangh Parivar's frenetic drive to build a Ram temple at Ayodhya regardless of the judiciary and the law, has justifiably aroused national concern. But, what is no less sinister, the drive exposes the fraud played on the electorate by the Parivar's political unit, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and its allies in Government, the farce of the so-called "National Agenda" as distinct from the BJP's manifesto and the party's inherent incapacity for moderation. In consequence, there is an inherent compulsion to deceive. As in the past, it is the mother organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which calls the shots.

The national press has publicised the drive in rich detail. That has tended to obscure the fact that the lead was given by the Parivar's organ, Organiser, in its April 5, 1998 issue, which was on the stands a week earlier, a mere ten days after the BJP Government was sworn in on March 19. The headline proclaimed: "Workshops busy preparing material for temple at Ayodhya." It reported: "Three workshops in Ayodhya and Rajasthan are working regularly preparing material which will be used in the reconstruction. According to an activist of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, material for 32 ft. height of the temple (total height 132 ft.) is almost ready... the stones after being carved are sent to the main workshop at Ayodhya" - not far from the site of the demolished Babri Masjid (emphasis added throughtout).

But, why did Organiser think it necessary to publicise the drive? It was in order to assure the cadres that the BJP had not abandoned its stand on the Ram temple despite its omission in the National Agenda. Months before the polls, its then president L. K. Advani had intensified his campaign for the temple with an eye on the BJP's vote bank. "The solution to Ayodhya lies either in negotiation or in legislation, not in litigation. This has been the BJP's consistent stand... There is no dispute about the site," he told The Times of India (May 18, 1997). He was quite clear on his aims. "Ram temple is an issue which will be finally sorted out when the BJP comes to power at the Centre... We will construct the temple through proper law and legislation."

In plain words, if Muslims do not agree to this course in the "negotiation", the BJP would use its brute majority in Parliament to usher in the "legislation". The political flaw is obvious. A party with such a narrow appeal cannot secure a stable majority in both Houses of Parliament. The legal flaw is as obvious. Such legislation would be utterly unconstitutional (vide the writer's article, "The temple pledge" Frontline, March 20, 1998). The BJP knows that but, true to form, practises deceit.

Advani used the idiom of the early 1990s. "Indian cultural nationalism" is "assimilative" and Ram was a "symbol of India's culture and civilisation." None outside the Parivar had ever made such a demand of the minorities (The Times of India, June 16, 1997). At Ayodhya on July 3, 1997, he said that the BJP would not be content till a temple was built there.

Advani thought of a new idea in his campaign. "Sri Ram Lalla is actually in prison. The sooner he is released the better." (September 20, 1997). This implied that the legal curbs on the ramshackle temple at the site built illegally and immorally immediately after the demolition of the mosque, must be removed.

Meanwhile, on November 25 the RSS supremo, Rajendra Singh, said that "Ayodhya-type solutions were necessary for the Kashi and Mathura shrines." He warned that "Muslims should once and for all give up claims to the Kashi and Mathura shrines" (The Telegraph, November 26, 1997).

N. SRINIVASAN
The makeshift temple at the site where Babri Masjid stood.

This gave Advani an opportunity to play the moderate by reviving his August 1990 offer before a Muslim audience on December 4, 1997. "If Muslims honour the feelings of Hindus and give up claims on Ayodhya, I promise to persuade the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to give up their claim on Kashi and Mathura." The thought of respecting Muslim feelings was altogether absent from his mind. Note that he spoke avowedly, explicitly as a leader of the Hindu community alone.

BY December 1997, the BJP was deeply mired in realpolitik. The party's National Executive, which met on December 19, did not refer to Ayodhya. But the next day, Atal Behari Vajpayee said that a Ram temple would be built by legislation. While gradually coming to terms with the realities, the BJP prepared to push through its own plans, the allies', reservations notwithstanding. None of them apparently noted the Advani Doctrine on Coalitions: "I believe that for a coalition to function and to endure, there has to be a dominant partner in the coalition" (Sunday, November 2, 1997). And, the BJP, of course, was to be that dominant partner.

That explains its reservations on a minimum common programme. Why should it compromise if it could bag a majority by itself? Its spokesperson, Sushma Swaraj, emphatically declared on January 2, 1998: "There will be no CMP (sic.) before elections." Vajpayee said the same thing on January 10: "The question of having a CMP will come after the elections."

By now a two-track effort was on. The BJP's manifesto (February 3) clung to its hobby horses of Ayodhya, Article 370 and a uniform civil code. There would be references to them in some speeches, but the word was spread, eagerly picked up by admirers in the media, that these issues would be "under freeze". The RSS boss, Rajendra Singh, approved of these tactics (on January 10, in Nagpur). The BJP approved of the VHP's seeming divergence from the BJP line and its pursuit of the old settled agenda.

Advani gave the game away when he said: "Hindu anger related to vote-bank politics can now express itself through the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's movement, or even (sic.) through the ballot box, in favour of the BJP" (The Hindu, February 5, 1998). The BJP, thus, banked on the Hindu vote and it was privy to the division of labour between the BJP and the VHP ordained by the RSS, the common mentor.

The BJP was, of course, free to continue singing the old refrain. At Faizabad, near Ayodhya, Advani lauded the Ayodhya "movement" (The Hindu, February 7). However, in all the Lok Sabha constituencies around Ayodhya, the BJP's candidates lost and its supporters became restive at what they feared was the abandonment of the credo (The Hindu, March 16). Statements such as the one by Advani on March 28 left them confused. "This is a Government of alliance partners and the BJP manifesto is not applicable." Only the Agenda of March 18 applied.

IT was in this context that Organiser publicised the temple construction work in its issue of April 5 which was out on March 29. As if on cue, the VHP became more active in concert with the Bajrang Dal, as Giriraj Kishore, the VHP's secretary-general, indicated on April 7. "It will take two years to complete the stone-carving work which is already well under way. After that is finished, no government can stop us from building the temple." The Bajrang Dal's convener, Surendra Kumar Jain, said: "Yuva shakti (youth power) will be made strong and competent enough to reply to all attacks and assaults on Hindu sentiments. We will ensure Hindus are trained properly in self-defence and are not dependent on the state for protection." The state, under the BJP's control, will look the other way.

The VHP convened a meeting of its apex body at Hardwar on April 10 and 11. On the other hand, an RSS activist and hardliner, Kushabhau Thakre, became the BJP president. The resolution which its National Executive passed on April 12 contained these significant needs: "It is a verdict that vindicates our stand on national issues and gives us the responsibility of setting right the grievous wrongs of the past." In the BJP's lingo, Ayodhya, Article 370, and a uniform civil code are "national issues".

The reference to the "grieveus wrongs of the past" betrays the BJP's revivalist, vindictive outlook. How is one to reconcile Advani's statement on the non-applicability of the BJP's manifesto to the Government with Vajpayee's announcement on April 12 that "the party has to run the Government"? The era of coalitions was a temporary phenomenon, he added. The BJP must emerge a clear winner in the next round.

The VHP's working president, Ashok Singhal, pacified the Hardwar convention. So did the Union Minister of State for Culture, of all things, Uma Bharati, "A temple in Ayodhya will be the first thing that we will do when we come (to power) with an absolute majority." Singhal explained that the construction work would take two years "and we can build the temple immediately." The Ram janmabhoomi Trust chairman, Ram Chandra Paramhans, swore by the Government: "I will not allow anyone to shake this Government. India's Home Minister, L. K. Advani, came all the way to Hardwar to wash the sadhus' feet - something that has never happened for centuries in India. I am sure the Prime Minister will get us the temple through some law."

Evidently, Advani had done his bit to give assurances to the convention with renewed pledges. The familiar ploy of 1990-92 was revived. The BJP passed the buck, ostensibly to the VHP, and the VHP to the sadhus - all under the RSS' tutelage. BJP president Kushabhau Thakre said on June 2: "We are in favour of a temple but it is the VHP's job to do it, not ours."

Prime Minister Vajpayee's calculated ambiguities in Parliament and outside have been noted (see Neena Vyas in The Hindu, June 9). But there was no mistaking the fact that the die had been cast. RSS boss Rajendra Singh asserted on June 8 in Nagpur that the Ram temple would be built at the very site in Ayodhya. Those who opposed this had a "perverted mentality". The BJP's vice-president and spokesman, K. L. Sharma, went on the offensive in tones and terms directly opposed to Vajpayee's sweet words on April 7 and 8. Sharma said on June 9 that the Ram temple "remains on our agenda, though it is not a part of the national agenda." He repeated on June 15: "We are committed to it and the temple will be constructed on the site," adding that it was a mere structure. "There was no Babri Masjid." Where then was the constraining force of the so-called National Agenda? Advani "pulled him up" only because his candour revealed the game for all to see.

Ashok Singhal revived the blackmail tactics of 1992. "The Constitution does not have any provision to punish the judiciary but religious leaders have," he said on June 16. Any delay in the construction of the temple could break the patience of the sadhus who "can then take any decision" (The Asian Age, June 18). His threats to the courts and to the Government were not condemned by Vajpayee.

The record yields an irresistible conclusion. The BJP has not abandoned its plans to build the temple at Ayodhya. It knows that that cannot be accomplished in the present conditions. It knows, also, that its present regime cannot last for long. An article by V. P. Bhatia in Organiser of May 31, 1998 provides a clue. It was entitled "Babri to Big Bang" - from national to international awakening". If the Government can survive for some time, it will dig in its heels deeper. If not, the Prime Minister will advise the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha. The advice will, of course, not be binding on him - unless no alternative government is possible.

The onus is, therefore, squarely on the Opposition. The BJP plans to go to the electorate on the planks of the Bomb and Ayodhya. It is for the Opposition parties to formulate a secular agenda and demonstrate that an alternative does exist, ready to take over from this discredited and disrespectable Government. The alternative is to let Vajpayee conduct his election campaign with all the advantages and facilities of a Prime Minister in office.

Time is fast running out. It is the Sangh Parivar, not the secular Opposition, which makes the running. The Opposition only reacts and in varied ways, fragmented as it is. The VHP's 160-member Marg Darshak Mandal is due to meet in Delhi on July 6. Shortly before that its important office-bearers will have to attend the meeting of the RSS Prant Pracharaks (provincial activists) at Kota as summoned by the RSS. It will be as important as the RSS' Ujjain conclave in 1992 shortly before the Babri Mosque was demolished. We have Rajendra Singh's clear declaration on June 22 that the temple will be built "at all costs" (sic), even by overturning an adverse judicial verdict.

Mea culpa, in my article, "The politics of crime" (Frontline, May 22, 1998) there was an unfortunate oversight. The resume ended with the Special Judicial Magistrate, Mahipal Sirohi's order of August 27, 1994 committing Advani and Co. to trial in the Sessions Court in the Ayodhya case. However, matters do not rest with a police charge-sheet. Charges were framed against the accused on September 9, 1997 by Special Judge J. P. Srivastava in a 48-page order. This, then, is also a case of Ministers against whom charges have been framed by a court of law. They have no right to continue in office; least of all, L. K. Advani one who has the Home portfolio, and controls the CBI which filed the charge-sheet and which will conduct the prosecution, provide the witnesses and instruct counsel. Only a man utterly indifferent to proprieties would cling on to the office of Union Home Minister in such circumstances as Advani does.

The court observed clearly enough: "The analysis shows that in the proposed case, the criminal conspiracy to demolish the disputed structure of Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi was hatched from 1990 onwards and culminated on December 6, 1992." This is a judicial finding made prima facie as the court itself framed the charges. The honourable course is to resign and to face the trial, not to cling to public office.

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