Vajpayee goes unwept, unsung

Yet, none in the BJP shed tears when he stepped down in favour of L.K.Advani. There was no protest from even those who had basked under the glory of Vajpayee for years. The so-called loyalists were conspicuous by their silence. It was a fait accompli over which the

BJP MPs went like an exercise.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Every leader offers to step down after a reverse because victory has many claimants, defeat none. Vajpayee's reaction was no different. It was up to his followers whom he led during many battles to say that they would not allow him to forsake the leadership. But they seemed a party to the macabre drama.

They could have torn a leaf out of the Congress book --how they fiercely opposed Sonia Gandhi's decision not to become Prime Minister. It was a moving scene, the leader declining office and the followers not accepting her 'no' for an answer.

The BJP meeting, in contrast, was too businesslike. No member rose to say that they would not allow Vajpayee to step down. None threatened to stage a dharna to keep him back. On the other hand, the party even went to the extent of changing the party's constitution to ensure that L.K. Advani would be the opposition leader and Vajpayee a mere glorified chairman. Never before had a leader been so ignobly shunted out as Vajpayee. He put up a brave face. Still the disappointment was written all over. When he was presented a shawl, the BJP leaders applauded loudly as if they supported diabolical political coup. When L.K. Advani, who has shown 'loyalty' to Vajpayee, was seen offering laddu to Vajpayee, I remembered Caesar's words: You too Brutus! But then this is what happens in such organisations which are monolithic. People are dropped after they have served the purpose. There is no sentimentality about them -- no remorse, no regret. It is a clean, straightforward cut. Vajpayee fell in that category. Once the BJP's mentor, the RSS, decided that his utility was over, the rest was automatic. Pieces fell into places. In any case, the RSS had for some time been thinking of Advani as Vajpayee's replacement. The changeover confirms my worst fears that if the BJP had formed the government, Vajpayee would have been asked to resign in favour of Advani in due course of time. Hardliner Advani is a trusted man of the RSS.

Although Vajpayee is never tired of saying that he is a swayam sewak, he is not considered as much a votary of Hindutva as Advani. Vajpayee's reputation has always been that of a right person in the wrong party.

The stock of Vajpayee in Pakistan and Bangladesh has to be seen to be believed. His stint as foreign minister in the Janata Party government (1977-79) is still recalled in both the countries as the golden period of relationship with India. Even after the BJP's defeat in the Lok Sabha election, he retains high esteem. People of Pakistan and Bangladesh feel sorry that he has lost. There is a feeling that he would have done something concrete to improve relations.

By changing him, the RSS has come into the open to project the BJP as a party with the Hindutva face.

Nagpur, where the RSS has its headquarters, appears to have come to believe that the BJP should look Hindu every bit. When Advani said soon after elections that his party would plug the Hindutva line it was clear that the BJP would drop the pretension of being liberal. Vajpayee's image did not fit into that policy.

Whether such an approach pays the BJP dividends or not is yet to be seen. But the party has played false to thousands of Muslims who had begun moving nearer to it. Feeling personally betrayed must be Mohammad Arif Khan who proved that he could secure Muslim votes on the BJP ticket. But the Hindus did not vote for him. The real problem with the BJP is that it has not yet understood India's ethos. The cultural nationalism it talks about does not transcend the country's long tradition of pluralism. The Indian culture is not synonymous with Hinduism. The BJP should realise this.

The RSS is convinced that polarising the electorate on Hindu-Muslim lines has given it electoral advantage. This was surely one of the central lessons it derived from the 1991 parliamentary polls in which the BJP was the beneficiary of the violence it had instigated over the Ram Janambhoomi movement the year before. The BJP was elected to power for the first time in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.

What it tells is that the BJP has contaminated most of the Hindu middle class in India and abroad. The common man still remains largely free of the poison it has injected. Results of the Lok Sabha election should have made the RSS wiser. The BJP may lose the ground still further and become a rump of a party if it does not realise that India can never be a Hindu rashtra. A couple of remarks that Vajapyee made to analyse the reasons for the BJP's debacle indicate that the party does not want to face the truth. It was neither "over confidence nor complacency," the cause attributed by Vajpayee, it was sheer saffronisation. People rejected the party's efforts to 'Hinduise' their pluralistic way of living. Vajpayee has still tried to save Narendra Modi, who the voters have seen as a symptom of the disease of parochialism. The party cannot ride back to power on the back of Modi.

Vajpayee would have retrieved part of his soiled reputation by not accepting the party's chairmanship.

This would have been a protest of sorts, probably his catharsis for not having taken any action against

Modi. People will miss Vajpayee as a clever and resourceful orator. He was an adroit hand for compromises. That he too fell victim to the manoeuvres of fanatics in the BJP is a tragedy. Parliament will miss his diction in Hindi.

Vajpayee may have a grievance that people did not give him the due for all that he did. He should blame his party's stalwarts like Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi who were like a stone mill around his neck. Whatever he did they undid it because they had a closed mind. One used power to escape his linkage with the Babri Masjid demolition and the other exploited authority to rewrite history. People interpreted Vajpayee's silence as his concurrence for what the two did.

Agreed, he feels hurt over criticism. But Vajpayee is to blame for not taking action against communalist or fanatic elements. He was too weak and vacillating. Maybe, his hands were bound because of the overall supervision by the RSS. But history is an unbiased reckoner. The verdict on him would have been different if he had only acted on instincts which were healthy and not allowed his diffidence to dictate him.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.