Grave crisis in the Parivar: Giants turn out dwarves

For a while, it looked as if Mr Vajpayee, who has been repeatedly targeted personally by Mr Sudarshan, would assert his authority to end the controversy.

Instead, Mr Vajpayee sulked, saying: "I do not fear death, but I fear getting a bad name." Then, he fired a salvo at Mr Advani, telling him to follow Mr Sudarshan's advice and make way for younger leaders! Yet, Mr Vajpayee backtracked in his characteristic style and defended Mr Advani against Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's veiled attack on the party leadership.

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He has since staunchly defended the RSS and boasted that he has been its member since childhood. He couldn't have found a worse way of diminishing himself.

Amidst this ugly controversy, the entire top leadership of the parivar stands discredited. Nearly destroyed is the RSS's cultivated image as a "disciplined" organisation, where absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader is prized.

For the first time,a sarasan-ghachalak was publicly contradicted by his own deputy (Mohan Bhagwat).

The BJP's image, battered by its electoral debacle and its confrontationist opposition for opposition's sake, has further nose-dived. Its tallest leaders have been exposed to be pygmies -- petty men and women with consuming ambition but no vision, driven by parochialism, and lacking a sense of solidarity.

The BJP's succession problem has proved intractable. Its former president Venkaiah Naidu quit because he could exercise no authority over peers like Ms Uma Bharati and Messrs Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley. He begged his patron (Advani) to take over. But Mr Advani has failed to rein in Ms Bharati. He expelled her, but soon retracted.

Now, week after week, Ms Bharati spews venom at Mr Advani, threatening him with a "Mahabharata-style" war, in which she would play Arjun.

The BJP's unending succession crisis contrasts sharply with the smooth transition in the Communist Party (Marxist) from one generation to the next. On organisational coherence, ideological clarity, and political principle, the CPM scores way above the BJP.

Nominally, both are termed "cadre parties." But within the BJP, the cement of ideology crumbles beside venality and ambition.

As important as the BJP's crisis are changes in the RSS and in relations with it. The RSS top leadership is reportedly divided between Maharashtrians and non-Maharashtrians. This is unprecedented.

The RSS sarasanghachalak used to be aloof from the nitty-gritty of politics. But since Balasaheb Deoras, this has changed. Mr Sudarshan wants a more aggressive role --potentially conflicting with the BJP's.

Yet, the RSS doesn't know to push the BJP towards hard-line Hindutva. Both are aware of the damage they have inflicted upon themselves and are awkwardly trying to control it.

For the moment, the BJP's "strategy" is to deal not with Mr Sudarshan, but with second-ranking RSS functionaries: general secretary Mohan Bhagwat and joint general secretary Suresh Soni. They are both in their 50s. It hopes they might be reverential towards Mr Vajpayee-Advani.

Such tactics will probably fail. The current scuffle has produced realignments. On the sarasanghachalak's side are Uma Bharati, Murli Manohar Joshi, the VHP, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram.

Arrayed against him are Messrs Advani, Naidu and Mahajan, and the sangh's Maharashtrian group. Others, including the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, are neutral/vacillating.

Their differences cannot be easily reconciled. For instance, for the VHP, the importance of the Ayodhya issue is absolute. For the BJP, it's a political instrument and bargaining counter. Its relative utility depends on political balances of power.

The RSS-BJP confrontation must be seen in the context of the BJP's loss of power. This has brought frustration to the surface. Its immediate cause was the RSS's annoyance at being bypassed when Mr Advani took over the BJP and a recent attack on the "Hindu vote" concept by a BJP ideologue in Bhopal.

There have been other spats too. In 1998, Mr Sudarshan forced Mr Vajpayee to cancel Mr Jaswant Singh's appointment as Finance Minister. Two years later, he attacked Mr Vajpayee's "kitchen cabinet" and foster family. In retaliation, Mr Vajpayee got Mr Sudarshan to move from Delhi to Nagpur.

In 2002, the RSS forced Mr Advani's appointment as Deputy Prime Minister -- on the understanding that the parivar would go slow on the temple. Mr Vajpayee assigned no additional responsibilities to Mr Advani.

The RSS and its extremist associates yielded to the BJP on many issues -- especially neo-liberal economics. While in power, the BJP could silence them by offering patronage. Some sangh leaders got worried at pracharaks leading a life of luxury -- far removed from the swayamsevak's austerity.

The RSS is also anxious because attendance at its shakhas is dropping. When threatened, the RSS returns to its hard-line moorings. It wants a more pliant BJP leadership.

However, the BJP is now too big to be bullied. Some of its leaders believe the RSS's door-to-door mobilisation during elections cannot win it more than, say, 5-6 percent of the vote. They believe the NDA allies can contribute more.

Such contrary perceptions and calculations have precipitated an unwinnable tug of war inside the parivar. The BJP, for its all fascination with globalisation, is in no position to cut off its ideological dependence on Hindutva or its organisational links with the RSS.

There is scope in India for a conservative Right-of-Centre party that is not aggressively communal, like Europe's Christian Democrats.

The BJP cannot be such a party. The Vajpayee-Advani leadership does not have the stomach to make it one. If it couldn't change while in power, it's unlikely to do so now.

What's on the cards now is more contention and strife within the parivar, and a bitter power struggle. That spells the BJP's further, serious, possibly irreversible, decline.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.