Ahead of cabinet reshuffles in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, a group of five used to take all the important decisions: Atal Behari Vajpayee (now virtually bedridden), George Fernandes (ditto), Pramod Mahajan (dead), Jaswant Singh (expelled) and L K Advani.
So okay, the short point is, what we’re seeing is a process of transition in the BJP — a change of guard. But the tallest leaders in the BJP today — Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Ananth Kumar, Narendra Modi — were completely irrelevant to government when the NDA was in power. So do a then-and-now and you wonder: How is the leadership of a party born? In the BJP, the transition has neither been smooth nor logical and there can be no argument that the current leadership is person-oriented, working pretty much based on the likes and dislikes of the dispensation that happens to be in power.
This has happened to the BJP after Atal Behari Vajpayee went into retirement. He had moral authority and was a statesman — he was an all-encompassing leader. It’s not as if there was no talk behind his back in the BJP. His connection with a business house that was reportedly involved in the Bofors pay-offs was discussed freely. So were his unorthodox domestic arrangements, in a party that celebrates being conservative. He was not unaware of this. But Vajpayee disregarded all this, looking only at talent. He did not come in the way of anyone’s elevation even though they may have spoken of him in derogatory terms. Vajpayee is a statesman because he is liberal, and while he may have had his views on individuals, he never personalised the running of the party.
The expulsion of Jaswant Singh from the BJP shows how this tradition in the BJP has been usurped and thrown out. Singh was under pressure from the group in power when he spoke out against the personalisation of the BJP, in the now famous letter he wrote to the leadership about the linkage between ‘puraskar’ and ‘parinaam’, and he was certainly not expelled from the party for his views on Jinnah — historical or ahistorical. He was expelled in the tradition of Mauli Chandra Sharma and Balraj Madhoke, because he dissented.
Around August 7, a meeting of the core committee of the party virtually decided that Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha should not be invited to the Chintan Baithak in Shimla. They also wanted to decide that Jaswant Singh be excluded as well, but they couldn’t do that because he was a member of the core committee himself. Rajya Sabha MP S S Ahluwalia was included in the Chintan Baithak instead. This was the first move to create a kangaroo court.
Narendra Modi said a book that was critical of the Sardar would do the BJP irreparable damage in Gujarat. Vinay Katyar concurred. Advani was silent but eventually he too agreed with the others. The Parliamentary Board met followed by the Chintan Baithak. And, the BJP disposed of Jaswant Singh, once one of the party’s most trusted and loyal soldiers.
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In 2007 things had already begun to slide. Singh’s wife Sheetal filed a complaint against Jodhpur MLA Suryakanta Vyas and another local party leader Hemant Bohra for having hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus by releasing and distributing posters that depicted Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje as Goddess Annapurna. The poster, designed by Bohra and released by Vyas on April 15, 2007, depicted Raje as a goddess showering blessings on her ministers. Two State Ministers — Laxmi Narayan Dave (Forests and Environment) and Pratap Singh Singhvi (Urban Development and Housing) — were shown as Kuber and Indra. Vajpayee, Advani and Rajnath Singh were shown as Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh respectively. Rajnath Singh spoke to Mrs Singh, a fiercely independent personality herself, to take back her complaint because it was just too embarrassing. “But I can’t,” wailed Mrs Singh dolefully, “you see, I don’t recognise you as a God”.
Here’s the funny thing. Look at the position the BJP has taken on what must be considered its core issue — right up there with we-hate-Jinnah — the Ram Janmabhoomi. The party’s position was: The place where Ram was born is not a subject that needed legal validity, it was a matter of faith and spirituality. But when the party was a part of the NDA, it said it had respect for a negotiated settlement and would continue to work towards it. Its position about a core belief changed because of internal debate, discussion and because there are things a political party has to do, for practical reasons.
Just look at the opposition array. At a time when a broad-based opposition was needed more than ever to call attention to the Congress’s imperial tendencies and we-are-born-to-rule arrogance, the BJP expels from the party its most liberal face, for writing a book that no one in the party has even read! What should have been a chance to create a Janata Party of yore, that put civil liberties, judicial reform, and opposition to cronyism at the centre of its political agenda, is now a step closer to going down the tubes. The BJP has proved that today that it doesn’t only disdain intellectual enquiry but looks the other way at corruption and public uncivility. Who would want to be in such a party?
Jaswant Singh was not wildly popular in the BJP. But even his critics say they didn’t expect this. Singh will resign from the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and sit quietly in the back row in Parliament. But it is the BJP that will look a little smaller.