Aditi Phadnis: For God's sake, don't go

PLAIN POLITICS

All cannot be well with a political party whose president has to offer to resign twice in 30 days. L K Advani, who has given 50 or more years of his life in the political service of Hinduism, last month became the subject of target practice in his organisation.

The end of that story is yet to be scripted. The Sangh continues to explore ways in which it can establish the whip hand. Advani is a big but necessary sacrifice to reassert the pecking order in decision-making in the family.

But how did such a massive breakdown in communication between the BJP and the Sangh and its other constituents come about in the first place? It is a sorry story, but it must be told.

Opponents of the BJP will say that Advani's humiliation is the best thing that could have happened to Indian politics. They're wrong.

Advani presided over the biggest Hindu consolidation Indian history has ever seen. Like it or not, it happened. Its power was intoxicating and many were swept away by it. On the dark side, it has mid-wifed a set of people who will do anything to revive and lead this consolidation. When that happens, the demolition in Ayodhya will look like a kiddies' birthday party. But more of that later.

As a result of the dynamic he set in motion, Advani made a whole lot of new friends in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These were men and women who saw a future for themselves in politics through the Hindu radicalisation route.

It is not that he forgot the tried and tested Sanghi "" but the demands of the mobilisation were such that it devoured fresh political talent.

Advani retained the organic link between the Sangh and the growth of the BJP "" indeed, he was the link. But a personal setback intervened. His name figured in the Jain diaries and the Hawala scandal. An editor with strongly anti-BJP leanings wrote in his column at the time: "If L K Advani is corrupt, I'm a banana". The charge was ludicrous. But it hurt Advani deeply. After all these years, was he going to have to stand up in court to proclaim his integrity ?

That event added another layer to Advani's friendships. If earlier, his new friends were Hindu radical professionals, now he needed advisors who had not the party's, not Hinduism's, not Ayodhya's, but his personal and political interests at heart. They became friends in need.

Though he was exonerated in the case, its effect lingered. Secularists will howl at this claim. But over a period of time, decision-making within the BJP had become deeply democratic. That was a necessity. With Advani and Vajpayee fighting elections from two, sometimes three seats, authority had to be delegated to a committee of people. In the past, even during his presidentship, Advani's decision could be "" and was "" overruled by the party's committee, themselves veteran electoral risk-takers. After the Hawala exoneration, for instance, Advani sought Madan Lal Khurana's reinstatement as chief minister of Delhi. The party turned this down and Sushma Swaraj was made CM.

But this system came to be supplanted by groups of those who supposedly had Advani's ear, post-Hawala. They said and did what they thought Advani wanted. Everything else was secondary. So past presidents like Murali Manohar Joshi were cut to size publicly. Not because it was good for the party but because they thought that's what Advani would want. The BJP never really understood how power passed from the party to consultants.

To cite an example. The BJP's relationship with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (a natural ally in view of its anti-Congressism) in Tamil Nadu unravelled principally because of constant sniping between the party's local unit and the DMK. Lulled by seemingly pro-Hindu moves made by Jayalalithaa, the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP kept rubbishing the DMK. The personal affection between Karunanidhi and Vajapayee alone kept the relationship going as long as it did. No one in the party sought a debate on what the TN unit of the party was doing, neither asking nor pulling it up. Angered, DMK pulled out of the NDA. The BJP paid a heavy price for doing away with internal debate. If it had stayed with the DMK, it might have been able to form a government today.

Today, what we see is the logical culmination of this process. At the top, the BJP is manned by managers largely from the student wing of the party; not people who've been toughened and hardened through fighting and winning Lok Sabha or Assembly elections. It isn't just the union council of ministers the Rajya Sabha rules. It also rules the BJP leadership.

What is worrying is another aspect. Advani has tried to keep his family out of the public gaze but some exposure is inevitable. The party is hoping that it is only a coincidence that his daughter Pratibha appears to be adopting a more visible public role. She was by his side when Advani visited Ayodhya last week. The Bharat Uday Yatra also saw her touring. It could be a daughter's natural protectiveness towards her father that saw Pratibha berate some of Advani's closest lieutenants for not standing by him during the current crisis. But then again, unless she is boldly launched in politics and is seen to be working her way up from the bottom, the charge will begin to be levelled that the BJP is no different from the Congress when it comes to politics of dynasty.

The party needs Advani right now "" and because of the wise patriarch that he is, he knows this. That's why he risked the odium of defying the RSS, not once, but twice. The BJP doesn't need Praveen Togadia and Giriraj Kishore. But Advani also needs to convey to the Sangh forcefully that he's not afraid of saddling up his horse and riding off into the sunset alone. This could shock the organisation into correcting its power dynamics.