It may be premature to speak of a turn of tide in favour of the BJP in the bitter, though confused, political struggle in the country. But it could soon, if the authorities, anti-BJP parties and the dominant elite continue to behave the way they have been, especially in recent days.
They may well be too full of remorse over the demolition of the ambiguous structure in Ayodhya last Sunday – ambiguous in its construction by virtue of the use of Hindu temple pillars with carvings and in view of the presence of Ramlalla idols in it for 43 long years – to pay even passing attention to the deliberate destruction of Hindu temples in Pakistan, Bangladesh and faraway Britain, the display of self-righteous indignation by Pakistan, the blatantly partisan attitude of Muslim governments represented in the Organisation of Islamic Conference and threats by Ayatollah Khameini, Iran’s spiritual guide.
But thanks to vivid coverage of these events by the BBC TV and mention of them in the Press, even if heavily underplayed, the people know that is happening and they are not amused. Such is the power of the media that a lot of them are still confused. But there are signs of the confusion clearing up.
Whatever the future, however, ours is not a story of one rider on a tiger’s back, but of two riders on two tigers. For, if the BJP-RSS leadership can be accused of having got on a tiger at the time of Mr LK Advani’s rathyatra in 1990, it must also be said that their opponents followed suit. If the former did not know how to dismount, they did not either.
Indeed, while there is evidence to show that the BJP-RSS leaders have at least been aware of the risk of riding a tiger, their opponents have not been, and are in fact still whipping the man-eater. The consequences are likely to be devastating.
In plain terms, while the damage inflicted on the nation by the demolition of the structure in Ayodhya could have been contained if wisely handled, the anti-BJP-RSS crusade has ensured that it is not. The two have come to reinforce each other.
There are obviously differences of opinion on whether or not the assault on the structure in Ayodhya was pre-planned. But there is no scope for rejecting the proposition that Mr Advani, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr Kalyan Singh and other senior leaders of the BJP and the RSS were not aware of such a plan if indeed it existed which I, for one, am not prepared to concede in the absence of concrete evidence. Communists and fellow travellers have always practiced the politics of conspiracy and we should not take their charge of conspiracy against others at its face value.
That Mr Kalyan Singh sent in his resignation as chief minister to the governor as he was informed of the demolition of the disputed building in Ayodhya is well known. But though it has been reported in a couple of places, it is not known widely that Mr Advani left the rostrum as the third dome of the Babri structure came down, retired to a room where there was no light and sat there in darkness for long. He did not return to the rostrum. And if Mr Advani was crestfallen, Mr Vajpayee was shattered by developments in Ayodhya. A shrewd leadership in possession of its faculties in New Delhi would have responded positively to Mr Kalyan Singh’s acceptance of moral responsibility and persuaded him to stay on as chief minister and deal with the consequences of events in Ayodhya. Mr PV Narasimha Rao might have been so inclined if he was not under siege. But he was: by Sunday evening, he had clearly lost the initiative. Perhaps President Shankar Dayal Sharma’s ill-advised public statement was crucial in what looked like loss of nerve on the part of the Prime Minister. Perhaps Mr Rao took Dr Sharma’s volubility for something much worse, as did many others who started virtually pleading for his intervention. His decision to order the UP government’s dismissal in the face of the chief minister’s resignation accepts no other interpretation.
It is less than fair to blame Mr Rao alone, or even his colleagues such as Mr Arjun Singh who had been demanding that the UP government be dismissed. Judging by editorials in almost all English-language dailies in the capital on Monday, the articulate intelligentsia was possessed by a self-induced anti-BJP-RSS hysteria. Thus, even if the National Front-Left combine leaders had not resorted to the kind of unparliamentary behaviour they did, the atmosphere in the capital would have been too surcharged to permit rational decisions. But if there was any scope for saner counsel to prevail in South Block, the possibility was blocked by Mr VP Singh, Mr Chandra Shekhar and Mr Somnath Chatterjee.
Mr Advani’s resignation as leader of the opposition in recognition of his moral responsibility should have persuaded policy makers, anti-BJP politicians and leading mediamen to review their position. It did nothing of the kind. While the NF-LF combine called for a Bharat Bandh; the government ordered the arrest of Mr Advani and Mr Murali Manohar Joshi; and there was no sign of second thoughts in the media.
The Observer of Business and Politics, December 10, 1992