HVK Archives: More than a yatra: it is tapasya
More than a yatra: it is tapasya - The Free Press Journal
M V Kamath
()
24 July 1997
Title: More than a yatra: it is tapasya
Author: M V Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: July 24, 1997
Fired by the success of yet another rath yatra, a born-again Lal Krishna
Advani stormed into the centre stage of national politics, decisively
shrugging off the hawala taint, steamrolling his way into the capital atop
the swaran jayanti rath. It was a triumphant return for the 69-year old
president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said a report in the Hindustan
Times. And, commenting on the yatra proper, the head of the Rashtriya
Swayam Sevak Sangh, Rajendra Singh, said: "Just as ancient seers" tapasya
not only strengthened and cleansed their spiritual being, but also changed
the entire society, I believe Advani's tapasya will also touch the hearts
of all those who live in India and will generate a determination to make
this into a great, powerful and proud nation". But critics, like one
writing in another national paper, are openly sniggering and sneering at
Advani saying that "for all the pretense of abnegation, the tapasya was
designed to help the BJP move to the centre stage", that it is rather
"audacious" for a political party that is "proudly associated with the RSS,
as organization long-suspected of complicity in the assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi" to project an association with the past and with the
independence movement and that "no new agendas or new slogan emerged from
the tapasya that would help the BJP break out of its political saturation
and ideological fatigue". The critic further went on to say that "the BJP's
pretensions on corruption in public life are no more no less impressive
than Deve Gowda thumping his desk and daring his critics to point out a
single case of corruption in the United Front regime". Compressions are
invariably odious and comparing the saintly Advani with Deve Gowda whose
instances of corruption have been ably and fully chronicled by another
Gowda are particularly so. What the Advani rath yatra - a tiring journey of
59 days covering 21 states - has got to do with the assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi also remains an enigma unless the critics wants to be mean
and insulting, especially considering that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had
given a clean chit to the RSS and no less than Jayaprakash Narayan had
given fulsome praise for the activities of the organization. But let that
go. In the first place, was the journey a tapasya of any sort? That it was,
the critic's fulminations notwithstanding.
It is no joke for a 69-year-old to motor down 50,000 plus miles on often
bad dusty roads in the hot summer sun, braving the heat and the strain,
often having to stop at odd places to greet enthusiastic supporters. Few in
the past hundred years have undertaken such arduous journeys except Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jayaprakash Narayan - and, in a different
sense, Chandrashekar. If that is not tapasya, one would like to know what
else it is. Did he get any meaningful reception during his journey?
Impartial observers, not besotted with hatred of the BJP readily concede
that in many unexpected places even, the reception that Advani received was
truly breathtaking, and among the crowds that lined up to greet him were
hundreds of Muslims. Sure, Advani did not always make the front page, but
when prejudice reigns supreme in many newspaper offices and that great
secular hero of the United Front - Laloo Prasad Yadav - is on the rampage,
what chance does Lal Krishna Advani have against entrenched prejudice?
It required not only physical stamina but intellectual courage to undertake
so arduous and demanding a journey. Contrary to what his critics say,
Advani was no preaching: he was reaching out to people as in Kerala and in
West Bengal, two states supposedly communist. Why would the Malayalis and
Bengalis be enamoured of Advani? The answer is simple: They have had enough
of left wing government. Even CPI(M) cadres, it would seem, are tried of
communists and are defecting to the RSS. The RSS was a marginal presence in
north Kerala until about 15 years ago. But as its base has strengthened, so
have the murderous activities of the Reds. At least 15 BJP workers have
been killed in Kerala since the present ministry took office and, as Indian
Express editorially noted, "the murders have been marked by an unnerving
level of brutality" with the victims being dragged out of their beds and
"butchered before their families". As in Kerala, so in West Bengal where
"the traditional hostility between the CPI(M) and the Congress has produced
its own catalogue of gory tales". In Jyoti Basu's paradise, there have been
more cases of public lynchings than ever before and Basu himself has been
forced to bemoan the nexus between party cadres and criminals. Party
cadres, in despair are defecting to the Right and in all probability,
therein lies the genesis of murder. Is it any wonder, than, that the public
is looking up to the BJP for succour? In addition to killings we now hear
reports of large-scale corruption in West Bengal forcing Congress
vice-president Jitendra Prasad to demand a "comprehensive inquiry",
preferably by the CBI into the multi-crore diversion of funds in West
Bengal for financing political purpose under the CPM's rule, Advani knows
what he is talking about when speaks of corruption and fear. Fear is the
ruling emotion people in West Bengal where to speak out openly against the
reigning coalition is to invite trouble. Which is why the reported
diversion of Rs. 2,500 crore meant for various Centrally-sponsored projects
like the Jawahar Rojgar Yojana etc, without the statutory sanction of the
Principal Accountant General has gone uncommented for several years. It is
not for nothing that in West Bengal, as in Kerala, Advani received
thunderous welcome from ordinary people. They are not fools but they know
their limits. Nobody wants to be murdered or lynched by communist mobs.
One of the sickening charges made against the BJP is that it has been
catering to "the newly emerging middles classes looking for a political
platform which would lend respectability to their religious prejudices and
economic greed". No greater insult could be hurled against the middle
classes. To damn the middle classes as prejudiced and greedy betrays an
ignorance of one's fellow citizens that is truly appalling. But what is
Advani's record? At one place, Bhopal Advani permitted himself to speak to
Muslims. In Madhya Pradesh, incidentally, Advani received a tremendous
welcome. And what did he say? He proposed a five-point programme to the
Muslims that is worth recounting here.
First, he said, the Muslims should purge every trace of the two-nation
theory from their mind-set. Second, he advised them to bury the vote bank
politics and contribute to making democracy healthier. Third, they must
understand cultural nationalism. Forth they should shed "the Mohammad Ali"
mentality of treating Hindus as Kafira and Lastly, he asked them to
concentrate on education and the economic elevation of the poor Muslims.
Can there be anything objectionable about any of these suggestions? Even
without being asked, the Muslims are now increasingly realizing that
Pakistan is no longer the Islamic paradise that at one time they thought it
was - or could be. The anti-Mohajir riots, the large-scale killing of
'outsiders' in Sind are too fresh in the minds of Muslims for theme to
entertain any illusions about Pakistan. In the second place, Muslims are
also beginning to realize that all these years they have been treated as
vote bank and taken for ride by the congress. Thirdly, what is wrong with
asking Muslims to be aware of 'cultural nationalism? Only a few months ago,
a Roman Catholic Bishop of Hyderabad had the courage and honesty to say
that by culture he was a Hindu, by religion a Christian and by nationality,
an Indian. Rightly put. Said Advani to his Muslim listeners: "My party not
only respects but celebrates the multi-religious, multi-lingual and
multi-ethnic diversity of the Indian society which is united at its core by
cultural nationalism". Only blind, prejudiced and hate-filed secularists
will attempt to run down the BJP. For these people, the BJP can do nothing
right just as they believe that the Congress, the Janata Dal and the
leftist parties could do n wrong - and damn the evidence.
And the evidence is there for all to see, screaming in newspaper headlines,
day in and day out. The entire nation may call for the resignation of Laloo
Prasad, the Prime Minister himself, after a lot of hesitation may ask Laloo
to quit the Chief Minister's post but Laloo has his own priorities. He has
won what many consider a pyretic victory but does anyone remember how P.V.
Narsimha Rao got he JMM MPs to vote for him when his own minority
government was in danger? What can be - or is - the understanding between
Laloo and his new-found JMM supporters?
The truth is that whether one like it or not, the BJP proves the only
alternative available to the public which is tired of the scams, the
internecine fights within the United Front, and the constant sniping at the
Front by the Congress. In the circumstances why should not Advani go
asking for votes? He is not running a Religious Order; he is president of a
political party and it should be his strategy to move to centre stage. It
is plain rubbish to say as one important critic has said that the BJP has
reached political saturation and it suffering from ideological fatigue. A
statement like that applies to the Congress; as for the Janata Dal which is
the largest party within the United Front it never had any ideology to
begin with. Its strength lay in its anti-Congressism. All that it has now
done that it has transferred its 'anti' philosophy to the BJP.
By making his long journey Advani, alone among all politicians has shown
that he is for the people. Critics may rave and rant, but the people seem
to be behind Advani as the rath yatra has abundantly proved. The dogs may
bark, but the caravan marches on.
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