Author: Syed Shahabudin
Publication: www.india.com
Date: November 24, 2000
When Atal Bihari Vajpayee
became the Foreign Minister in 1977, for his first address to the senior
officers of the Ministry, he walked in, sat silently, pensively for a few
minutes and then expressed his sense of pride at occupying the chair once
occupied by Jawaharlal Nehru. I recall the dramatic moment when he
identified himself with Nehru's vision of India and of its place in the
world. Today at the pinnacle of power, he has totally abandoned that
vision.
In 1998 on a visit to
the U.S. he addressed a public meeting and reception by the Indian
American Communities, jointly organised by Hindu organisations which had
not bothered to associate the non-Hindu Indian communities or their institutions
and associations, and thus reduced it to a Hindu show. I had then
cautioned him against extending patronage to parochialism and communalism
on official visits abroad. He had kindly acknowledged my letter but
he did not learn any lesson. Perhaps he did not want to learn.
If he has fallen into
the pit again, it was a willing act. And this time he has gone the
whole hog expressing pride in his association with the RSS, assuring the
VHP that he would usher in the Hindu Raj of their dreams, if only his party
obtained two-third of the seats in the Parliament. Admirers may call
it tightrope walking, an exercise in diplomacy, a feat of eloquence but
shorn of verbiage. Vajpayee has for once dropped his mask and exposed
his real self, whatever his political compulsion may be.
Dropping the mask of
liberalism
With one long breath
in New York, Prime Minister Vajpayee has also blown away the bubble created
by the BJP President Bangaru Laxman's recent overture towards the Muslims.
Whether he did so, intentionally or inadvertently, in a fit of eloquence,
the mask of liberalism that he wore so skilfully has fallen off.
He has publicly joined the saffron hordes.
Seen in this context,
Laxman's overture to Muslims was electorally propelled. The BJP needs
five per cent more votes.
Apart from the SC, ST
and OBC votes, it casts an avaricious look at the Muslim votes, the liberal
and secular Hindu votes, to divert at least a part of it, at least to divide
these traditionally hostile votes or to deny them to its secular rivals.
Therefore, it sheds tears, expresses sympathy, shares concern, makes promises
and gives assurances to change the lot of the Muslims; but now they all
sound hollow and meaningless verbal exercise in vote-catching. Vajpayee's
critics have always accused him of doublethink and doubletalk. For
long, he has been leading a double life or suffering from split personality,
oscillating between private assurances to the Hindutva brigade, the Sangh
Parivar and public protestations of liberalism and secularism. But
sometimes he deliberately mixes them up.
Recently, when he praised
and defended the RSS on the floor of the Parliament, when he reopened the
national debate on conversion, when he shut the door in the face of Farooq
Abdullah on the question of Autonomy, when he maintained total silence
in the face of systematic persecution of the religious minorities in Gujarat,
the only State ruled by the BJP on its own; when he turned a Nelson's eye
to the deliberate saffronisation of school education in UP, the organised
campaign of calumny against the madarsas and the Masjids, when he deliberately
choked all communication with the Muslim community except through the stooges
and hirelings strutting about as court jesters.
Thus, BJP's moderation
in knocking together the NDA platform has been proved to be nothing but
a tactical retreat while the strategic goals remain unchanged. Heading
a coalition, whatever the price, has its obvious advantages and power is
being milked methodically to nourish and promote the long-term objectives
of the Hinduisation of Indian Polity, Society and Culture.
It is a moment of introspection
for the BJP's NDA allies. The BJP is counting on making a forcible
entry into their pastures. For, the BJP can never get its desired
majority without cutting into its allies backyards.
Purely for survival,
as they have long forsaken ideological purity, how can they go on ignoring
the continuous implementation of the no longer hidden agenda of the Sangh
Parivar and the political game-plan of the BJP? One fine morning they might
wake up to face a take over by the saffron hordes.
A moment of truth
It is equally a moment
of truth for those fence-sitter who were attracted by Vajpayee, who admired
him but abhorred the RSS and the Sangh Parivar and who rationalized his
frequent words and deeds in support of the Sangh Parivar as nothing more
than the minimum necessary to keep it in good humour. Now they know
the line of demarcation stands erased.
Technically the hundreds
of organisations and institutions spawned by the RSS may have their own
legal identity but the ideology, the mindset, the object and purpose and
their raison d'etre, remain common and identical. Organisationally
also they are in constant touch, each playing his assigned role in a well-orchestrated,
well-directed farce. This farce may turn into a national tragedy,
when the night of fascism descends upon the country.
Vajpayee should know
that he has let down the people who saw him as the national rather than
a party leader. He cannot be all things to all men for all time.
He should realize that the theatrical has its limits.
Vajpayee visited U.S.
as the Prime Minister of India and not as the Representative of Hindu India,
not even as the Supreme Leader of the BJP, certainly not as a Swayamsevak,
even though the U.S. Congress may, for its own reasons, prefer to
see India as a Hindu State and crown him as its Hindu Maharaja.
