June 1, 1998

The BJP is euphoric. The Opposition is still responding with stunned confusion.

By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik and Harish Gupta

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee may have appended Jai Vigyan to Lal Bahadur Shastri's famous Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan slogan, but Jai Atom Bomb better captures the BJP's post-May 11 gung-ho. Not only is the ruling party euphoric at having realised its long cherished goal of a nuclear India, but there also is jubilation at having altered political equations with the five Big Bangs. The BJP sees itself as bathed in triumph and glory, its allies subdued and the Opposition stunned. So triumphalist is the mood that party General Secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu even labelled all contrary views "unpatriotic".

BJP ideologues see the tests as another giant leap towards dominating the nationalist space earlier held by the Congress, this time without the liability of a "communal" tag. The process has only been aided by the Congress' dithering on the issue. It took party President Sonia Gandhi 10 days and a lot of soul-searching to finally come out against the nuclear tests. "Real strength lies in restraint, not in the display of shakti," she told a rally on the seventh anniversary of husband Rajiv's assassination.

Sonia's confusion was the outcome of two distinct views within the Congress. While Leader of the Opposition Sharad Pawar is not shy of climbing on the "national pride" bandwagon, others have been oozing scepticism. Spokesman Salman Khurshid, AICC Secretary Mani Shankar Aiyar and Economic Affairs Secretary Jairam Ramesh, all considered close to Sonia, advised outright condemnation. Initially, it was AICC Foreign Affairs Chairman K. Natwar Singh's view of cautious praise that prevailed. In her consultations with partymen, Sonia is believed to have conceded that "the tide is in favour of the BJP". Eventually, however, the sceptics had their way on the strength of the argument that the Nehru-Gandhi foreign policy consensus had been destroyed by Vajpayee. While still shying away from attacking the tests outright, the Congress has decided to take on the Government for generating a war hysteria. Says Pawar: "I fail to understand why the BJP is linking the tests with a threat from China."

There is little doubt that Sonia's "foreign" origins are once again going to become a point of contention. The Left has already lashed out at Vajpayee for "trying to equate the bomb with patriotism and whip up a jingoistic fervour" while Mulayam Singh Yadav has charged the BJP of communalising the issue.

There are undeniably strong undercurrents of Hindu nationalism surging through the entire Sangh Parivar. Says General Secretary K.N. Govindacharya: "Like the feeling attached to Ayodhya, the nuclear tests are an emotional nationalist assertion." All the same, the BJP leadership is resisting temptation to give the tests a religious colour. The Rajasthan BJP's executive had, for instance, chalked out a plan for Vajpayee to hold a public meeting in Ram Deora, a centre of religious pilgrimage in Pokhran, following which rallyists would head home with the sands of Pokhran. Says a senior BJP leader: "The emotion behind the proposal to spread Pokhran sand was to spread the feeling of national self-confidence." The idea was to galvanise the local unit in a state where assembly elections are due later this year. It finally took the intervention of the prime minister to scuttle this agitprop. Addressing BJP workers at his residence, Vajpayee made it clear that "no party or individual can take the credit for the tests". He even cancelled a public meeting in Bangalore organised by the party to felicitate him on the "big bomb".

Similarly, Home Minister L.K. Advani has dismissed all speculation of having built a so-called "Hindu bomb" while countering Pakistan's suggestion that India's nuclear tests bear out the two-nation theory. "The fact that Farooq Abdullah and Dr Abdul Kalam could be working for their country with the same patriotic dedication as any other Indian does not fit into the false framework of the two nation theory on which Pakistan is based," he said. Farooq responded to the gesture by accompanying Vajpayee to Pokhran. At a public meeting, he further warmed the hearts of diehard Hindutva supporters by stating that "Lord Ram is not the God of the Hindus alone. He is the God of the entire world and so, is the lord of Farooq Abdullah."

Just the sort of rhetoric that goes down well with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which placed the BJP in an awkward spot by announcing the construction of a "Shaktipeeth" at Pokhran. "We are not concerned with the BJP," says VHP General Secretary Acharya Giriraj Kishore, as he unfolds plans for this shrine to nuclear power. "Shakti," he says, "will be depicted by a tandav nritya of Shiva and Durga."

This may seem outlandish to many, but the BJP tries to laugh away the excesses of its camp followers. "The message is powerful enough for us to avoid overt symbolism," are the parting words of a senior cabinet minister. For the moment that is true. The question is: for how long?

Issue Contents | Write to us | Subscriptions

© Living Media India Ltd