Feb 15, 1999
|
|
|
|
GOVERNMENT At Daggers Drawn By Harinder Baweja Khurana's outburst embarrasses the BJP and spurs the allies into demanding that the party rein in the Sangh hardliners.
Devoid of ministerial responsibility, Madan Lal Khurana has turned reckless. He has broken a cardinal rule of the BJP by attacking the RSS publicly. "There are elements in the RSS which want to remote-control the Government and tarnish its image," barked Khurana soon after his resignation was accepted. In more settled times, such words would have been music to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's ears. But in today's context, Khurana sounded no different from the Government's alliance partners. No different from Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress who has been demanding the resignation of Home Minister L.K. Advani after he gave a clean chit to the Bajrang Dal. Khurana's atonement drive came just before the crucial Coordination Committee (CC) meeting to discuss ways to salvage the Government's battered image. The pugnacious Delhi stalwart of the BJP was upset after he had not been allowed to speak his mind at the party National Executive meet in Bangalore last month. It was a resentment that was building up since the RSS vetoed his re-induction as Delhi's chief minister after he was acquitted in the Jain Hawala case. But it was the timing of his outburst that posed problems. The moment suited the alliance partners just fine, seething as they were over the price rise and the Sangh's offensive against Christians. So it was not the hastily prepared, indifferent lunch of fried fish, dal and sabzi that bothered the 18 participants of the cc on February 2. Each of them had other bones to pick in what cc Convener George Fernandes described as a "no-holds-barred meeting". The prices of wheat and rice were rolled back for those below the poverty line but the pledge the BJP and its allies took was of greater significance. Through a joint statement -- which only the ever-awkward J. Jayalalitha refused to sign -- the allies resolved to avoid voicing their differences with the Government in public. The BJP, in turn, promised "every effort to ensure that the prestige and cohesiveness of the coalition are not diluted by organisations belonging to its ideological fraternity". A draft of the statement was distributed when the meeting began at noon. The ground was prepared in advance at a session between Vajpayee and Advani where they agreed to put the Government's survival above the RSS agenda. Advani even told RSS Joint General Secretary K. Sudarshan of their intention when he called on him at Jhandewalan two days before. As a mediator between Vajpayee, who wants a free hand to pursue the National Agenda, and the RSS, which is unhappy over constant ideological deviations, Advani's task is unenviable. Especially since the Sangh Parivar, seems to have veered round to the belief that it should assume the role of an extra-parliamentary ombudsman.
Unlike Thakre, who was made to sign on the dotted line after a feeble protest, it is the other members of the Sangh fraternity that Vajpayee needs to worry about. It is one thing to rein in the allies and have them resolve to strengthen the Government and quite another to expect a sullen RSS to toe the line. Alliance partners can be wooed with sops, which is exactly what the Government did within two days of the cc meeting. By clearing two rail projects Mamata was demanding it succeeded in softening her opposition. Similarly, Vajpayee conceded Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's demand for a National Development Council meet to discuss subsidies. But bowing to the family will be much harder, for their demands come ideologically packaged. In his new avatar as the interface between the Government and the RSS, it is Advani's task to keep both the Government going and the Sangh fraternity intact. "I will not let the gulf increase,'' he told a colleague. The remark was made in response to a message the minister was carrying on behalf of Sudarshan to stall plans to declare 2000 as the Year of Christ. "Please speak to Sudarshanji immediately" was a message that came loaded with urgency. That, in many ways, is at the core of the problem. Sudarshan's intrusive ways have led to tensions between Race Course Road and Jhandewalan. He and BJP General Secretary K.N. Govindacharya have been charged with encouraging the different wings of the Sangh to talk in conflicting voices. It is these voices that Khurana attacked -- in letters to Thakre and Vajpayee -- and ended up losing his job. Yet, in quietly accepting Khurana's resignation, Vajpayee too sent a signal that he is loath to alienate the family altogether. There is a lingering sense of corporate loyalty in Vajpayee which was evident when he inaugurated the Swadeshi Jagran Manch fair despite the vitriol poured on him earlier by its Joint Convener S. Gurumurthy. For the moment, there are no signs of a ceasefire between the Government and the Sangh. The VHP is holding its dharam sansad in Ahmedabad where again the controversial issue of conversions will be in full political play. Also to be announced is a mass awareness campaign on Ram Janmabhoomi. As if this isn't trouble enough, the BMS is holding its three-day national convention in Nagpur from February 15. Here too the agenda can only be unsettling for Vajpayee, for it centres on the thorny issue of opening up insurance and other sectors to foreign investors. Advani called Ashok Singhal and other VHP leaders to his North Block office before their departure for Ahmedabad. If his persuasion works, the VHP will breathe fire and brimstone and then settle for the less contentious task of Dalit and tribal uplift. On the other hand, Singhal could allow his antipathy to Vajpayee to sway his judgement. Not too many in the BJP are placing any bets on the future conduct of the RSS and its affiliates. As party Vice-President K.L. Sharma says, "We can only try and persuade them." The same applies to the allies. Most of them are signatories to the joint statement but the critics -- Jayalalitha, Mamata and the TDP -- are still outside the agreement not to make dissenting noises publicly. Vajpayee, selling himself as a liberal who will soon take the bus to Lahore -- the same bus being opposed by the Shiv Sena -- has tided over the present crisis but it may not be long before the next one appears. It won't necessarily boil down to a numbers game. Till now, the BJP has been arguing that the different arms of the Sangh have their own identities and functional autonomy. By including them in the joint statement, the Government has acknowledged in writing that "negative utterances and positions by certain elements perceived to be close to the nucleus of our coalition, BJP, have also undermined the prestige of the Government". In other words, Vajpayee has to either control the RSS or perish. |
|
Issue Contents | Write to us | Subscriptions | Syndication BUSINESS TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS | COMPUTERS TODAY © Living Media India Ltd |
 |
 |
The process of RSS
detachment from the Government gathered speed after the BJP's disastrous showing in last
November's assembly elections. From BJP chief Kushabhau Thakre reprimanding the Government
for not taking the party into confidence over the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill to
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) founder Dattopant Thengdi attacking the prime minister for
surrounding himself with "anti-national" elements, RSS leaders made their
distaste for the Government painfully apparent. Many in the BJP believe that the attacks
on Christians followed these bellicose signals from the top. 
