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THE NATION:
AYODHYA ISSUE
Ram
at Random
Vajpayee's
apparent endorsement of a temple in Ayodhya rekindles an old issue and
alarms NDA partners. It is also an olive branch to Sangh hardliners.
By
Farzand Ahmed and Subhash Mishra
One
of the hallmarks of a successful Indian politician is that he should mean
all things to all men. On Wednesday, December 6, the eighth anniversary
of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee took the rest of the Lok Sabha by surprise by asserting
that the Ram temple agitation was a "nationalist movement".
The mission was unfinished, he seemed to suggest: "Kaam adhura reh
gaya hai."
 |
| On the
eighth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri masjid, the Prime
Minister took the rest of the Lok Sabha by surprise. |
The Congress,
the Left and the Samajwadi Party (SP) were up in arms. The BJP, till the
other day downplaying "divisive issues", was trying to reconcile
the prime minister's statement with its new image. The junior partners
of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) were in acute discomfort; with
the exception of the Shiv Sena no one seemed to share Vajpayee's views.
The next
day saw the anticlimax. At iftaar parties hosted in Delhi by Minister
of State for Human Resource Development (HRD) Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and
Lok Sabha Speaker G.M.C. Balayogi, Vajpayee explained that what he meant
by "kaam adhura reh gaya" was not that the construction of a
temple had been prevented but that the dispute had not been resolved.
The building
of a Ram mandir-which forms part of the BJP's agenda as kept in abeyance
by the NDA's programme-the prime minister said, was only possible "should
the court give a verdict" (a title suit is pending before the Allahbad
High Court) or following a "dialogue between Hindus and Muslims".
There would be no deviation, he clarified, from the NDA's agreed agenda.
While his
renowned eloquence-or merely linguistic jugglery, if one were to go by
his opponents-helped Vajpayee negotiate a tricky situation, it didn't
quite answer the basic question: why did he say what he did?
The more
charitable interpretation of Vajpayee's statement is that it was no more
than an off the cuff reaction to the extreme provocation of a howling
opposition. For three days the Congress and sp had led a demand for the
resignation of Home Minister L.K. Advani, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi
and Sports Minister Uma Bharati-all three find mention in the demolition
case chargesheet as being collaterally responsible for the destruction
of the 16th century shrine. Exasperated at the unruly behaviour, Vajpayee
just lost his shirt, his associates say.
The other
interpretation is somewhat more elaborate. It amounts to, to quote CPI(ML)
General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, the baring of Vajpayee's "fascist
saffron soul". "Vajpayee's statement," Samajwadi Party
leader Ashok Bajpai says, "has unmasked his real face."
Broadly
speaking, Vapjayee's words signal possible political mileage for both
of India's two largest parties: the BJP and the Congress. Whatever the
compulsions of coalition politics and the public fatigue with emotive
issues, the fact is the Ram constituency forms a significant section of
the BJP's vote bank. Whether it likes it or not the piggyback ride on
the mandir issue took the BJP from two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 to 161
in 1996-a period in which it was more or less in a self-described "splendid
isolation".
Vajpayee
and Advani are not unmindful that a chunk of the party is aggrieved the
"distinctive" issues have been more or less jettisoned. From
a hard line on terrorism and a vow to abolish Article 370-which gives
Jammu and Kashmir more autonomy than any other state-the BJP-led government
has moved towards a unilateral cease-fire and a dove-like approach.
The emphasis
on economic liberalisation has also upset the protectionist swadeshi brigade
within the Sangh parivar. In recent days K.S. Sudarshan, the RSS chief
and Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena have been Vajpayee's biggest headaches.
It is possible that the prime minister saw a cleverly ambiguous statement
on Ayodhya as a move designed to quieten his in-house critics and silence
those who accuse him of entirely ignoring the BJP's fundament. That the
BJP faces a tough election in Uttar Pradesh in about a year must also
have played its role.
For the
Congress, finally waking up to its job as a combative rather than comatose
opposition party, the Ram revival has been a godsend. From the demand
that three ministers resign, it is now training its guns on the prime
minister himself. Says Madhavrao Scindia, the party's deputy leader in
the Lok Sabha, "It (Vajpayee's statement) is outrageous. His description
of the Ram temple as a reflection of national sentiment is not true. Vajpayee
cannot speak for all of us. We are part of the nation and we don't agree."
Nevertheless,
the Congress' own record on Ayodhya, as the BJP emphasises, is not squeaky
clean. It was Vir Bahadur Singh who-as Uttar Pradesh's chief minister
in 1986-allowed worship of the idols placed in the Babri structure, without
appealing against a local court's order to do so.
In 1989,
Rajiv Gandhi allowed the shilanyas (brick laying ceremony) for the temple
and began his general election campaign in Ayodhya by calling for Ram
rajya. Despite the overt bravado-a party spokesman in Lucknow demanded
Vajpayee too be tried for the "conspiracy" behind the demolition-the
Uttar Pradesh wing of the party cautions that "tinkering with an
explosive issue" may leave it the biggest loser.
Calculations
in Delhi obviously work differently. The central Congress leadership is
determined to keep Ayodhya alive. It figures it can use it to mobilise
the Muslim vote, so crucial in Uttar Pradesh especially, and also to embarrass
the BJP's alliance partners. While Vajpayee admitted "NDA partners
are unhappy about what I said" and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool
Congress and Yerran Naidu of the TDP met him to seek clarifications, the
murmurs persists. Mamata, really, may be the most vulnerable on this score.
The BJP
is not expected to take any immediate steps beyond the prime minister's
one contentious line. Yet over the next few months it will be galvanising
its footsoldiers for the uttar Pradesh assembly polls scheduled for March
2002; issues and ideas that some NDA members could be squeamish about
may well return to centre stage.
This period
will overlap with the run up to the West Bengal assembly election of May
2001. Mamata cannot be oblivious of the fact that one in four voters in
her home state is Muslim. So even if Vajpayee's statement dies a natural
death, there is still a bigger circle waiting to be squared. You could
call it Ayodhya's last laugh.
-with
Lakshmi Iyer
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METRO TODAY
Ayodhya
is an issue that is pre-determined. And it matters little in the present
fuss that the foremost casualty is the truth, writes INDIA TODAY Deputy
Editor Swapan Dasgupta in 
