Columns: The Usual Suspects

Columns

India Today, March 29, 1999
March 29, 1999

THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Trusting Guruswamy

In betrayal, Advani may yet emerge a wiser man

By Swapan Dasgupta

Whether it is the age-old disdain for Vibhisana, Jaichand and Mir Jafar or the public school disapproval of sneaks, the weight of public opinion is normally ranged against treachery. To that extent, former adviser to the finance minister, Mohan Guruswamy, should be elated that he is being judged differently by honourable men like Manmohan Singh. In taking an apparently serious view of his outpourings against the prime minister, his household, Yashwant Sinha and sundry others, the parliamentary opposition and the media have elevated Guruswamy to the status of a conscientious objector.

It's an elevation that is unwarranted. For the moment, Guruswamy is basking in the limelight, providing gratuitous soundbites about a Charles-Diana relationship at the top and quantifying the bribe allegedly offered to him for not reacting to media previews of a petition that hadn't reached the prime minister. But reduced to essentials, his tell-all articles betray more about his own shiftiness than they do about murky goings-on on Race Course Road. There is only one gainer from Guruswamy's confessions -- the cigarette giant ITC, which has ensured that a bat takeover won't happen in a hurry. And if there is one casualty, it is the hapless L.K. Advani, the only man who has a right to feel truly devastated. Guruswamy has severely undermined Advani's formidable moral authority in the BJP.

It's not merely a question of misjudgement, which can happen to the best of persons. Advani's real failure lay in allowing himself to be swayed by the private agendas of those who have made it their business to lower his standing to that of a faction leader. Even before he played truant in the Finance Ministry, there was enough evidence that Guruswamy's integration into the BJP was suspect. As member of the manifesto committee, he tried to nudge the party into dropping the clause on the nuclear option. Citing Advani's authority, he even suggested that negating this central tenet of the BJP programme had the blessings of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Thanks to an almighty tantrum thrown by Brajesh Mishra, K.R. Malkani and Vijay Kumar Malhotra, the N-option remained in the BJP manifesto. Again, when there was a motivated media leak about the manifesto proposing a five-year cap on the outflow of foreign portfolio investment, many insiders detected the hand of an interloper.

Advani couldn't have been unaware of the manner in which his name was being bandied about. Why did he remain silent? More to the point, why didn't he reassess his relationship with those who brought the factional dynamics of the Janata Dal into the BJP? It was an open secret that some of the near-permanent fixtures in Pandara Park doubled up as fixers and information-gatherers for corporate groups. Advani erred in giving them a free hand and letting his image be tarred by association. He allowed the impression to gain ground that he was their prisoner. He didn't merely let himself down, he let down everyone who expected differently from the man who, in effect, made the BJP.

In a sense, Advani's belated realisation that he must be discerning in his choice of durbaris is the most positive outcome of the Guruswamy affair. In Government, Advani's stock has taken a beating. Some of the fall owes to his ever-willingness to make himself a fall guy on all occasions. The rest is solely due to the lot he patronised. The man who redefined Indian politics was made to look very common. Advani deserved better. Much better.

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