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| After Ram Mandir, Amarnath Congress gives another gift to BJP | | | ANITA SALUJA
JAMMU, Nov 24: After the Ram Mandir agitation and the Amarnath land transfer controversy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been handed out by the Congress the issue of Hindu terrorism, to unite all the saffron outfits under one banner and to take the secular parties head-on, on this issue.
The BJP, which wavered initially because it was an issue of terrorism, has finally decided to go for it, not knowing whether at the end it will burn its fingers or come out a winner.
It had few options anyway, after the Sangh Parivar made its stand known.
With electioneering in progress for six State Assemblies, the BJP is confident that while ‘Hindu terror’ would surely pay rich political dividends in Madhya Pradesh, the home State of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, in other States like Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and even in Jammu & Kashmir (given the Amarnath land transfer row), the BJP will largely benefit from the controversy, thanks to the Congress, for gunning the Hindu outfits in its anxiety to please its secular allies, particularly Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Pawar, who were agitated over the messing-up of the non-Marathi issue in Mumbai.
Now, Lalu Prasad and the likes can conveniently spew venom on Advani and his colleagues, calling them terrorists and getting away with it.
But the larger issue of further polarization between Muslims and Hindus has further damaged the political prospects of the Congress.
The Ram Mandir agitation in 1989 made then BJP president L K Advani a hero. He succeeded in turning around the fortunes of the party. The BJP, which had just two Lok Sabha MPs in 1984, increased its tally to 86 in the 1989 elections and to 119 in 1991 and was the single-largest party in 1996, 1998 and 1999.
In fact, the BJP owes its ascendance to the Hindutva agenda, with Advani taking the lead in stirring communal emotions. Although the agenda was crucial to the BJP victories of 1996 and 1998, the promise to build the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the uniform civil code and abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution were quietly buried on the grounds that it couldn’t be done in a coalition government.
Advani was forced into the backseat and Atal Behari Vajpayee emerged as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance.
When it fell, and Vajpayee departed the scene, Advani took over. Almost immediately, he committed political hara-kiri when he tried to change his image as a hardliner by paying homage at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah and terming him secular. A furious Sangh Parivar forced him to resign as BJP president. Later, though, he returned to being his original self.
Being in opposition for almost five years, the BJP had no emotive issue until Ram Sethu came along.
The Ministry of Culture’s affidavit in the Supreme Court gave the BJP a handle to exploit it from the hindutva plank.
Then came Amarnath, where Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s bungling helped the BJP re-ignite the Hindutva agenda in a big way. Both issues were given to the BJP on a platter by the Congress.
It was a lifeline to a party bereft of ideas, and eyeing the coming elections gloomily. But it is the issue of Hindu terror that has really helped to unite the saffron outfits — Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and Hindu Mahasabha — and to turn them belligerent.
The BJP willy-nilly had to toe the line after initial hesitations from L K Advani. It was BJP president Rajnath Singh who first fell in-line, questioning the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) investigation and coming up with a blanket assertion that Hindus could never be terrorists.
Advani was conspicuous by his absence at the Panipat rally, though all the Hindu outfits were present to espouse the cause of Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Purohit, and others linked to the blasts.
Apparently, Advani wants to refashion his image and emerge as a moderate, like Vajpayee, to gain wider acceptability with the NDA allies, while Rajnath Singh wants to take the place of Advani as a hardliner.
But, as part of the RSS-driven consensus-building effort, Advani too was forced to fall in line.
While VHP international president Ashok Singhal has threatened agitation on Pragya Singh Thakur issue, the BJP has also decided to go on the offensive. According to the BJP leadership, it is the Congress that has defamed India by gunning for the Hindus, though all along it was the Muslims who were known to be terrorists, worldwide. |
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