Modi or no one, there is no third choice

By Swapan Dasgupta

During my college days when high intellectualism and profanity went hand in hand, there was a crude Hindi phrase that became shorthand for a phenomenon that can best be described as the hype-that-never. It is possible that the high-minded disciples of the venerable Dr Raghu Vira in the BJP have never allowed such disagreeable colloquialisms to sully their speech and thoughts. This may explain why this repository of high culture has titillated itself with unending foreplay—a perversity that is fast becoming a bore.   

The allusion is to the tortuous prevarication that has greeted the intense all-round pressure that the BJP end the uncertainty over the leadership question. The speculation over the role to be played by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the general election has been hanging fire for nearly six months. Now, as the political game enters the proverbial slog overs stage, the impatience of those who are demanding a formal decision is approaching boiling point. They want a decision, preferably at the meeting of the National Executive in Goa later this week.

The choices before the BJP leaders are simple: either they project Modi as the face of the general election campaign or they adopt a lofty stand that the party is more important than any individual. There is no third path. The suggestion, periodically mooted by sundry individuals, that the old war-horse L.K. Advani be given another throw of the dice amount to very little and would probably constitute an affront to an India that is demographically more attuned to the 21^st century. Equally, the wild-card proposal to anoint the previous party president Nitin Gadkari as the chairman of the party’s campaign committee is just a transparently sly bid to stop Modi at all costs.

In reality, the BJP has no real choice but to bite the Modi bullet. Anecdotal evidence—which counts for a great deal in India’s political decision-making—has quite clearly indicated that the BJP’s natural supporters are enthused by Modi in the same way as they were by the Ayodhya issue in 1991 and by Atal Behari Vajpayee’s leadership in 1998 and 1999. More to the point—and this is privately conceded by the leaders of non-NDA parties—the Modi buzz has infected sections that, in the normal course, are not partial to the BJP.

The anecdotal evidence is backed by opinion polls that point to a significant Modi bulge for the NDA parties throughout the country but particularly in northern and western India. The findings suggest that if the downhill slide of the UPA-2 Government persists and the other side isn’t debilitated by self-inflicted wounds, a Modi-led campaign would enable the BJP and its allies to maximise its seat tally from its traditional areas of influence. This is particularly appealing to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh where it has been struggling to re-establish itself since 1999. It may even prove an attraction to parties who are still outside the NDA fold, as the Vajpayee factor did in 1998 and 1999.

In a country as vast, diverse and differentiated as India, there is no single explanation for the dramatic surge in the popularity of a regional leader without any dynastic claim. To a vocal minusculity, Modi is the standard bearer of Hindu nationalism. But beyond this fringe, his appeal rests on other factors: as the proverbial no-nonsense, strong leader who can check India’s drift, as a champion of economic resurgence and as an epitome of personal integrity.

To these perceived attributes is a curious addition: caste. Modi has never flaunted his social origins and that he comes from a small backward caste is still relatively unknown. But throughout northern India, the bush telegraph is resonating with the news that, for the first time in living memory, there is an OBC aspirant to the post of Prime Minister. The potential emotional appeal of this is incalculable.

These may explain why, if the BJP leadership persists in dithering, we may witness an Indian variant of Mao’s famous call in 1967 to “bombard the headquarters” when a staid leadership was upstaged by raw enthusiasm of the Red Guards. For the BJP, Goa could witness either a celebration or an insurrection. 

Sunday Times of India, June 2, 2013

Advani has not moved with times

By Swapan Dasgupta

In politics, timing is everything. In more normal times, L.K. Advani’s blog, written partially in response to my column last week, could have been viewed as an intervention on inner-party democracy or, more specifically, the BJP’s ability to respond to adversity. Unfortunately, the blog was uploaded on May 31, in the immediate aftermath of the BJP National Executive in Mumbai and on the day that the NDA (of which he is the Chairman) organised a reasonably successful Bharat bandh to protest against the steep hike in petrol prices. In other words, while the party’s foot soldiers were out in the streets on an unbearably hot day, Advani diverted attention to navel gazing.

Admittedly, playing spoil-sport, even if it was only to contest my assessment of the Mumbai National Executive meeting, may not have been uppermost in the mind of the BJP patriarch. But his unequivocal assertion that there was widespread popular disappointment with the party and internal disenchantment with some of its recent moves ended up suggesting one of two things: either that the party was deeply divided or that Advani himself was out of tune with the organisation he has so lovingly built over the past three decades.

In a mass party of the size and diversity of the BJP, it is near-impossible to believe that every functionary will be on the same page. Even in the heady days of the Ayodhya movement, it was hardly a secret that Atal Behari Vajpayee harboured misgivings of the BJP’s hyper-involvement in the agitation. Yet, it was also true that Vajpayee’s scepticism was not shared by the overwhelming majority of the party, and this was a reason why Advani, strongly backed by the RSS, was preferred over Vajpayee for the Leader of Opposition post in 1991. Of course, Vajpayee’s dissent happened in the pre-Breaking News age.

In today’s BJP, there are many shades of opinion jostling for attention. Consensus-building is tortuous and often involves leaving issues unresolved for longer than is strictly necessary—as happened in the case of Uttarakhand and as is happening in Karnataka. More often than not it also produces patch-work compromises that fail the test of wider political acceptability.

For the BJP, the exercise in collective decision-making has not always yielded satisfactory results for two reasons. Since the Jinnah controversy and the retirement of Vajpayee from active politics, the BJP no longer has a pre-eminent leader who can take a final call, even if it involves offending colleagues. Advani was unquestionably the tallest leader and a person who enjoyed wide respect of all. However, following the BJP’s failure to make the grade in the presidential-style campaign of the 2009 general election, his ability to get his way on different issues is carrying diminishing returns.

One of the reasons for this is a mismatch of perception over the veteran leader’s role. Whereas most of the party views Advani as a mentor occupying the largely ceremonial role of Chairman of the NDA, Advani sees himself as an active player in the day-to-day affairs of the party and a person who still calls the shots. It is not that his views are disregarded or that he is kept out of the party’s important decision-making bodies, but that his word is no longer final. It is a human problem. The world around Advani has changed but he has not moved with the times.

The consequences have been tragic. Advani may imagine that he is expressing his heartfelt anguish and echoing the sentiments of those exasperated by the delay in creating a viable alternative to a discredited UPA. However, to the party faithful he is increasingly appearing in the garb of a faction leader and a pliant instrument of those who have scores to settle with colleagues. Advani may reflect on the fact that while his blog has aroused fierce media interest, it has generated very little sympathy from within the BJP.

In Mumbai, the BJP moved one step closer to finding a new equilibrium. First, it took the first tentative steps in anointing a leader who can step into the shoes of Vajpayee and Advani. On his part, former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has identified the man explicitly and this was echoed in the public meeting at Mumbai. Secondly, in keeping with the enhanced importance of states in the polity, the BJP chose to formally recognise the importance of regional leaders in national affairs. There were many things the National Executive left unaddressed. The most important of these is the policy orientation of the party which is increasingly looking very ad-hoc. But at least a beginning was made in recasting the party to suit contemporary realities.

The BJP is in the throes of a delicate transition to a new order. Like any new enterprise, there are grave risks and many uncertainties. There are also dangers that the removal of one set of problems could lead to the creation of new distortions, the most import of which is ideological insularity. With his long experience, Advani has a key role to play in the run-up to the next general election. Every organisation can do with a father figure who can iron out the creases, provide encouragement and caution, and inspire with his record of selflessness. Like his favourite A.K. Hangal contemplating a comeback, Advani can enrich a good story. He must leave the business of drawing in the crowds to someone else.


Sunday Pioneer, March 3, 2012 

Who’s bigger? Message or Messenger?

By Swapan Dasgupta

If the solitary purpose of the Jan Chetna Yatra being undertaken by LK Advani was to demonstrate that the India of 2011 is markedly different from the India of 1990, it could be described as an unqualified success. Whereas in 1990 the Somnath to Ayodhya yatra was cut off in full flow at Samastipur on the orders of the Bihar Chief Minister, Advani’s fifth yatra had the satisfaction of being flagged off from Bihar by a friendlier Bihar CM.

In an ideal world, major political undertakings — irrespective of the loftiness of the cause — should not be pursued casually. For the BJP, there were other, less exacting ways of demonstrating that Nitish Kumar has been extricated from the clutches of the evil Lalu Prasad, and that 21 years is a long time in politics.

Advani must have kept in mind the experience of the Rashtra Suraksha Yatra of 2006 which was a casualty of mass indifference. The yatra had been suggested as an angry response to the blasts in Dasashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi, an issue that agitated the public mind in 2006 just as corruption does today. Yet, the yatra was a monumental flop not least because it lacked focus. Its objectives were five-fold: to safeguard national security; to defend national unity; to rescue governance from corruption and criminalisation; to save parliamentary democracy; and to protect the aam aadmi, garib and kisans.

So generous was the embrace of the yatra that an adventurous soul may well have smuggled in the demand for a Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar. No one would have noticed it, and least of all party functionaries who approached the yatra with the same sense of foreboding as the soldier who rode in the charge of the Light Brigade. But at least, it would have resonated with the “youth”—a slippery commodity that refuses to be re-inducted into a party it deserted sometime between the capitulation in Kandahar and the images of Bangaru Laxman extending his hand towards a wad of currency notes.

On this anti-corruption yatra too, the organisers have tried to inject a youth quotient by recording a theme song that had the party leadership wanting to emulate Herman Goering and reach for their guns at the mention of the word ‘culture’. Even Advani was compelled to concede during his gush-gush interview with NDTV’s Barkha Dutt that the song was best kept away from the ears of rural India — an indication that the messaging was wrong yet again.

The BJP, it would seem, has not taken sufficient care with the larger messaging of the ongoing Jan Chetna yatra. There is no point complaining that the media has been wilfully mischievous and has highlighted the footnotes rather than the central theme. During the 1990 yatra that redefined the ideological agenda for the next 15 years, the media also tried its utmost to focus on trivia.

Those with memories may recall how the offer of a bowl of blood to Advani made news for a day or two. Others may recall the suggestion of erudite Left-wing columnists that Advani’s focus on Ayodhya, rather than Mathura and Kashi stemmed from caste prejudice: Ram was Kshatriya, whereas Krishna was a Yadav and Shiv was possibly a tribal.

None of these sneering asides made the slightest difference to the central thrust of that yatra against ‘pseudo-secularism’. The question therefore arises: why has the anti-corruption theme of this yatra been subsumed by trivial issues such as the bus getting stuck under a bridge and cash incentives paid to the media in Satna? Most important, why has the central question of the yatra been transformed into the likelihood of Advani becoming the NDA candidate for Prime Minister in 2014?

The answer lies in the undeniable fact that the yatra resulted from a unilateral  initiative by Advani. It is no secret that there were many reservations over the yatra within the BJP and its larger ideological family. The party feared that the yatra would highlight the unresolved issue of leadership for 2012 and point to Advani’s determination to have another throw of the dice.

None of these fears appear to be unfounded. During his travels, Advani connects with a large number of people but the people who observe the yatra or attend the public meetings associated with it are still a small drop in the ocean of humanity in India. Most Indians derive their perception of the political programme from the media, and the message from the media is unequivocal: this is Advani’s comeback yatra, calculated to force a sceptical BJP into acknowledging his primacy. Worse still, Advani appears to have done very little to put an end to the speculation. His interviews are largely focussed on his career as a yatri and he has kept alive the speculation by refusing to rule himself out as a candidate for the top job. The impression therefore persists that the yatra is a facet of a vicious leadership battle in the BJP, not least because the focus is on Advani and not on the BJP as a brand. The public reaction, consequently, is one of amusement, if not wariness.

There was a time when the BJP earned a reputation as the master of spin and a party that is able to dictate its agenda to the media. Alas, the party has lost its sure-footedness. Its messaging for this yatra has been self-defeating.

Sunday Pioneer, October 16, 2011