Ever since LK Advani’s ‘burning desire’ to be the Prime Minister of the Country has become the butt of snide comments from all and sundry, the perennial comparison between Advani & Vajpayee has gained even more currency. Analysts and critics barely stop for a breath when talking of Vajpayee’s inclusive, cohesive qualities which helped him run the NDA coalition for 6 years and disparagingly contrast with Advani’s limited appeal on account of his divisive qualities. While the following write up will take a cursory glance at Advani’s alliance building capabilities, it will certainly try to separate reality from myths of what Vajpayee is
Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been a great orator and a leading light of Jana Sangh, a man declared as a future Prime Minister of India by that epitome of secularism, Jawaharlal Nehru. While Vajpayee graced the position of the leader of Jan Sangh in Lok Sabha after Lok Sabha, a study of his speeches over the years indicate that his supposed discomfort with the Jan Sangh brand of politics did not become pronounced till his stint as the External Affairs minister in the Morarji Desai Government. Post the fall of Janata Governments and the Janata Patry rout in the 1980 elections, it was primarily under Vajpayees’s influence that rather than resurrecting the Jana Sangh, the BJP was born with a convenient Bharatiya adopted from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, prefixed to the defeated Janata Party. What is more noteworthy that the new political entity did not speak the Jana Sangh/RSS language. Rather, it spoke of something like Gandhian socialism, perhaps a noble concept but more hazy and nebulous than the concept of integral humanism of Deendayal Upadhyaya propagated by Jana Sangh for all these years. What made Vajpayee change? The lure of loaves of office combined with the realization that the Jana Sangh, as it functioned could never become the ruling party of the country? Or the fact that the fall of Government was blamed on dual membership issue where the socialists could not digest sharing loaves of office with the communal Sanghis? Had Vajpayee realized that the Jana Sangh cannot become India’s ruling party if it carried on with its ideology?
Since there is little primary research on the reasons as to why Vajpayee chose to change the face of the BJP so we can only conjecture on the real reason behind Vajpayee’s change of tact. What we do know is that the BJP’s experiment with the middle of the road socialism proved disastrous and combined with the sympathy wave generated by Ms Indira Gandhi’s assassination, decimated the BJP, reducing it to two seats in the Indian Parliament. This election is made more famous by the conventional wisdom that even RSS workers campaigned for the Congress (I). With that election, Vajpayee receded in the background and it was not until 1995, when LK Advani, at the peak of his charisma, proclaimed Vajpayee as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate that Vajpayee came to forefront of the general public imagination again.
Vajpayee went on to lead the first BJP Government in India, infamously demitting office after 13 days, failing to win the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha.
The rest is more or less known to everyone. NDA was formed post 1998 elections; BJP formally jettisoned the Ram Temple, Uniform Civil Code and Sec 370 abrogation and won even more allies in the 1999 elections. Of course, all the new allies were credited to Vajpayee’s appeal and many like Mamata Banerjee used to say that they support Vajpayee and not the BJP.
Add BJP’s propaganda machinery blaring ‘Ab Ki Bari, Atal Bihari’ from every available rooftop, the poet politician’s packaging as a politician acceptable to everyone was made perfect. So, India experienced a non Congress Government completing a five year term in center
So, even if we ignore Vajpayee of the pre Jan Sangh days, we have seen the same liberal Vajpayee in two different avatars. One, when he failed as the leader of the BJP and second, when he became Atal Bihari Nehru, attracting allies like flies.
What changed?
My humble submission is that only the realization that BJP had a strong chance of coming to power changed. BJP was no longer a party which was confined to a few states or opposition benches. After 1996, everyone realized that they had a real chance of winning power and hence the façade of Vajpayee’s acceptability. Allies left the NDA in 2004 elections when Vajpayee was still around. These allies never protested when the then most communal Advani became the Deputy Prime Minister nor did they resign seeking Narendra Modi’s resignation. Further, Vajpayee’s absence did not stop more allies from joining BJP nor did there endorsing Advani’s candidature. Mamata, Naidu, Naveen and Jayalalitha left the NDA out of their own volition, not because they were missing Vajpayee’s avuncular presence.
In a nutshell, Vajpayee was a convenient excuse, a good mask for everyone. Nothing more, nothing less!
Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been a great orator and a leading light of Jana Sangh, a man declared as a future Prime Minister of India by that epitome of secularism, Jawaharlal Nehru. While Vajpayee graced the position of the leader of Jan Sangh in Lok Sabha after Lok Sabha, a study of his speeches over the years indicate that his supposed discomfort with the Jan Sangh brand of politics did not become pronounced till his stint as the External Affairs minister in the Morarji Desai Government. Post the fall of Janata Governments and the Janata Patry rout in the 1980 elections, it was primarily under Vajpayees’s influence that rather than resurrecting the Jana Sangh, the BJP was born with a convenient Bharatiya adopted from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, prefixed to the defeated Janata Party. What is more noteworthy that the new political entity did not speak the Jana Sangh/RSS language. Rather, it spoke of something like Gandhian socialism, perhaps a noble concept but more hazy and nebulous than the concept of integral humanism of Deendayal Upadhyaya propagated by Jana Sangh for all these years. What made Vajpayee change? The lure of loaves of office combined with the realization that the Jana Sangh, as it functioned could never become the ruling party of the country? Or the fact that the fall of Government was blamed on dual membership issue where the socialists could not digest sharing loaves of office with the communal Sanghis? Had Vajpayee realized that the Jana Sangh cannot become India’s ruling party if it carried on with its ideology?
Since there is little primary research on the reasons as to why Vajpayee chose to change the face of the BJP so we can only conjecture on the real reason behind Vajpayee’s change of tact. What we do know is that the BJP’s experiment with the middle of the road socialism proved disastrous and combined with the sympathy wave generated by Ms Indira Gandhi’s assassination, decimated the BJP, reducing it to two seats in the Indian Parliament. This election is made more famous by the conventional wisdom that even RSS workers campaigned for the Congress (I). With that election, Vajpayee receded in the background and it was not until 1995, when LK Advani, at the peak of his charisma, proclaimed Vajpayee as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate that Vajpayee came to forefront of the general public imagination again.
Vajpayee went on to lead the first BJP Government in India, infamously demitting office after 13 days, failing to win the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha.
The rest is more or less known to everyone. NDA was formed post 1998 elections; BJP formally jettisoned the Ram Temple, Uniform Civil Code and Sec 370 abrogation and won even more allies in the 1999 elections. Of course, all the new allies were credited to Vajpayee’s appeal and many like Mamata Banerjee used to say that they support Vajpayee and not the BJP.
Add BJP’s propaganda machinery blaring ‘Ab Ki Bari, Atal Bihari’ from every available rooftop, the poet politician’s packaging as a politician acceptable to everyone was made perfect. So, India experienced a non Congress Government completing a five year term in center
So, even if we ignore Vajpayee of the pre Jan Sangh days, we have seen the same liberal Vajpayee in two different avatars. One, when he failed as the leader of the BJP and second, when he became Atal Bihari Nehru, attracting allies like flies.
What changed?
My humble submission is that only the realization that BJP had a strong chance of coming to power changed. BJP was no longer a party which was confined to a few states or opposition benches. After 1996, everyone realized that they had a real chance of winning power and hence the façade of Vajpayee’s acceptability. Allies left the NDA in 2004 elections when Vajpayee was still around. These allies never protested when the then most communal Advani became the Deputy Prime Minister nor did they resign seeking Narendra Modi’s resignation. Further, Vajpayee’s absence did not stop more allies from joining BJP nor did there endorsing Advani’s candidature. Mamata, Naidu, Naveen and Jayalalitha left the NDA out of their own volition, not because they were missing Vajpayee’s avuncular presence.
In a nutshell, Vajpayee was a convenient excuse, a good mask for everyone. Nothing more, nothing less!
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