Self Mutilation as Politics

Old is Gold, it is said. And indeed, Eastern civilizations abound in tales of the wise, who were invariably old, venerable figures. It is not without reason that the longest chapter in the Mahabharata is Shanti Parva, containing discourse of the Kuru Elder, Bhishma. In an era, where wisdom meant tales, both experiential and heard, having weathered numerous summers and having enjoyed countless springs was the surest way to assemble knowledge.

Even today, the oldest of the intellectuals, if still mentally agile, can astound the young with depth of their knowledge. 

Yet, time is a tireless enemy which creeps upon one and sundry. While ageing and signs of entropy are seldom a pleasant sight, the pain becomes more pronounced when time impacts people who were instrumental in creating history.

Whichever side of the divide one is, one will be hard pressed not to pause and wonder on what has made the architect of the modern Hindutva movement in India a pale shadow of what he was. For a man who could do no wrong, be it strongly articulating the Hindu angst, making the BJP the party for power, grooming the strongest Gen-next leadership in the nineties, supporting liberalization, renouncing electoral politics when stained or giving up the claim to Prime Ministership, the tables seem to have turned so much so that his once killer political instincts seem to have got seriously blunted.

The last decade and a half have not been kind to Shri Advani. For a man who was seen as a successor to Sardar Patel, his stint as the Home Minister will always be overshadowed by the colossal mismanagement of Kandhar hijacking. His only real shot at Prime Ministership in 2004 got mired in the thoughtless India Shining campaign and his intellectually dishonest declaration of Jinnah as secular robbed him of the moral high ground he possessed. If the admirer still hoped that the genius of Shri Advani would ensure his rebirth, he was disappointed again when the sham of Notes for Vote hit the Nation. This was not all. The Nation had to be a party to the spectacle of Shri Advani being made the butt of joke for his dumbbell lifting, karate chop acts in 2009 General elections followed by the unseemly scene of the diminishing RSS trying to order a reluctant Advani off the public sphere.

Now, Advaniji seems intent on making a spectacle of the BJP yet again by forcing the reluctant party to contest the lost Presidential elections.

It is not difficult to empathize with those who don’t desire a contest. For an election which is already lost, what is to be gained by diminishing one’s stature even more? If the BJP were so serious about contesting, why did they have to wait to finalize a candidate for so long? If Kalam was the intended choice, why could the BJP not convince even Jayalalitha to support him? We are now left with the spectacle of the party going mall-shopping for candidates with the ageing Advani trying to push support for Sangma. For the apologists, that the BJP is not willing to give the UPA a walkover is reason valid enough to contest and a public display of its willingness to fight the UPA is certain to boost BJP’s standing among the general public.

But seriously, what will the BJP gain by contesting a no-gamer? If it for symbolic value of supporting a tribal, a Christian for the President’s post, the media and Mr Advani will do good to themselves to remember that the first such candidate was put up by the BJP itself in 1992, in form of Mr George Gilbert Swell, against Shankar Dayal Sharma. While we don’t know if that sagacious act led to any accretion of BJP’s support base amongst the Christian community, what we certainly know is that the same GG Swell denounced the BJP on the floor of the house in 1996 and voted against the confidence vote on the thirteen day Vajpayee Government. This was barely 10 days post his affirming his and 6 fellow MPs support to Vajpayee, but that is another story.

Even though the outcome of the Presidential Elections of 2007 was even more pre-determined, the NDA still had valid grounds to contest the polls. Not only did the Sonia Gandhi led UPA commit an atrocity on the Nation in form of the current incumbent’s candidature, the BJP had a towering personality, as its presidential candidate. Further, even though the NDA did not expand (Shiv Sena actually walked away), it did manage to gain votes of the AIADMK, Panther’s Party, INLD, AGP and AGP(P) in those polls.

Here, even before the polls, the Shiv Sena has yet again walked away and it is likely that the JD(U) and Akali Dal will follow suit. If the motive is to gain affection of either Mamata, Jaya or Naveen, why does it have to be at the cost of long standing allies, the only ones from the 1996 Government days?

Even if the BJP had a good candidate, would it still be a reason enough to oppose Pranab Mukherjee? Granted that Mr Mukherjee’s stint as the Finance Minister has not been great, granted that his image is even more Teflon coated than Mr Jaitley’s in the sense that there has not been even the slightest hint of criticism of his role and even granted that as Finance Minister, he cannot absolve himself of responsibility regarding numerous scams which have plagued the UPA regimes. Still, Mr Mukherjee deserves to be the President of the country, if for nothing else, for bringing back a semblance of gravity to the post.

It is after twenty five years that the country has the opportunity of having as its Head, a political personality, who is neither a lightweight, nor a political has-been or a symbolic appointment. The winner of the 1987 polls, R Venkatraman was in active politics when he became the President and had been the home and defence minister of the country. His successor, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma was leading a semi retired life in form of gubernatorial postings before he became the Vice President. Following him was KR Narayanan, a political lightweight who became President on account of being at the right place at the right time. While Dr APJ Abul Kalam enjoyed phenomenal popularity as the President, he was not a political person when nominated and his glory days with DRDO were far behind him. Regarding his successor, the lesser said the better. Though, to be fair to her, Ms Patil has conducted herself much more admirably that the outrightly biased KR Narayanan.

Compared to his 4 predecessors, Pranab Mukherjee, with almost half a century of political life behind him, is much better placed to don the role of the President of this country. If Mr Mukherjee is to be opposed merely for the reason that Ms Sonia Gandhi displayed ill grace in not even consulting with the NDA leaders before announcing his candidature, well, that is a fig leaf of a reason and only serves to even more belittle the dignity of the post.

But why, why does Mr Advani, (alongwith Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Anant Kumar) persist in pushing for a contest? While for Anant Kumar, it could be a mode of repaying his debt to Advaniji for standing by him in his intrigues against Yedyurappa, for Ms Swaraj, it could either be a genuine respect for the patriarch or a baser way of getting back at Mr Arun Jaitley. What we need not speculate is the reason behind Advaniji’s persistence. Who else, but the Trojan who has destroyed Advani and in the process damaged the BJP beyond recognition? Yes, the architect of the India Shining campaign, of the secular Jinnah fiasco, of the Notes for Vote sham, is at it once again. And he will not rest till his mission, i.e., decimation of the BJP is achieved.

Even for the most noble purpose of vanquishing the enemy, it is difficult for any person to cohabit with it, to claim to think of its good, to denounce one’s old attachments and be careful enough not to utter what one holds dear in life. It is one thing to say that one should mingle with the enemy to defeat if and another to practice. But, it is men like Sudheendra Kulkarni who can warm our hearts enough to still believe that men can still be committed to their ideology strongly enough and do what was hitherto considered impossible. One can only salute the bitter pills Kulkarni has swallowed and still swallows as he proclaims himself a BJP man. One cannot even imagine the torment his soul is under as he hides his Marxist identity and wears a saffron mask. O Kulkarni, you are a Trojan if there was one.

Trojan in Trap

The now forgotten Mitrokhin Archives had a small chapter devoted to India where in one of the notes, the Soviet Communist Party has expressed its satisfaction that the Communist Party of India, following its instructions, had allowed its members to join the Congress (I) at various levels of leadership. This happened for the Communists realized the impracticality of their coming to power in India, either through ballot or through bullet and settled for the next best – ensuring the rule of their ideology through influence. 

While this infiltration lasted from the mid sixties to the mid seventies, it had its reflection in a curious event occurring in the mid 90s’. It would seem that the Communists, unable to bring themselves to infiltrate the BJP on account of their visceral hatred for the reactionary right, settled for the 3^rd best – installing a Trojan Horse in the party to destroy it from within.

A cursory look at the career of Sudheendra Kulkarni would indicate that he managed to do just about that – the man who can claim disproportionate credit for the ghastly ‘India Shining’ campaign and more importantly, shaking the ideological roots of the party with his design of its architect’s LK Advani’s ‘Jinnah…my homage to a Great man.’ comments. What Kulkarni managed to do in his short stint with the BJP is enviable by any standards. Not only did he become a close confidante of AB Vajpayee, he managed to win the ultimate confidence of Advani too, something which very few leaders in the BJP had managed.  A measure to his influence could be assessed from the fact that within 2 years of his joining the BJP (he joined the party in 1996); the party managed to set aside its ideological moorings (1998 elections) and jettisoned it completely in the next 6 years (2004 elections). It is a wonder that a man as erudite and intellectual as Advani could allow himself to be influenced by Kulkarni, so much so that the architect of the modern Indian polity, had no second thoughts in disowning the baby he had reared. 

Of course, with the disaster of 2009, Kulkarni had to quit the BJP in disgrace. This quitting however, in no way meant that the man was out of favor of his mentor Advani. Advani made it a point to defend him time and again and it is a matter of time before Kulkarni is brought back to the BJP with full honors intact.

If one wonders as to why a seemingly lightweight like Kulkarni is being given so much of space today, it is all courtesy the mis-adventure of cash for votes sting operation. While the arrest of the 2 BJP ex MPs, Suhail Hindustani and Kulkarni do seem like a travesty of justice and must be condemned, one wonders whether Kulkarni had contrived the failure of this sting right from the beginning.

For one – the partner chosen for the sting was IBN-Live, whose owners Rajdeep Sardesai et al, form a part of the Sonia fan brigade, a channel which never even attempted to hide its sympathies for the Congress and abhorrence of the BJP and the one which led the cacophonous cry of (alongwith NDTV) ‘Singh is King’ when Manmohan ‘Integrity’ Singh won the vote of confidence. How could a rational person even imagine that the views channel would do anything which would besmirch the reputation of the spotlessly clean UPA Government? It happened what had to happen – the sting was not aired and when aired after a considerable gap, it was a mild edited version of the entire operation. BJP pretended to boycott the channel for sometime and soon, the boycott too was forgotten.

Second – Neither Advani, nor the BJP made a big deal over the tainted vote of confidence or the scam. While it is understood that the man of impeccable integrity, Somnath Chatterjee, counted all votes cast as valid (even though the Anti Defection Act declares such votes as invalid), what is not understandable is the BJP’s silence post that. Except for asking for disqualification of the defecting MPs, the BJP did not challenge the speaker’s decisions, neither in the Parliament nor in the Court of Law. Further, the BJP did not make it an election campaign either. No Sir, no squeak on the ‘spotless’ Prime Minister winning his trust vote on the basis on damned lies and corrupt practices.

After a gap of 3 years, the still born investigation in the cash-for-votes scam was given a breath of life by the Supreme Court. But in yet another inexplicable turn of events, the Court has dissociated itself with monitoring of the case and we have a situation where the perpetrators of the crime are roaming free, not even having been named, leaved aside being questioned and imprisoned, the scam-busters are behind bars.

For those trying to paint a nuanced picture of the BJP wallahs being entrappers and not a sting operator, let them go back to the procedures adapted by the anti corruption bureau. People are caught red-handed while accepting bribes, traps for which are set by the agency itself. Or let us go back to the Left and Congress celebrated stings conducted by Tehelka. Right from Bangaru Laxman to Dileep Singh Judeo to Gujarat riots to cash for questions, traps were sprung. Nowhere did it happen that the accused had themselves sought out the scambusters and asked for bribes / shared information – so how different is the cash for votes sting conducted by the BJP that it be condemned. Of course, Tehelka being owned by the son of a senior Congress leader from Punjab, the former’s condemnation of the BJP sponsored sting is understandable. What is not understandable is the willing suspension of reason and plain indifference from the relatively more neutral and right thinking of our not-so-civil society.

Maybe and remotely maybe, our indifference to the UPA shenanigans and the plight of Kulkarni flows from our sub-conscious realization that the sting did not flow from an honest intent. Even otherwise, a few days in Tihar pale in comparison his monumental sin of having irreparably compromised the father figure of modern Indian Nationalism.