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Beware! Advani makes his
move; the color is deep saffron
With the continuous rise of Hindutva and saffron agenda within the
BJP, and the utter and deliberate failure of the Congress and the
Left parties in putting any effective resistance to the march of the
Bajrang Dal-Shiv Sena-BJP goons brigade in the national polity, it
was but natural that the pretence would soon be shed by the right
wing Hindu nationalist party and Lal Krishna Advani will be embraced
as the prime ministerial candidate of the party.
Only the politically blind could have missed seeing the development
years in advance as the Hindutva strongman charioteer of the
motorized rath yatra and the former Deputy Prime Minister was always
aiming at pipping Atal Bihari Vajpayee in making another bid at the
top job.
The
2005 slip up at the grave of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the resultant
furore did seem to mislead many to predict the end of Advani era but
the Hindutva forces were clear that shunting out the minority-baiter
and hater will do no good either to the party or to its parent RSS.
On top of it, not long ago, Advani avoided using even a ghost
whisperer and himself issued the statement that he was
Prime-Minister-in-waiting by virtue of his position as Leader of the
Opposition.
At
80, he is as old as Parkash Singh Badal and as poorly politically
correct since he does not need to. He scents a chance in the 2008
general election in India and is encouraged by the national
response, or the lack of it, to Narendra Modi's campaign of hatred
as the key to victory in Gujarat. The Hindutva pitch is rising at a
time, and in consonance with, the shrill voices heard in the forced
matrimonial match between the Left and the Congress.
 The
US too will feel more comfortable dealing with the openly pro-US
right wing BJP (reluctance on N-deal is only a sham) than the
leaning-towards-US Congress. Rajnath Singh as challenger is only a
joke and Vajpayee too old to even try.
The
BJP has journeyed from an amorphous right of Centre platform,
constructed during the Vajpayee presidency of 1980-86, to the
aggressive platform of Hindutva, to open and fulsome hatred of
India’s 150-million-plus Muslims. As for the Sikhs, it loves a tie
up with Parkash Singh Badal led Akali Dal which is Akali only in
name but secular and Hindutva-appeasing in its Constitution as well
as practice. The entire leadership of the BJP has castigated the
Akalis and the SGPC on the issue of the installation of a portrait
of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale at the Central Sikh Museum. It
will be costly for the Sikhs to underestimate the strategy, tactics,
and mobilization capabilities of the shadow Prime Minister of India
as, to suit his narrow political interests and the wider agenda of
Hindutva, he like his clone Balbir Punj, will not lose a minute
before declaring any of the Sikh national heroes as a terrorist if
it fetches votes.
Watch out India’s minorities. The latest move on the Indian polity’s
chessboard only looks like a pawn. It is a castle underneath which
your interests and concerns could be buried for a long time to come.
The various people’s struggles in many parts of India will need to
forge a united opposition to this essentialism of Indian saffron
band or it will strike your death knell. The message from the
conclave on state of Human Rights in India in Chandigarh was clear
in this respect. Can we afford not to read what’s written on the
wall? If we do, we will only run up against the wall.
12 December, 2007
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