The mask slips

THE VERY LEAST one expects of a Prime Minister is that he weighs his words very carefully before uttering them. And Mr. Vajpayee is guilty of making an ill-considered remark and then trying to redress this by issuing an unconvincing clarification. His recent take on Ayodhya is deplorable and merits criticism on a variety of counts. It is highly inappropriate for someone who heads the National Democratic Alliance Government - which has expressly eschewed endorsing the BJP's programme on Ayodhya - to claim that the agitation for the construction of a Ram temple in the town is an expression of unrealised or unfulfilled nationalist feeling. Such statements only reinforce the suspicion that the common NDA agenda is only a sanitised cover for the BJP to pursue its divisive agenda and it is no surprise that some of Mr. Vajpayee's allies such as the Telugu Desam are extremely uncomfortable about what he said. The BJP swears it is committed to the NDA agenda, but every now and then the mask slips. The face it reveals is not pretty.

But Mr. Vajpayee is guilty of more than just displeasing his allies or making statements which are not in consonance with the NDA programme. More shocking is the sheer insensitivity of endorsing the Ayodhya agitation on the anniversary of the destruction of the Babri Masjid - an act of political vandalism which inflicted a deep and still festering emotional wound on the nation. Mr. Vajpayee may have since clarified that he did not support the Babri Masjid demolition, but both the timing and the content of the remarks have lent the unfortunate impression that, in the Prime Minister's view, the question of how a Ram temple in Ayodhya should be constructed sweeps the business of the Babri mosque's demolition into near insignificance.

The Prime Minister's remarks were made against the background of demands that three BJP Union Ministers who have been chargesheeted in connection with the demolition - Mr. L. K. Advani, Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi and Ms. Uma Bharti - resign forthwith. It is no surprise that Mr. Vajpayee rejected this demand, but what is really astonishing was his explanation that his Ministers were trying to protect the mosque (by trying to ``control the crowd and persuade it against pulling down the structure'') and not to demolish it. To project someone such as Mr. Advani - whose infamous Rath Yatra gathered support for the Ayodhya agitation and promoted the very forces that pulled down the Masjid - as a (albeit failed) protector of the mosque is preposterous. And of course, Ms. Uma Bharti is not exactly an ideal candidate to project as the mosque's attempted saviour.

Early last year, the Prime Minister called for a national debate on conversion at a time when there were communal attacks against the Christian community in Gujarat's Dangs district. The timing of that call seemed to lend tacit support to the theory - peddled actively by sections of the Sangh Parivar - that the fundamentalist violence was a direct result of unchecked and irregular conversions. Similarly, the timing of Mr. Vajpayee's remarks on Ayodhya leaves much to be desired. To make such references to the construction of a Ram temple on the anniversary of the mosque's demolition sends out disturbing signals. It strengthens the impression that the Prime Minister is uncaring about the sentiments of those appalled by the vandalism of December 6, 1992. Mr. Vajpayee should have thought carefully before endorsing a dubious politically-backed agitation on what is after all a day of national shame.

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Section  : Opinion
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