PM stands by hard line

THE LOK SABHA vote on the Congress-sponsored Ayodhya-related censure motion has gone the way it was expected to; the fate of the motion demanding the resignation of the three Ministers chargesheeted in the Masjid demolition case and disapproving of the Prime Minister ``seeking to exonerate them'' was sealed the day the BJP's secularist regional partners in the ruling National Democratic Alliance chose to endorse the Vajpayee line. It is highly regrettable - and inexcusable from the standpoint of the supreme national imperative of safeguarding the country's secular and pluralist character - that these parties should have, yet again, allowed their narrow electoral calculations and considerations of realpolitik to prevail. The mere fact that the motion did not find favour with the Lok Sabha does not in any way detract from the moral imperative of the necessary resignation of the three Ministers concerned - Mr. L. K. Advani, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi and Ms. Uma Bharati. The question is one of institutional propriety. The counter arguments advanced by Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, most of them heard before - as, for instance, the theory that the case did not involve moral turpitude and that it related to a ``political movement'' - are patently specious and unconvincing. Equally so is the attempt to see a poll victory as a vindication of one's innocence vis-a-vis a pending criminal charge. In several respects, the charges on which Messrs Advani and Company have been hauled up in the Babri Masjid demolition case are arguably more heinous than corruption and such other offences related to personal misconduct or even abuse of authority.

What has emerged sharply from Mr. Vajpayee's response to the Ayodhya-related issues is that his portrayal of the Ram temple project as an ``expression of national sentiment'' - the statement that ruffled the feathers of the secular-minded constituents of the NDA - was no slip of the tongue nor an inadvertent act but a deliberate, calculated and somewhat audacious articulation of his commitment to the Hindutva agenda. In fact, his latest statement on the construction of a temple at Ayodhya and its being an ``unfinished task'' is of a piece with his remarks on the subject at a pro-Sangh Parivar gathering on Staten Island during his visit to the United States a few months ago. In the Lok Sabha, not only did Mr. Vajpayee not retract from or disown that statement - although initially he seemed inclined to softpedal it in a tentative attempt to appease the likes of the Trinamool Congress and the Telugu Desam by resorting to some equivocation - but he went further and sought to substantiate it by drawing what patently was an invidious comparison with the construction of the Somnath temple in the 1950s.

Against this unambiguous signal of acquiescence, if not support, by the Prime Minister - a supposedly moderate and liberal BJP leader - to the revanchist designs of the Sangh Parivar, the fact that the non-BJP allies such as the Trinamool Congress and the TDP could ``extract'' from Mr. Vajpayee and his Government a commitment to ``abide'' by the court verdict (in the Ayodhya land ownership dispute) is poor consolation. Nothing can be more farcical than getting the BJP leadership in Government to commit itself formally to stick to the NDA agenda. After all, the BJP had built itself up as a political force by whipping up a frenzied campaign on the Ramjanmabhoomi movement which targeted the Babri Masjid and the party has left no one in doubt that the NDA is nothing more than a tactical coalition intended to end its ``splendid isolation''. Apart from the tremendous boost the Ram temple-related construction activity is certain to get - what with the project all set to enter a crucial stage and a firm date about construction to be announced in a few weeks from now - the impact of Mr. Vajpayee's calculated shedding of the `mask' is bound to be felt allround, ominous signs of which are already perceivable in the extra-aggressive posturing of the RSS and the VHP.

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