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Yet another yatra
THE `CHETAVANI YATRA', a programme involving the sants and orchestrated by the VHP, is only one more attempt by the Sangh Parivar outfits to whip up communal passions. The timing of the campaign, aimed at aiding the majoritarian agenda, is certainly an effort to help the BJP consolidate its voter base through the communal rhetoric once again. It is for this reason that the BJP's stated position — that the party will not be associating in the formal sense with the `yatra' — assumes significance. It is difficult to take this stated position at face value simply because the BJP as a party is known to have adopted the same strategy — to wait for the passions to be worked up and step in just at the appropriate moment to gain from that — even in the past. Apart from this, the BJP is certainly not an independent outfit but a close associate of the RSS just like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. This was borne out so clearly in the build-up to the Ayodhya campaign since 1986; after having watched the VHP and the other Sangh Parivar groups build up passions, the BJP joined the campaign in a direct manner only after the Palanpur session. The rath yatra conducted by L. K. Advani provoking communal violence across the country in 1990 was only a part of this strategy.
It is in this context that the nuanced stance put out by the party's general secretary, Maya Singh, in the immediate wake of the sants taking out a procession from Ayodhya (to reach Delhi on January 26) raises concerns. Ms. Singh's statement that the BJP MPs and other elected reprsentatives are free to join the sants in the campaign is indeed a clear signal to the ranks. She has left no one in doubt that the party intends making full use of the VHP's programme by stating that the party will not act against them for their association in this communal campaign. And the refrain that the campaign for the construction of a temple at the site where the Babri Masjid stood was one integral to culture is the same old stale argument that the BJP's leaders have come out with ever since they chose aggressive hindutva in place of democratic pretensions as their political strategy in the mid-1980s. In this sense, the BJP's position is hardly different from the beaten track it had been adopting since 1986. And for this very reason, one finds one more instance where the partners in the NDA will be hard put to explain their continued association with the BJP. The claim that they were a part of the NDA only because the BJP had agreed to give up its majoritarian agenda cannot hold even after this.
Be that as it may, the BJP as a party cannot let the VHP and its associates carry on with their `yatra' at this stage. In the immediate context, the campaign by the sants could lead to a communal flare-up in Uttar Pradesh, given the intense fragmentation in the civil society in the State. Add to this the elections for the State Assembly and the potential for violence thanks to the entrenchment of men with criminal records in the parties. It may be true that all these tensions cannot be dealt with as mere concerns of law and order. It requires the political establishment to indulge in honest introspection. The least that was expected from the BJP in this context (going by the spirit of the views expressed by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in his musings) was to firmly distance the party from such a divisive campaign. Instead, the party has decided to let its members associate themselves with the `yatra' if they choose to. By doing so, the BJP's top brass is guilty of abdicating its responsibility. For, being the party in power at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP needs to discourage such campaigns rather than remain a "passive" observer.
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