The Hindu : From January 12 to March 12

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

From January 12 to March 12

By Harish Khare

Will Atal Behari Vajpayee be able to demonstrate the same kind of courage the Pakistani President has shown in standing up to medieval voices and individuals?

ON JANUARY 12 this year Pervez Musharraf went on television to tell the Pakistani nation that he was ordering the Islamic fundamentalists to close down their extremist shops. He questioned the extremists' legitimacy and declared that henceforth the coercive powers of the Pakistani state would be used to dismantle the institutional structures the jehadis, tabligis and others had put in place. It was a courageous decision to call the extremists' bluff; all these years the extremists had pretended — and, were deemed, as well — to be enjoying mass support. So far there has not been even a whimper of protest from any of these groups against the Pakistani President and his cleansing operation.

On March 12, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, would be presented with a similar opportunity to stand up to extremists of another variety, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust crowd. March 12 is the deadline this cabal has set for the Centre to hand over to it the disputed land in Ayodhya for building that "Ram Mandir". By March 12, the limits of public support for the sentiment this crowd represents would have been known; whether or not the BJP is able to return to power in Uttar Pradesh, it is obvious that the country's mood is totally unreceptive to the insistence on a "mandir" at the disputed site in Ayodhya. The question is: will Mr. Vajpayee be able to demonstrate the same kind of courage the Pakistani President has shown in standing up to medieval voices and individuals?

In our context, the "courage" would mean moving beyond the clever-clever formulation that "the Ayodhya temple is not part of the NDA manifesto". It means telling the country that the narrow, sectarian and exclusionist ideas behind the "Mandir movement" are at odds with the Vajpayeean vision of the 21st century being an Indian century. It means acknowledging that the Acharyas and the Mahants are as much an antediluvian antiquity in this age and century as are the Imams and the Maulanas in Pakistan. It means realising that the challenge the mandir crowd represents to the Indian state and its magistracy is no less ominous than the challenge posed by the terrorist, everyone's favourite mischief-maker these days.

Moreover, there are constitutional, political and electoral reasons for the Prime Minister and the rest of the BJP leadership to exorcise themselves and the Indian polity of the mandir ghost. To begin with, India cannot hope to become a modern nation if any group can invoke its religious affiliation to assert itself to be above the law. Our present rulers are entitled to acknowledge and honour their links and obligations to the RSS-VHP deities, but they are nonetheless bound by their oath to the Constitution to put down the challenge of anyone who pretends to be above the law of the land. This constitutional obligation apart, Mr. Vajpayee must have by now realised that the Mandir movement is no help in producing coherent governance. The insistence on building a temple at the disputed site would positively distract from creating the much-needed sense of national purpose and unity in the fight against terrorism. Even if a mandir is erected at the "spot", it will in no way enhance the Indian state's capacity — mental, operational, conceptual or instrumental — in putting down a single terrorist operation. A "mandir" cannot make up for the BJP Government's failure to re-energise India's security apparatus or its strategic thought process.

Then there are political reasons. If the BJP is seen as willing to stand up to the mandir crowd, it could possibly deprive the Samajwadi Party of its "secular" raison d'etre. Mulayam Singh Yadav has thrived by cultivating a sense of insecurity among the Muslims, especially in Uttar Pradesh; he has succeeded in doing so solely on account of keeping alive the memory of having ordered firing on the "Ram bhakts" during his chief ministership in 1990. This sense of insecurity among the minorities got further aggravated by a perception of "softness" on the part of the Congress (I) and the BJP Governments in New Delhi. Now, if the Vajpayee Government is able to prove itself equally capable of doing its constitutional duty by standing up to the Hindu mobs, then Mr. Yadav virtually stands deprives of his "Muslim security" plank . All he would be left with are the memories of his Lohiaite past and the company of his current corporate sidekicks. In one stroke, Mr.Vajpayee can excise the Indian polity of its prime source of instability.

There is another good reason why Mr. Vajpayee should call the VHP bluff. If the BJP wants the Muslims to join the "mainstream" and stop acting — or stop being used — as "vote banks", then a BJP-led Government must address itself to the prime cause for the minorities behaving in that manner. The Muslims can have the incentive to stop behaving like vote banks only if they see the evidence that the BJP-led Governments at the Centre and in the States do not (a) inject anti-minority biases in the administration; and, (b) allow the majority fundamentalists to run amok.

The BJP has used the Ram Mandir movement to mobilise and consolidate the Hindu voters in a manner to prove that it can do without the Muslim votes. But its stay in power at the Centre for almost four years has given it sufficient experience to understand that whereas it can come to power without the Muslim vote it cannot possibly hope to govern the country in a coherent and effective manner without the Muslim support and participation.

This would mean the BJP leadership would have to rewrite its catechism. It is counter-productive as well as unwise to keep on trying to apportion the blame on "them" for standing between Mother India and unbound abundance and prosperity. Because there can be no way out other than accepting the 100-million plus Muslims as equal partners in the modern Indian enterprise, the Vajpayee Government can do itself a great favour and a lasting service to this nation if it can gather the courage to use its incumbency to delegitimise the Hindutva crowd.

What about the RSS? Would it allow a BJP Government to stray away from the chosen path of sectarianism? Well, if Mr. Vajpayee can abandon many of the RSS favourite themes and commitments — swadeshi, swabhiman (self-pride), foreign policy — he can surely convince Messrs Sudarshan and co. that the rule of law ought to prevail over the Ram Mandir sentiment. And should Mr. Vajpayee insist on doing a Musharraf, what is the guarantee that the RSS would not once again bestow its favours on the Congress (I), just as it had done in 1984 and an appropriately grateful Rajiv Gandhi Government quietly removed the locks on the temple at Ayodhya? The Congress (I), after all, remains only too willing to play the soft Hindutva card in the hope of re-staging the 1984 massive mandate. And, lest someone forget, Sonia Gandhi has made that celebrated half-gesture by going for a dip at the sangam during the kumbh mela.

But this is a risk worth taking, especially if the Vajpayee-Advani leadership wants to redesign the structure of South Asian geo-politics. After all, a statesman without the courage of vision is just any other politician. Gen. Musharraf cannot be seen as having the monopoly over uncluttered thinking and courage.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

Stories in this Section

Disturbing trend

Correct prescription

From January 12 to March 12

Patenting India's interests

Declassify war histories

A harmonious solution