Monday, Jul 14, 2003
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By Vinay Kumar
In an informal interaction with the editorial staff of the Tarun Bharat newspaper here, he said that any "Ayodhya" legislation could be passed only if the Congress supported it. This was the hard reality which should be accepted, he added. Earlier, in a veiled message, Mr. Advani said Sangh Parivar organisations should understand that a blend of pragmatism and ideology was necessary to govern the country. "Our associates in the Sangh Parivar should understand that to run the Government (a) certain amount of pragmatism is necessary. We are not abandoning our ideology." Mr. Advani's "advice" comes close on the heels of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad criticising the BJP-led Central Government for failing to take concrete steps for the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. "Why is the VHP criticising us? We are not for any kind of narrow appeal, neither are we abandoning our ideology. Why did we not jump into the Ayodhya movement suddenly and why did we so in 1989? Our associates should understand these aspects," he said, adding that Ayodhya was back in the news not because of the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswati, but because of the Muslim inclination, over the past six to eight months, to find a solution to the problem. The VHP should realise that much of governance had nothing to do with ideology but with economic development, education and providing good infrastructure. China had become a force to reckon with in the international arena, mainly because it was able to blend its commitment and ideology with pragmatism, he said. "The Bharatiya Janata Party has come to the present point by virtue of the same skills and we are hopeful that our associates will also be able to appreciate this with the passage of time," Mr. Advani said. It was the Shah Bano case and the shilanyas at Ayodhya "allowed" during the Rajiv Gandhi regime of the Congress that had prompted the BJP to take up the Ayodhya issue and build up the movement for the construction of a Ram temple there. "When the Congress used Shah Bano and shilanyas for garnering votes for itself, we considered it appropriate not to keep away from it. I studied the Somnath Temple pattern and I was in favour of following the same approach in Ayodhya."
TINA factor
On the political scenario before the elections due next year, he said the BJP and its allies had the TINA ("There Is No Alternative") factor working in their favour. It was no longer a case where only the Congress could give a stable Government. While the Congress appeared "confused", the BJP would approach the coming Assembly elections in five States and the parliamentary elections on the strength of the "good governance" and stability given by the NDA combine over the last five years, he said. The debate between "genuine secularism" and "pseudo-secularism" would in all probability dominate the poll campaign, he said. "This problem of genuine secularism and pseudo-secularism has become sharp in the post-1950 period when the Congress was dominated by Jawaharlal Nehru," he said. "Is it possible for any Western country to have an establishment which has an innate allergy to Christianity? It is only in our country that the political elite are allergic to Hinduism which is the dominant religion."
`Soft Hindutva' line
The rise of the BJP had made the Congress adopt a ``soft Hindutva'' line and "you have Congress Chief Ministers like Digvijay Singh talking about cow protection and Ajit Jogi wanting to construct a temple". The BJP, he said, believed in genuine secularism and not vote-bank politics. Pointing out that a section of Muslims was in favour of a settlement to the Ayodhya dispute, he said that in the post-September 11 situation, Muslims all over the world were feeling `cornered and ostracised by civil society'. Mr. Advani also addressed a meeting of the Nagpur Shramik Patrakar Sangh, interacted with senior BJP leaders of the Vidarbha region, attended a meeting of the BJP-Shiv Sena workers and paid a visit to the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
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