Back to square one

M Shamsur Rabb Khan

See how politicians play with people’s emotion. First, the BJP President raised two emotional issues: construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya and direct action against Pakistan. While the former is too delicate an issue that touches upon the religious sentiments of the majority of the people, the latter is no less serious as it stakes the national security.

But the tone and tenacity with which Rajnath Singh deliberated upon these two issues are definitely juxtaposed to nationalism though his party’s led NDA government had failed to build the proposed temple in its five-year rule during which the issue was put on the back burner. Does the BJP President have the moral guts to make a promise that would perhaps be the hardest nut for him to crack?

Well, very smartly Rajnath Singh put the condition that ‘if his party gains majority in Parliament, it will go ahead with a legislation” for the Ram temple construction. The BJP as well as its President, along with others, knows it very well that an absolute majority is a thing of the past in the Indian democracy except that something very extraordinary work is done by a single part – be it the BJP or the Congress.

In coalition, as has been the norm for government formation in recent years, it would not be that easy to create consensus for it. And since temple-promise is part of the BJP’s ideological plank, not that of the NDA, building consensus among partners on the temple construction issue, leave alone the legal strictures and bindings, would be a near impossible scenario. Rajnath Singh’s promise, therefore, is an unattainable target that he has offered in Nagpur.

Why did then the BJP raise the Ram temple issue in spite of knowing all this? First, recent Assembly elections have shown that BJP has lost Rajasthan and Delhi to Congress on the issue of security, corruption and inflation. On terrorism, the party’s double standard has been exposed badly since the outbursts of L K Advani and others against the ATS in general and Hemant Karkare in particular, while extending support to Hindu terror accused like Sadhvi and Col. Purohit.

While on Batla house encounter, the BJP came vehemently in opposition to any demand for judicial probe, it wholeheartedly supported for a judicial investigation for Malegaon accused. The stand clearly illustrated the fact that the BJP opposes terrorism and terrorists only when the Muslim individuals and organizations are supposed to be culprits, not he Hindus even if they do, it is labelled as ‘response in reaction’. BJP’s narrow ideals and conflicting ideas on terrorism are entirely and exclusively anti-Muslim and pro-Hindus since the party does not believe in the dictum: what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

Second, the BJP is badly in search of an election plank that could appeal to the people since on governance and inflation issues, it received setback in Rajasthan and Delhi. And nothing at this stage could be as emotional an issue than the Ram temple promise, which might, as Rajnath Singh expects, help the party regain its rapid stride that it made in the late 1990s. However, the very beginning of the party is faulty: the projection of 81-year old L K Advani for the PM post is something a great majority of people in this country does not approve of due to two broad factors – his age and his image of a hardliner. Since many would not have forgotten what he did in the 1991 when riding on his Somnath-Ayodhya Rath Yatra. During and after the Rath Yatra of 1991 thousands of innocent people, mostly Muslims were butchered in various parts of the country. Advani was responsible for the great communal polarization and divide in this country, albeit Advani described it as the "biggest mass movement in India since Independence." While in recent times, people’s inclination is vividly tilted towards younger leaders taking the governance affairs, Advani is too old to rule a country of more than a billion population.

Third, demanded ‘direct action’ against Pakistan is another emotional issue since the ghastly Mumbai carnage the general feeling of anger among the people has been directed towards some sort of ‘concrete action’ not the ‘hollow words’ that the successive governments have adopted so far. Reading the people’s pulse, the BJP is trying to play this card, in order to beat the drum of patriotism as if the BJP is the sole torch bearer of nationalism, or making nationalism synonymous with BJP, if the Hinuds. Since it has fetched considerable amount of votes to the party in earlier elections, the BJP harps on it as it is directed more against native Muslims than the Pakistanis. Bu the BJP or more precisely Rajnath Singh is simply too sanguine to believe that people in India are bunch of nincompoops that they would forget and forgive the party for its inept handling of Kandhar issue and security lapses in Kargil in 1999, which led to war with Pakistan and the subsequent heavy military losses.

So, rather than making emotional appeals to create vote bank politics, for which the BJP has left no stone unturned in attacking and accusing the Congress, it should devote sometime on real-time issues, with a firm belief to treat people of different castes and creed on equal footing. But this is a Herculean task for the BJP too.