Since the ignominious defeat of the BJP in the Assembly elections in November, 1998, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the head of the BJP-led coalition Government, has been frequently targetted by the Sangh Parivar. Internal pressurisation has been replaced by public posture. Criticism of policy initiatives has been substituted by outright condemnation, for deviation from the  Hindu Agenda, for betrayal of the ideology of Hindutva. Poor Vajpayee who was invaluable to the BJP not only in getting the votes of the fence-sitting liberal and secular Hindus but also in attracting 'secular' parties to join hands to form a Coalition Government, was dubbed as 'incompetent', at best, and a traitor to the cause, at the worst! While for long, Vajpayee  ilently and stoically bore the burnt, he is reported to have told a few home-truths to the BJP National Executive at its Bangalore Session in early January, 1999. No reincarnation, but a new  Mudra, a new posture, as if he had decided, forever, to take the bull by the horn, whatever the consequences. May be he has decided to go down fighting, May be he is simply disgusted with the whole thing, May be he is mentally prepared to throw in the towel. May be he  wishes, at the height of his political career, to disown the obscurantist and the authoritatianism RSS family he grew up in and aspires to emerge as the truly national leader of a modern, secular, plural, multi-cultural nation-State, on the eve of the next millennium.

All this is possible but is it probable? The Sangh Parivar knows how to build up a person; it also knows how to destroy, to marginalise heroes, to make them bite the dust. With 75 years of experience behind it, the RSS knows how to manage dissidence and deviation. Vajpayee also knows.

Vajpayee also knows he was not the first or the natural choice of the Sangh Parivar; he was at best the second choice, perhaps arising out of the political compulsions, mentioned above, of having a face at the helm which could attract voters and parties across the line of ideological separation. May be there was a price tag and Vajpayee knew that too. In any. case, he went along, accommodating unconventional demands from the Sangh Parivar in selection of ministers and allocation of portfolios, in letting Advani function more or less as the Strong Man, almost as the Additional Prime Minister, adopting a low profile, creating the impression as if having risen to the top, he did not have his heart in the job. But he must have hoped that the Sangh Parivar which had gone along with the Coalition formulating a National Agenda for Governance putting on the backburner some of its most publicised objectives will allow him, given the small margin in the Lok Sabha, a free hand to run the administration, provide a model government, which would have helped the BJP in getting a majority of its own in the next election and allowed the Sangh Parivar to have a Prime Minister of its own choice. Somewhere the Hindutva hawks, pushing the Hindu Agenda through Advani, Joshi and others, and, on the other, pressing Vajpayee to take instructions from them or at least to neutralise the pressure of the coalition parties and supporters, the secular forces and the foreign interests. Somewhere, along the line, the modus vivendi broke down. Perhaps the demands of the Hindutva forces became too insistent, too irritating; perhaps the response became too slow, too negative for their liking. Perhaps they lost patience when Vajpayee showed every sign of staying in.

So the arrows began to fly for all to see, some hitting the target. Then came the RSS Chintan Baithak in December in Nagpur which decided to launch the anti-Christian campaign and gave the green signal to the VHP and the Bajrang Dal to activate their sants and soldiers all over the country.

One wonders whether Vajpayee really felt sad and disillusioned but the secular image of his government was in the mud in India and abroad. Whatever their reasons in choosing the Christian rather than the Muslims, their traditional target, for inciting hatred and distrust and creating a climate of violence and initiating attacks, this must have caused a crisis of conscience for Vajpayee. Thus came his desire to declare the year 1999 as the Year of Christ, to talk turkey to his party at Bangalore, to undergo the Fast on 30 January 1999, to initiate 'bus diplomacy'

Then came the Statement of the Coordination Committee which not only criticised the behaviour of the unnamed but easily recognizable elements of the Sangh Parivar but also asked the BJP to rein them in. The VHP laughed it away; the RSS diehard Thengdi of the BMS accentuated his criticism of the government's economic policies; some others pleaded autonomy within the Sangh Parivar and their refusal to fall in line for the sake of maintaining Vajpayee in power. The RSS and even Kushabhai Thakre, BJP President spoke, with a forked tongue, but never admonishing the Parivar for hitting their own government!

It must be reiterated at this point that the BJP is not a normal, mainstream party; it is the political front of the RSS - an organisation with the long-term mission of Hinduising the Indian polity and society. So, whatever their façade, the RSS controls the BJP both by positive support and negative threats. Uma Bharti is not wrong when, even though a member of the Council of Ministers, she claims that her first allegiance is to the RSS. Even Vajpayee has in the past acclaimed the RSS as the Mother whose wishes must prevail.

So the tussle between Vajpayee and the Sangh Parivar goes beyond the conventional, in any democracy, between the government and the party in power. But it is not clear to what extent it is personal rivalry between Vajpayee and Advani, with the former seeking support outside the Parivar, national and international, and the latter counting on RSS support, with an eye on the future, or, reversing the role, the RSS using Advani to fix Vajpayee and put him in his place, whenever necessary Considering that the RSS is also keen to secure a majority in the next general election and thus use the parliamentary ladder to gain undivided control over levers of power, before kicking it off, it must know that there can be no gain for the RSS/BJP if the Vajpayee government collapses in ignominy, or if Vajpayee, in a fit of frustration, retires from the arena or breaks the party. So the RSS or the RSS-controlled BJP cannot normally afford to queer the pitch of the BJP-led government at every step or heap personal insult on its leader. Therefore the only workable hypothesis is that the RSS has concluded that the Vajpayee Government is disposable as it is bound to collapse, sooner than later, and that Advani, with a liberal make-up (which he has been applying of late with a vengeance) should replace Vajpayee at the helm, on the assumption that the threat of dissolution and fresh general election will keep the coalition together.

What is important is to realise that the RSS has no option but to fight the next election on the unalloyed Hindutva platform. The anti-Christian offensive is motivated to rebuild the Hindu vote bank, coopt Shudras, Achhut and Adivasis into the Hindu March as far as possible and engender an anti-Christian environment in order to defeat the Congress and its leader Sonia Gandhi, a Christian and a foreigner by birth.

No doubt, it is a confusing picture. Until the dust settles down and the battle lines are drawn, it is difficult to know who is playing on which side. The game is being simultaneously played at more than one levels, by more than one teams. Some players may be deliberately changing sides or at least their commitment to their side. In this game of deception, there may be strong acts or words, not out of conviction but in order to create doubts, to sow distrust, to divert attention, to mislead the spectators, to conceal the ultimate objective and the real purpose and to counter the strategy of the adversaries, the actual and the potential.

Coming back to Vajpayee, by nature he is essentially a man of compromise. Having lived in the Sangh Parivar for 50 years and reached the top through accommodation he is not a man to take a position strictly on principles, rising above his personal interest.

Often wearing a 'mask', as Govindacharya termed him, in a crunch, he has not been known to stand up and be counted. That is why, with all his known distaste for what the VHP says and what the Bajrang Dal does, he has not yet uttered a word of criticism against them, nor he has set the legal hounds after them. With all his great qualities of head and heart, moral cowardice is the fatal flaw in his make-up.

Vajpayee is no doubt asserting himself now. Perhaps he is resigned to the inexorable march of events. Perhaps he believes in "apres mois, le deluge", because his reputation has been tarnished, his image sullied and he has built no bridges with the liberal Hindu or the lower castes or the religious minorities during his one years in office.

Since hope springs eternal in the human heart, Vajpayee may still be hoping not only to survive the deluge but to emerge as the most acceptable leader to head a national government with his own followers.

But there are more knowledgeable people who know the RSS better and see through its image of intrigue. They whisper that Vajpayee shall never part company with the RSS and that all that the people are seeing is a well-directed drama produced for their benefit in which every player plays his assigned role and speaks his allotted lines.

As Shakespeare says:

All the world's a stage;

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exists and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts."

But the RSS should follow Shakespeare and "tempt not a desperate man" in the "winter of our discontent"!

A desperate man may yet make history!

New Delhi,

1st March, 1999