L.K. Advani set out on his first rath yatra soon after his the then ally, Prime Minister V.P. Singh announced the Janata Dal Government's acceptance of the Mandal formula on August 7, 1990.
Since V.P. Singh had played the caste card to mobilise support behind him, Advani had to play the religious card to ensure that his flock of Hindu voters remained with him. As has been said, it was mandal versus kamandal. The BJP's long march in the quest of power ...began with the party securing its highest ever 11.5 per cent of votes in the 1989 general election.
The march is still on, but the possibility of sweeping to power about which the BJP had convinced itself between the 1990 rath yatra and the Babari Masjid demolition two years later has dwindled. In that period, the BJP's percentage of votes had shot up to 21.9 at the national level in 1991. But since then it has dropped to 20 in 1996 (23.6 along with its allies). It is this marking of time, with the attendant danger of sliding back, which the BJP finds both puzzling and worrisome. All this subsequent yatras are attempts to revive ... and to ascertain the reason why the rath is no longer rolling forward with the earlier momentum.
The party ...represents a trend that was never in the forefront in the long years of the independence struggle... And since the freedom movement constituted the mainstream of Indian politics, the BJP and its predecessor, the Jan Sangh, remained on the periphery of the political field for the greater part of their existence. The ban on the RSS in the wake of Gandhi's assassination contributed to its marginalisation.
The percentages secured by the party for three decades since the first general election confirm this position. It secured 3.1 per cent in 1952,5.9 in 1957,6.4 in 1962,9.4 in 1967,7.4 in 1971 and 7.4 again in 1984. Between 1977 and 1980, it merged its identity in the Janata Party.
The 1984 defeat was its most traumatic because in spite of securing the same percentage of votes as in 1971, it could win only two Lok Sabha seats, lower than even its earlier lowest of three seats in 1952.
It is clear, then, that the BJP's sudden upsurge of devotion for Ram and identification of Babari Masjid as a symbol of slavery have less to do with religious and patriotic fervour than with urgent political compulsion. In all the years since its inception and, even earlier, in the writings of the RSS stalwarts, there is hardly any reference to Ram or to Rajmamabhoomi. It was the shock of winning only two Lok Sabha seats and the looming threat of political extinction which made the BJP and the Sangh Parivar cast around for an issue and they found an excellent one in the Babari Masjid-Rajmamabhoomi controversy.
Following a strategy which has since become well known, a new organisation of the Sangh Parivar, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, started an agitation for "liberating" the Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura shrines. The BJP duly "noted" the "public sentiments" on these issues and lent support to the Ayodhya movement. The other two were currently on hold so far as the BJP is concerned though not for the VHP or the RSS.
The abandonment of ... Gandhian socialism and ... integral humanism in favour of ... the policy of Hindutva or "cultural nationalism" mark a transformation whose reverberations are still being felt, although doubts about their efficacy remain. What is clear, nevertheless, is that if the BJP is failing to make as much of a headway as it would like, it is because of the evident majoritarian thrust of the party's policy.
The origin of this Hindu-oriented approach can be traced to the first inchoate stirrings of the freedom struggle before Gandhi (in) harking back to Hindu orthodoxy in the name of nationalism.
The freedom movement under Gandhi, however ... was neither ... anti-Muslim nor in favour of Hindu orthodoxy. Indeed, it was customary in those days for social reformers to hold their annual conference along with the Congress sessions. If India has accepted the concept of a multicultural society as the model for so diverse a country, it is because of the continuing influence of the Gandhian tenets of tolerance and compassion. The aggressively sectarian and community-based ideology of the Sangh Parivar is diametrically opposite to this liberal and broad-minded attitude.
The essence of the Mahatma's belief was that nothing should be imposed on the minorities lest it strengthen their persecution complex, which is not uncommon among vulnerable groups. Such sensitiveness is all the more necessary in India with its huge Hindu majority.
If Gandhi's philosophy of mutual accommodation had such a wide appeal, it is because Hinduism is one of the most eclectic and liberal of religions. Secularism, not in the customary sense of separating religion from politics so much as allowing freedom of space to all religions, underlines its basic approach. True, Gandhi's unworthy successors have distorted its meaning, and the BJP has been quick to take advantage of this failing to push through its combative, anti-minority philosophy of one nation, one culture.
But despite the cynical exploitation of secularism ... the essence of the creed has survived - if not in political parties, at least among large sections of the population. What is more, its indispensability for sustaining a plural society is widely acknowledged.
The BJP's problem is that its credentials in this respect remain suspect. What is more ... its ... agenda has made it nearly impossible for any of the major parties to align with it for fear of losing the Muslim vote. Even the minor ones' which are its allies at present, do not hesitate to call it a "cobra", as the BSP's Kanshi Ram has done. Or to admit, like the Samata Party's Nitish Kumar, that the purpose of going along with the BJP was to fight Laloo Prasad Yadav, and that when putting out afire, one does not look for drinking water; even ditch water is welcome. In the wake of the first rah yatra's success, the BJP had hoped it might achieve the supposedly impossible task of capturing power at the Centre without the support of the minorities. No other party has tried this before presumably because they do not regard a section of the population as "non-nationalists".
The BJP, of course, has been helped in its forward movement by the prevailing corruption and cynicism, the decline of centrist and leftist parties, Pakistan's belligerence, the disturbing growth of Islamic fundamentalism and the continuing dominance of backward-looking clerics over Indian Muslims. But, having travelled a considerable distance to capture 20 per cent of the votes, the party has seemingly reached a roadblock.
It is a crucial stage for the Indian polity, for if the BJP manages to move ahead from this point, it will mean the negation of virtually the entire pluralistic and cosmopolitan legacy of the freedom movement. On the other hand, the lure of power - so near and yet so far - may induce the BJP to moderate its anti-Muslim image, even as a temporary and tactical ploy. But the task will not be easy, for it will entail a dramatic break from its past (as) any concession to "non-nationalists" - indeed, hidden Pakistanis, as the Muslims are regarded - will undermine the BJP's appeal as supra-nationalists to its followers.(Source: The Hindustan Times, 7 July, 1997)
