Non-Resident Hindutva Editorial, Times of India, 12 Sept., 2000

... Atal Behari Vajpayee ... tightrope-walked his way out of potential trouble at a meeting called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in New York. Would Vajpayee promise to complete the Ram temple in Ayodhya? asked one among the assembled saints. "If I have a two-thirds majority, I would endeavour to build an India of my dreams". The saints did not ask Vajpayee if the Ram temple was part of his dreams; they assumed it was ... For Vajpayee's saffron fan club, his answer was much-needed affirmation that the BJP had not dropped the Ram temple from its agenda. For his liberal admirers it was equally affirmation that there was no place for the temple in Vajpayee's larger vision. There was further play on words, when the prime minister said he would always be a swayamsevak, the nation's swayamsevak ... So, there he was once again - a committed sanghi from one angle and a committed. liberal-nationalist from another.

There is one question, though. Why did Vajpayee consider it necessary to attend a meeting of the VHP? Had he not said whatever he said at a saffron conclave, there simply was no scope for a controversy ... The saffron backdrop ensured that doubts on this score would remain. And more so given the growing ideological divide within the BJP back home ... The Vajpayee group—powerful though it is—knows the consequences of alienating the RSS. Without the latter's organisational strength and ability to mobilise support, the BJP could find itself at a major disadvantage at election time. What better way simultaneously to please the liberals and the RSS than to play the liberal card at home—including wooing the Muslims—and the saffron card overseas? Unfortunately for the BJP, there is a danger in this: Like the Congress before it, it could find itself falling between two stools.

The Old Line Again?

Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 12 Sept., 2000

His comment that an India of 'our' dreams will.be built if the party gets a 2/3 majority in Parliament will reinforce the belief that the BJP's present moderate position. on various contentious issues cannot be taken seriously ... The fact of Vajpayee making the point gives it a different dimension by indicating that there is, after all, little difference between the so-called hardliners and moderates in the organisation ... The Prime Minister's reference to spending the rest of his life as a swayamsevak will be seen as echoing his earlier "RSS is my soul" staternent ... (These) remarks cannot but raise fresh doubts about the sincerity of the BJP's latest overture towards the Muslims which gave the impression that the party was preparing to  chart a new course in domestic politics. Now it seems that nothing really has changed.

Et Tu, Vajpayee?  Editorial, The Indian Express, 12 Sept., 2000

Whatever the subterfuge adopted by the organizers, the meeting was essentially a VHP affair.,. Vajpayee's presence at that venue was unacceptable. What's worse, it vested the meeting with an unwarranted political importance, and this at a time when the BJP has been consciously trying to distance itself from the VHP and other outfits of its ilk. In fact, every time the VHP makes a statement critical of the Vajpayee government, the BJP spokesmen labour the point that the BJP and the VHP are two different entities. ...

The havoc (VHP) had caused in Gujarat in the name of protesting against the killing of Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir is too recent to be forgotten. ...

That his remarks can be interpreted in both ways and with perfect justification is a tribute to his eloquence. But then politics is not just about semantics ...

Truth and Incongruity Editorial, The Hindu, 12 September, 2000

This is not the first time Mr. Vajpayee, a founding-member of the erstwhile Jana Sangh, has characterised himself as a "swayamsevak". During his two years as Prime Minister, he has made no secret of his sympathy for the RSS, which he has both defended and praised on the floor of Parliament ... Irrespective of, what he intended to mean, the point really is whether he should have said what he did when he did. It is somewhat incongruous for a Prime Minister on an official tour abroad to claim that he had attended a- meeting as a "swayamsevak".

In fact, the Prime Minister's very decision to attend the Staten Island function - which was dominated by Hindu religious leaders and those with 'saffronite' political views - was ill-advised ... From all accounts, the .. function ... appeared ... more like a politico-religious jamboree. ....

Some of the Prime Minister's remarks bore the stamp of the Hindutva agenda ... His yearning for a two- thirds majority to pursue the BJP's exclusivist agenda is also likely to cause some discomfiture among the constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ...

There is also the question what the international community will make of what he said ... At a time when India is trying to convince the world that it is a victim of religion-backed terrorism ... it is important that it does not allow itself to be accused of intolerance or bigotry ...

 On the Tightrope

Editorial, The Pioneer, 12 Sept., 2000

We have done a lot even though we are in a minority. We can build the India of our dreams if the people give us two-thirds majority. The expansion of the BJP's social base would be pointless if it means losing its original Hindutva constituency. Hence the need for ambiguity and tightrope walking on the part of its leaders which, one hopes, would diminish progressively as it evolves further towards being a nationalist party of 21st century India.

 Vajpayee's Dreams, How Saffron are They?

Editorial, The Statesman, 13 Sept., 2000

It is difficult to judge whether Vajpayee's dreams include the implementation of what has come to be known as the core Hindutva agenda. There is no point in saying that the BJP has its own agenda; the audience, especially the Muslim audience, clearly holds them responsible for the behaviour of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. For good reason. If there is a Sangh Parivar, there must be a notion of a shared ethos, of collective action and collective survival—there must be something keeping the family together. The fact is that the BJP remains a Hindu party and its existence within the mainstream will continue to be problematic until there is a radical reformulation of its core ideology. Vajpayee wants to put the Hindutva ideology in cold storage for the time being because he wants his government to survive, stay the course and establish the BJP as a credible alternative to the Congress. A strong and positive approach towards the Muslims would be a part of the strategy, but how he deals with rank-and-file apprehensions about an erosion of their core constituency is the big question.

 Of Swayamsevaks and Semantics

Editorial, The Hindu, 14 September, 2000

The Prime Minister's clarification deserves a qualified welcome.

Overall, the Prime Minister Vajpayee's clarificatory statement will take some of the heat out of the controversy over his speech. The Prime Minister's remarks were treated as evidence of the BJP's doublespeak on Ayodhya, and he was charged with having committed an act of impropriety by lending the impression that he was present at the function in his capacity as the leader of a political party rather than the Prime Minister of the country. The controversy was largely of his own making.

Mr. Vajpayee may say that wrong meanings were read into his words, but it doesn't take a degree in semantics to make a reasonable conjecture about why the Prime Minister indulged in such verbal jugglery. Spurred by the desire to play to a gallery that was packed with fawning party sympathisers, the Prime Minister appears to have chosen to indulge in some clever verbal play. The imprecise meanings and the ambiguous formulations seem very much as if they were intended for the consumption of the politico-religious leaders.

 Siddharth Varadarajan – On Vajpayee's Real Self

Vajpayee has only stated a point he has never attempted to hide. In February, he said: "The RSS is not a political outfit. It is a cultural and social organisation and I don't think objections should be raised on anybody joining it."

In May 1995, he wrote an article in the RSS organ Organiser titled "The Sangh is my soul." According to Atal Behari Vajpayee, the RSS has a two-fold task. "One is to organise the Hindus. The other is to assimilate the non-Hindus, like Muslims and Christians, in the mainstream. They can follow the faith of their own conviction. But they must have a feeling of patriotism for this country." The prime minister's description echoed a fundamental tenet of RSS theology: that all Indian Hindus are, by definition, patriotic, while Indian Muslims and Christians have to be "assimilated" into loving their country.

Elaborating on the role of Muslims in India, Vajpayee repeated the familiar RSS charge that Muslims have "yet to learn the art of existing and flourishing in a country where they are in a minority." "The Quran," he alleged, "offers no guidance in this regard. It only talks of killing kafirs or converting them to Islam. But they cannot do it always and everywhere. How can they do it where they are in a minority? If they try to do it, a major clash will take place and only the members of the minority will be killed."

Ironically, in August 1979, Vajpayee had written an article in the Indian Express criticising the RSS for not doing enough to address the genuine apprehensions of people. "Its repudiation of the theocratic form of the state was welcome, yet the question could legitimately be asked—why does it not open its doors to non-Hindus... (and as a) natural corollary... clearly enunciate that by Hindu Rashtra it means the Indian nation, which includes non-Hindus..." Hindus as equal members." To this day, the RSS has never really answered that question, though in all fairness, Vajpayee has never really bothered to ask it again. (Source: The Times of India, 12 September, 2000)

 Abroad, PM should Embrace all Indians

Shahabuddin's Historical Letter to Vajpayee, 9 October, 1998

During your stay in New York, you attended and addressed a Reception by the Indian American Community on 27 September, 1998.

I have before me an advertisement issued by the 4 major sponsors including Overseas Friends of BJP. However, the list of co-sponsors includes a large number of Hindu Mandirs and organisations including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, Hindu Centre, Hindu Sevika Samiti, Hindu Students Council, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and others.

There are no doubt several ethnic bodies, representing Gujaratis, Haryanvis, Keralites, Maharashtrians and Sindhis. But we miss organisation of Muslims, Christians and Buddhist Indians. We also miss other linguistic/ethnic groups like Tamils, Telugus, Bengalis, Biharis who are also active.

I sincerely feel that whatever party the Prime Minister belongs to, abroad he is the head of our Government and, as such, he should be welcomed by all sections of the Indian community and, on his part, he should embrace all.

Because of my high personal regard for you, I have thought it fit to draw your attention to such omission. Your office and the sponsors should have exerted themselves to bring in everyone.

[Mr. Vajpayee had graciously acknowledged the letter on 28 October, 1998 - Editor].

 Stuff of Dreams -Editorial, Hindustan Times, 14 Sept., 2000

The Prime Minister's clarification that ... should defuse the recent controversy. However, ... one man's dream can be another's nightmare... In India today much of the earlier consensus on politics, economic direction, foreign and nuclear policy, etc. has broken down...

The differences in the social and cultural spheres are no less sharp than those in the economic sector. Here, the belief among the right-wing hardliners of the kind who were present at Vajpayee's New York meeting is that India cannot attain its ordained destiny of being a great power unless it asserts its Hindu identity.

It is not a view shared by those whose India is a country where the concepts of pluralism and of the secular dissociation between the State and religion prevail. In such a country, no single religion or culture will have primacy of place. To them, India can only be great if all its communities participate as equals in the exciting adventure of building a new nation which is proud of its rich multicultural heritage. It is self-evident that an India of everyone's dreams can only be built by treading the middle path and eschewing sectarian interests, both of the Left and the Right.

IUML: Statement on PM's Split Personality, 11 September, 2000

We deeply regret that Prime Minister Vajpayee deemed it fit in his tour of the United States to share a platform with the leaders of the VHP. The participation does not augur well for secular democracy. It also exhibits total insensitivity to the present popular protest against VHP's bid to secure UN NGO status.

Quite expected, the Prime Minister was presented the demand for construction of temple on the site of the Babari Masjid at Ayodhya. It is shocking that the Prime Minister chose to be vague and apologetic, explaining reportedly that his was a coalition government and that he did not enjoy full majority, and he also appealed for a two-third majority to "build the India of our dream".

Secular India, committed to the rule of law, is deeply hurt. The credibility, if at all there was any, of the recent so-called favourable disposition of the RSS and the BJP towards Muslims stands exploded and shattered.

The Prime Minister unfortunately seeks shelter under the cover that his presence at the function, the proceeds of which goes to strengthen the cause of the VHP, was in his capacity as "Swayamsevak". This invests the Prime Minister with a split-personality convenient for the furtherance of the communal fascist agenda which is now not so hidden.

The allies of the BJP need to sit up, take serious note and reconsider their continuance in the NDA.

Limits of Moderation -Editorial, The Statesman, 9 Sept., 2000

... What does its growing Vajpayeeisation bode for the BJP? At one level, it may well signal a welcome moderation of the party's stance on key issues — be it the distancing from contentious issues, or the olive branch to Muslims. It may even lead to a more harmonised government policy on economic issues, one that is less strained by contrary pulls and tugs from within the party. Yet, the sidelining of all difference cannot bode well for...

The party in the long term. Despite their individual differences and idiosyncrasies, Uma Bharati, Sushma Swaraj and now Govindacharya may have more in common than they know: their marginalisation may point to the same process of creeping homogenisation in Vajpayee's BJP.

The BJP would do well to cast a look at its main rival here. Years of centralisation of all power, decades of the high-handed snuffing out of dissent, have denuded the Congress of all vibrancy and vigour. Today, the Congress flounders from one crisis to another; lack of inner-party democracy has made it a minefield of unresolved tensions. Perhaps Vajpayee's BJP is still to learn that coherence does not necessarily have to be achieved by expelling difference, and that, if too strictly etched out, the Laxman rekha may well become a barricade.

Neerja Chowdhury – On Compulsions of Coalition Culture

At a philosophical plane, L.K. Advani's statement in Nagpur—that good governance has no relation with ideology—is a contradiction in terms.

Why then has Advani made such a statement? His words carry a host of political messages. It is one more signal that the party's erstwhile hawk has not only put Hindutva "on the back burner" but is delinking it from governance in principle. This amounts to more than just a tactical retreat on the party's core issues. What he seems to be saying is not so much that ideology has no relation with governance but that running a government has no relation with the party's ideology. Implicit in the statement is an admission that Hindutva is too narrow a base for the ideological underpinnings of a party that has plateaued and is eyeing new horizons.

It may have been used by the BJP to make a quantum leap forward by getting the support of a community agitated over an issue at a particular moment. But a stint in power has made it clear that a temple at Ayodhya cannot feed people, give them employment or health or educational facilities, build roads, or deal with the growing cacophony of demands coming from various interest groups and regions.

It has also brought home the point that many of its programmes were mere slogans that were suitable only for a party in opposition.

Advani is clearly positioning himself as the number two in the party, even as he goes out of his way to show that he does not want to challenge Vajpayee's leadership in any way. He is also casting himself in the mould of Atal Behari Vajpayee—as the next moderate face of the BJP—realising the compulsions of coalition governance. Are Here to stay.

In fact, the hardliners in the party are already beginning to express their disappointment with Advani for not taking on the Prime Minister for many of his policies and for going soft on the party's ideology.

The Prime Minister's frail health has created a climate of uncertainty in the party and outside it, and brought the issue of succession to the fore again. Advani is the natural successor to Vajpayee in more ways than one.

There is one view in the Sangh Parivar that Vajpayee should make way for someone else, given his poor health, to facilitate a smooth succession. Clearly, Advani is more acceptable to the party than anybody else, and the allies may accept Advani rather than go for an election.

However, steering the party to a new phase of becoming a mainstream organisation that is, at the same time, acceptable to both the RSS-BJP hardliners and to the allies, will be no cakewalk.

(Source: The Indian Express, 4 September, 2000).

 SP: Tilt Towards High Castes

The Samajwadi Party, on 24 August 2000, announced its State Executive, indicating its intention to give more representation to upper castes. The SP, considered a political association of Yadavas and Muslims, has made a strong bid to reject the stigma in its new executive announced by the State Party President, Ram Saran Das.

In the 51-member committee there are seven Thakurs and seven Muslims. The representation to Thakurs is significant as their ratio in the State's population is merely two-thirds of the minority community. The SP has also nominated four Brahmins and two Kayasthas. A majority of the members, however, belong to the backward classes and scheduled castes, but the increased representation to upper castes certainly indicates a shift in the perceptions of Mulayam Singh Yadav. (Source: The Hindu, 25 August, 2000)

UP: The Rajput Factor

Disgusted at the "systematic persecution" of their kinsmen, the Rajputs—Ministers, MLAs and office-bearers cutting across party lines—have decided to put up stiff resistance. Bureaucrats are providing tacit support.

"The 11.6 per cent Rajput votes would play a decisive role in the outcome of the next Assembly elections," thundered Minister of State for Energy Vivek Singh. He ruled out any marked division in Rajput votes.

If Rajputs put up a joint front, it would prove fatal for the BJP. The party is already feeling the impact of denying the Chief Minister's chair to Union Minister Rajnath Singh. Rajnath has emerged as the symbol of "Rajput resistance".

In the electoral politics of UP, Rajputs are considered a floating vote. The reason is their inability to put up a united front. But this time, Rajputs seem determined to reverse the trend. The low percentage of Rajputs in a House of 425 is the result of anomalies in demarcation of reserved constituencies. Most of the reserved seats are Rajput dominated.

(Source: The Anti-Corruption Weekly, 30 July – 6 August, 2000)

Yadav Raj – Worse Than its Opposition

Editorial, The Statesman, 26 August, 2000

The Yadavs are a different species altogether. They were the principal beneficiaries of the land reform programmes implemented in the fifties, to the extent that they are now the most powerful land-owning caste in the two states, and their arrival on the political stage has been spectacular. Some of them naturally tend to believe that, having acquired the status, they also have a right to the "privileges" associated with those whom they have Displaced in the socio-economic, if not the caste, hierarchy. In other words, Yadav raj is the same thing as Thakur-Brahmin raj, if not worse. They may not have caste privileges, but they have something that is even better—overlordship of the administration, which they have broken and bent to their will through the systematic use of muscle power and the prerogatives of office, in continuance of the methods which brought them to power.