L.K. Advani, after riding the RSS-VHP 'rath' to Ayodhya, which culminated in the demolition of the Babari Masjid, realized that his own stewardship of the party had become a liability.

With its status as the arch untouchable of Indian politics getting underscored so aggressively, the impossibility of the non-Congress, non-Communist parties joining hands with Advani's BJP became apparent. With that was gone whatever hope the party could entertain of gaining power at the Centre. This was the context in which the second major Shakuni-like move on India's political chessboard was made by the hard-core saffron brigade with the aim of gaining power to establish eventually a 'Hindu Rashtra'.

Let it not be forgotten even briefly that the declared mission of the RSS is to advance the cause of their sectarian and shallow version of Hindu dharma, Hindu sanskriti and Hindu society in order to totally dominate the centuries-old many-splendered diversity of an emergent, maturing and modern nation.

The first time that the BJP under (Vajpayee as) the mukhauta tried to form a Government at the Centre it came a cropper. despite the promises of putting away the basic BJP agenda on the shelf made loudly on the floor of the Lok Sabha ...

In the event, the people turned to the BJP to try them out as the last resort. The BJP increased its presence in the Lok Sabha to 182 members, still 50 per cent short of a clear majority. Yet, the party offered the best, if not the only prospect of forming a Government and the regional satraps had no great problem switching their fickle loyalties from simple secularism to 'genuine secularism' Chandrababu Naidu's TDP proved to be the classic case in point. The Marxists, of course, lived to rue the day of their shortsighted manipulations. The coup de grace came when they started sending out SOS to Sonia Gandhi to save the nation from the saffron surge.

It was this conspiracy of circumstances that made the mask' come alive. After initial humiliation by a besieged and demanding Jayalalitha, he has grown from strength to strength. Today, he is actually able to tell the sarsanghchalaks where to get off.

But then, within his Government, the Sangh loyalists are still to be reckoned with. Whatever the level of their commitment to the parent organization and its Hindutva ugenda vis-a-vis their own ambitions of power, they may find themselves coerced into towing the RSS line for fear of losing the grassroots support of the parent body that has sustained them all along. They may well be mortally frightened of going to the hustings without the mobilisational crutches traditionally provided by the RSS cadres. At the same time, if they fail to 'Vajpayise' themselves, they may be left high and dry by several of their current and prospective 'allies' when the time to form the Government arrives the next time round.

The evolution of the BJP under Vajpayee has placed the RSS on the horns of a dilemma. While they are just not in a position to give up the mask, they have as much to fear from the Vajpayee phenomenon as they ever had to from their worst enemies. Indeed, the more they visualize themselves as getting close to the goal, the greater is the camouflage they will require, to be able to seize fully the apparatus of Government, to 'Hinduise' every citizen of 'Hindustan' a name so dear to the founders of the RSS. So, what they would like to see happen, as soon as possible, is for the mantle to pass on to someone who can be relied upon to treat the mask as such and not let it get fused into the personality.

In Vajpayee, they had a man who was basically non-fundamentalist. He was not cut out to be a slave to narrow and hostile doctrines. Despite his undisputed stature, he could never be persuaded to climb atop a RSS rath to arouse the Hindu populace to 'undo historic wrongs'. That is why, at one stage in the RSS pilgrimage towards the shrine of power in New Delhi, he was the ideal choice to win friends and influence politicians.

The RSS was fortunate in having him around when he was so desperately needed but no longer. Today, unfortunately for them, his way of thinking is engendering the rise of a BJP which is quite different from the BJP of their dreams and designs.

For now, the RSS and its 'Parivar', after all their angry fulmination against the BJP sarkar, have made a strategic retreat. This became easier as their brittle egos were duly massaged by the 'first ever visit' of a Prime Minister to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. But the frustration of being rendered impotent is not about to go away in a hurry.

Indeed, the first major political match of the new millennium BJP (Vajpayee) vs BJP (RSS) has now got well under way. And we, the people of India, are not just spectators but active participants, and the final arbiters of which way it finally swings. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 25 October, 2000)