Even before the party anointed him, Modi gifted it a
miracle
No,
seriously, could you ever imagine this would be possible some day? Lal Krishna
Advani himself probably did not. Not since his doomed attempt to do a Vajpayee
in 2005 when he showered praise on, of all people, Qaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali
Jinnah, during a visit to Pakistan. Probably neither did the Sangh, primus
inter pares of the saffron family, which came down heavily on the ‘loh
purush’ for having gone soft. Or those outside the parivar whose chuckle at the
removal of the born-again son of Karachi’s soil as party president betrayed
little sympathy.
A
few dull years in the Opposition had made Advani risk his Hindutva credentials
in a bid to fit into Vajpayee’s unclaimed shoes that he knew were custom-made
for walking the coalition course. Praising Jinnah in Pakistan was a high-stake
political gamble. In fact, Advani was prepared for the Sangh Parivar’s scrutiny
which he hoped would boost his acceptance across party lines. But that was not
to be.
You
couldn’t blame anyone for not buying into Advani’s secular posturing in 2005.
After all, it was Advani, the Hindutva mascot of two decades, against Advani,
the sudden Jinnah-admirer. It was easy enough to discern the man who
almost singlehandedly launched his party on the path of rabid right-wing
politics with the ramjanmabhoomi movement that eventually brought down the
Babri Masjid. If many got over that chapter of shame, his arm-twisting of
Vajpayee, stopping the then prime minister from performing his rajdharma during
the Gujarat riots in 2002, was still too fresh in memory.
But
this time, the sentiments are very different. Of course, Congress spokesperson
Shakeel Ahmed was among many who pointed out how Advani was only “reaping what
he had sown”. But even he did not fail to spot the game changer: “Narendra Modi
has projected himself as a more communal person than Advani”. On that note, for
a large section of the media and masses, the secular equation has finally
tilted in Advani’s favour. In the last week, the veteran’s resistance to the
inevitability of Modi’s anointment as the party’s poll mascot suddenly made him
the secular voice he has been aspiring to be at least since 2005.
This
new equation will help the BJP in the upcoming poll season. For nearly a
decade, the party has been sorely missing the moderate voice of Vajpayee that
so used to pander to secular demands so effortlessly. Leaders like Sushma
Swaraj try hard to strike that pitch every
now and then. But the effectiveness of a moderate voice depends not only on the
platitude it peddles but also on its stature and acceptability. Vajpayee came
across as moderate, even secular, due to the rabid foil his party colleagues
provided. Plus, of course, he was Vajpayee. After his political superannuation,
Advani, the second tallest leader of the party, struggled to fill in the void
because he was hopelessly chained to his radical image.
It
took Modi a decade, since he was saved as Gujarat chief minister by Advani
himself, to set his mentor free by emerging as the most aggressive hardliner in
the party. It gave Advani the opportunity to exorcise his chequered past by
standing up to the “biggest threat to secularism”. In firmly opposing Modi’s
accession to the helm of the BJP, the veteran leader has finally created a
semblance of moderate credibility — something his labored volte-face on
communal stands could never achieve in the past.
Advani’s
apparent defeat within the organisation and subsequent resignation from all
party posts has further helped this image makeover. The erstwhile rabble-rouser
has suddenly become a lonely old man resisting a communal onslaught at the cost
of his position and power in the party that he built from scratch. But the real
credit goes to Modi. This metamorphosis would never have been possible had the
Gujarat CM not positioned himself as such a polarising figure that anyone, even
Advani, taking him on would find acceptance among the moderates in the media,
masses and even polity by default.
Having made his stand
clear, Advani will continue to hold the party posts but he is unlikely to
reconcile with Modi in the near future or at any rate allow any perception of
such reconciliation to become public. He will also campaign and it will help
the party deliver the right messages to at least a few secular ears. His
presence will signal that Modi may have the upper hand but does not enjoy a
free run yet and may not ultimately be the party’s prime ministerial candidate.
Already, the positive vibe from the likes of Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik is
hard to miss.
Indeed,
if the BJP musters the numbers in the next Lok Sabha polls to anchor a
coalition, who knows history may repeat itself. To stitch together the NDA, the
BJP had to settle for Vajpayee, the moderate, as the prime minister in 1996
because Advani, the hardliner, was not acceptable to many.
In
2014, will the party be forced to project Advani, now perceived as the
moderate, instead of Modi, the new hardliner, as the prime minister to attract
sideliners such as the Trinamool Congress? If the BJP was fine with the mukhota (mask) in 1996, no reason it
should mind now. And Advani is unlikely to object to any arrangement as long as
it fetches him the post he has wanted all his life.
Of
course, there is still many a catch to this dream come true for Advani. For
one, though Modi has more than subsumed the roles Advani played in the party in
the 1990s, he does not call himself the ‘loh purush’. He must have been
thoughtful as usual because the last and only BJP leader who retired from 7 Race Course
Road was also a ‘vikas purush’.
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