The patriarch has finally spoken, but much like the politician who finds his tongue only when all but dumped by their party. By penning a blog to voice his angst over the “anti-national” slur employed by his party against political opponents, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran L.K. Advani was rapping his protégé Narendra Modi on the knuckles.
We can only guess if his outpouring had to do with the way he has been treated, or if it was a genuine lament over the party’s departure from the right path.
If only this censure had come much earlier, he would have done the country a favour.
Missed opportunities
Advani had opportunities aplenty to counsel his party against the culture of colouring all contrarian views as seditious and anti-national.
But did he speak up when Kanhaiya Kumar and other student activists at JNU were charged with sedition, or when activists were accused of being part of a Maoist conspiracy in the Bhima-Koregaon case?
In his blog, the nonagenarian leader speaks of respect for diversity as the essence of Indian democracy. Didn’t he remember this tenet when Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched by a mob on suspicion of storing beef in his house in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh? Why did he look the other way when Akhlaq’s killers were celebrated as heroes?
Advani talks of independence, integrity and fairness of democratic institutions. Yet, since 2014, when Modi took office as Prime Minister, one democratic institution after another has been marginalised.
In early 2018, four Supreme Court judges came out openly against the then Chief Justice of India for apparently coming under pressure from the executive.
Unfortunately, there has been no record of Advani reacting to this instance, or when the Modi government removed the CBI director through a midnight order later that year either.
After all, Advani should have made it his business as a member of the BJP ‘margadarshak mandal‘ to advise the party and the government whenever they stepped out of line.
It is another matter that no one may have heeded his words in the BJP, but it would at least have added another important voice to the public discourse around the actions of the Modi regime.
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A monster of his own making
In a way, Advani is reaping the fruits of the seeds he sowed. His 1990 rath yatra as part of the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid two years later, was the starting point for the construction of the template of hate. Ironically, it was the same Modi who accompanied Advani on the Gujarat leg of that campaign.
That campaign changed the course of the BJP’s history. If the BJP is what it is today, it is thanks to the polarisation of the Indian polity on religious lines propelling the party to power at the Centre twice, as well as in many states.
If Advani finds the politics of today divisive, he should remember he is guilty too. He became an ardent advocate of Modi after the latter became Gujarat chief minister. He prevailed upon the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to not sack Modi even when Gujarat burned in one of India’s worst anti-Muslim riots in 2002.
Advani’s homilies to the party he and Vajpayee founded have come too late in the day, and will have no effect on the BJP’s abrasive campaign rhetoric. The BJP has travelled far from the values he claims the party has always stood for.
The party’s stars of today are unapologetic in parroting the line “if you’re not with Modi, you’re anti-national”, in meeting after meeting. Any course correction be damned — they are already preparing for a second Modi term even before the first vote has been cast.
With his blog, Advani may have assuaged his own guilt somewhat and, in the process, given something to the opposition to embarrass the BJP in the ongoing Lok Sabha election campaign.
Whatever be the provocation for him to speak out now, history will perhaps add a kind footnote about his intervention that came ahead of the BJP’s 40th foundation day.
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The author is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru.