One big unhappy family

Family feud

Sir ? The Bharatiya Janata Party is in the throes of a crisis, a crisis big enough to have forced it to defer its national executive meeting which was to have been held in Chennai from July 21 (?Welcome to Babel Janata Party?, July 18). The events of the last fortnight show that while the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh wants to maintain its stranglehold over the BJP, L.K. Advani is equally keen to go down in history as a secular leader, rather than as an advocate of Hindutva ? an image he had acquired and nurtured since the Ram temple movement. This is also the reason he didn?t step down as leader of the opposition in parliament, when he could have earned himself a reprieve by doing so.

All this has caused a serious dent in Advani?s image as the BJP?s ?iron man?. Not that he deserved the sobriquet, as any dispassionate evaluation of his six years as Union home minister will show. Advani did hardly anything to improve the country?s police machinery, as per the recommendations of the national police commission. He did not even act in those areas in which there was little difference of opinion between the Centre and the states. Similarly, he did little to revamp the Intelligence Bureau or the Research and Analysis Wing. Even the RSS was angry with him for not bringing those responsible for the murder of four RSS workers in the North-east to justice. As a member of the opposition in the early Nineties, Advani had led the demand for the N.M. Vora committee?s report on the politician-criminal nexus to be made public. But after he became the No. 2 man in the Union cabinet, he did little to break this nexus.

The rumblings in the BJP will have an adverse impact on its electoral fortunes.

Yours faithfully,
Ganesh Sovani, Naupada, Maharashtra

Sir ? I think L.K. Advani has been greatly misunderstood by a large cross-section of people, including the chaddiwallahs in Nagpur, for his comments on Mohammed Ali Jinnah. In no way can his comments be termed a compromise with his ideology. After all, he only tried to bring some respectability to communal agendas by praising a practitioner of communalism ? moreover someone who preached cosmetic secularism like him. The RSS is not exactly a mother to the BJP ? it is more of a mausi, an old one who fails to realize the need to apply cosmetics. The BJP may not have cut off the appron-strings that bound it to the RSS, perhaps out of deference for an elder. But the party seems to be in no hurry to give up on the make-up kit and thus expose the entire parivar.

Yours faithfully,
Md. Aslam Parvez, Calcutta

Sir ? It is unbelievable that a veteran member of the sangh parivar like L.K. Advani is holding on to office so tenaciously, like any other Indian politician. The entire BJP-RSS drama seems to be a deliberate exercise to keep the otherwise drowning BJP in the news. Or is the sangh thinking of floating a new party to pit against the BJP? The second hypothesis is not entirely fanciful since leaders like Madan Lal Khurana have suddenly turned against L.K. Advani, though just after the Jinnah controversy broke, they had been solidly behind him.

Yours faithfully,
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Dariba, Delhi

Sir ? The present crisis has shown, like nothing else could have, how the RSS controls the BJP. Even an L.K. Advani cannot do much to resist the RSS. Clearly, any change in the BJP, which is against the sangh?s ideology, will not be tolerated, and this is something Advani?s successor had better keep in mind. In a democracy, one which has secularism written into its constitution, such submission by a political party to a quasi-religious organization is shameful.

Yours faithfully,
Saikat Hazra, Uttarpara

Sir ? L.K. Advani, ?louha purush? till the other day, is now bhagna purush. It seems that Jinnah hasn?t done with dividing India, he continues to divide the BJP.

Yours faithfully,
Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee, Faridabad

Sir ? The BJP once prided itself on being cadre-based and ideology-driven. But going by the many contradictory public utterances of its senior leaders, it seems to have become just as undisciplined as the other parties. The washing of dirty linen in public is creating confusion and betraying the leaders? hunger for power. Far from being on the verge of coming to power, they stand to lose even the respect due to a responsible opposition.

Yours faithfully,
C.R. Bhattacharjee, Calcutta

Sir ? The BJP is doomed to extinction if it cannot rid itself of the RSS. The political system in India needs its two main parties ? the BJP and the Congress ? to come to an understanding. Thus the Congress can help the BJP extricate itself from the RSS. The BJP, in turn, can help the Congress run the government without the communists? crutches. Prakash Karat & Co ? who are forcing the Congress to go back on economic reforms ? can then be given the marching orders.

Yours faithfully,
S. Ganguli, Calcutta

Sir ? George Fernandes has been very forthright to say that the RSS has exceeded its brief by demanding L.K. Advani?s head. Even before Advani had made his controversial comments on M.A. Jinnah, the RSS chief, K.S. Sudarshan, had wanted Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani to resign, saying they were too old to continue. The RSS claims to be a non-political organization, but the way it has been meddling in the functioning of the BJP shows that it thinks it is some super-political outfit. Sudarshan wants to install a puppet as BJP president who will dance to his tune. By constantly attacking Advani, he has shown himself to be no better than any other power-hungry politician, something of a Hindu Ayatollah Khomeni, who wants to take India back to the 16th century.

Sudarshan may succeed in removing Advani through amenable leaders in the BJP, but his brand of ideology will spell doom for the party.

Yours faithfully,
Tapan Das Gupta, Calcutta