Opinion - Editorials   

Sanyasin's fiery challenge

When two rebel politicians, each with an acknowledged mass base, unite on the same platform, there cannot but be sound and fury. More so when they happen to be Uma Bharti and Madan Lal Khurana — both with a talent for melodrama and both in bad odour with the Bharatiya Janata Party. So it was at Tuesday's Janadesh (people's mandate) rally called by Ms. Bharti to announce her new party. With Mr. Khurana at her side, the sanyasin savaged the BJP in a speech rich in symbolism and imagery. The parent party at 11 Ashoka Road had been reduced to a shell, a body without a soul. That soul would find shelter in her party; she was the real BJP. Ms. Bharti drew from the Mahabharata, likening Atal Bihari Vajpayee to "Bhishma Pitamaha" and Lal Krishna Advani to "Guru Dronacharya." The message: just as the elders in the epic were mute spectators to the crimes of Duryodhana, the elders in the BJP watched the plunder of the Hindutva party by rootless political managers without ideology. The Delhi strongman lamented his ill-treatment by the same lobby ("the BJP has become a private limited company") and swore to lay down his life in the cause of the capital's poor and disadvantaged. There were others on stage who matched Mr. Khurana and Ms. Bharti word for word — Union Ministers in the National Democratic Alliance Government, Sangh Priya Gautam, Swami Chinmayanand, Sanjay Paswan, Tapan Sikdar, and Prahlad Patel, along with the Chautala brothers, Abhay and Ajay, from the Indian National Lok Dal, and Apna Dal chief Sonelal Patel.

To be sure, Ms. Bharti is handicapped without a party machinery. She speaks a language and professes a philosophy that has the BJP stamped all over it — even if she advertises her ideology as "aggressive nationalism" that would not brook differential treatment of the Sankaracharya and the Shahi Imam ("Beware, you are in India"). These are familiar words, and indeed Ms. Bharti clarified that her party would differ from the BJP only in respect of `charitra' (character), not `chintan' (thought). Whether a clone can meet with any kind of success at a time the original has reverted to hard-line Hindutva is hard to tell. Besides, in stressing Hindutva, Ms. Bharti could undermine the other plank of her campaign — the neglect of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs). She ought to be forewarned by the failure of Kalyan Singh who, like her, represented the twin attractions of mandir and mandal. However, the sanyasin has more by way of charisma, and her oratory has that quality of drawing in listeners. Her charge that the BJP has been taken over by influence peddlers without grassroot concerns is bound to resonate with party workers who feel aggrieved on this count. Ms. Bharti by herself has the capability to injure the parent party. Were she to take away sections of the party and form alliances with other parties, she could inflict the kind of damage the faction-ridden BJP can ill afford.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Sanyasin's fiery challenge
Italy at the crossroads
Fuelling a needless controversy?
An adjournment and a proposed ordinance
Needed, re-engineering in education
Corrections and clarifications
Questions without answers are worth asking
Famine threat to Somalia
Rupee convertibility
Decline of upper house
On Election Commission
Judgment revisited
Kurien's exit

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu