The situation following the police lathi-charge on followers of yoga expert Ramdev on June 4/5 midnight has raised hopes in the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that they could create an anti-government atmosphere akin to the “JP” movement of 1975 in the months preceding the Emergency that eventually led to the defeat of the Congress in 1977.
As senior party leaders proceeded to Rajghat on Sunday evening to lodge their strong protest against “police atrocities” on Ramdev's followers, BJP president Nitin Gadkari and several leading lights of the sangh parivar made it quite clear they intended to step up the confrontation with the government. While some said the situation was akin to the Emergency, others went a step further, comparing what happened in the early hours of Sunday to British-led police action in pre-Independence at Jallianwala Bagh. Veteran party leader L.K. Advani also called for an emergency session of Parliament to discuss the Ramdev crisis.
The BJP's stridency is likely to confirm the Congress party's fears that the sangh parivar had fully underwritten Baba Ramdev's campaign.
On Saturday, the RSS links were more than evident, with “sadhvi” Rithambra, famous for her communally poisonous tongue, sharing the dais next to Ramdev at the Ramlila maidan before the police action.
Among the yoga guru's backroom advisers are the former BJP ideologue Govindacharya and the former Intelligence Bureau chief, Ajit Doval, who is a supporter of the BJP.
On Sunday, VHP leader Ashok Singhal warned that the VHP would not tolerate the perceived humiliation of Ramdev, which was an insult to all “sants.”
Ram Madhav of the RSS signalled full support to the “movement against corruption” led by Ramdev, adding it was shocking that in independent and democratic India such a “fascist” episode could have happened. He said the RSS was supporting Ramdev just as it had supported Anna Hazare on the Lokpal bill issue.
After a flurry of press conferences and a core committee meeting in Delhi, senior leaders – Mr. Gadkari, Mr. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad and others – proceeded to Rajghat for a 24-hour dharna as announced earlier in the day by Mr. Gadkari in Lucknow where the party's two-day convention was being wound up.
Mr. Gadkari has asked all State units to hold similar protest meetings, hunger strikes and dharnas across the country to take forward the demand for firm steps to end corruption and bring back to the country black money stashed illegally abroad.
Ms. Swaraj mentioned, after a visit to LNJP hospital here that one woman, Rajbala, had spinal injuries and was paralysed as a result of police action, two men had skull fractures and several of 31 admitted were in a serious condition. She was appalled at this level of police action on hundreds of women and children who were sleeping in tents.
Mr. Gadkari and later Mr. Jaitley said they condemned the police lathi-charge in the strongest language possible. While Ms. Swaraj said the action could not have been possible without clearance from the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Gadkari had earlier demanded apologies from both.
Without naming Dr. Binayak Sen, Mr. Jaitley referred to the appointment on a Planning Commission group of “a person convicted of sedition” and also referred to the meeting of Kashmiri separatists here addressed by writer Arundhati Roy. The government, he said, allowed such activity but had come down heavily on “peaceful” followers of Ramdev.
