VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Narendra Modi is the toast of the
BJP, the flavour of the election season and the Gujarat Chief Minister realises
it like no one else. He is travelling the length and breadth of the country,
addressing sadhus and the corporate honchos alike along with election rallies
in Karnataka and in the process his acceptability is gradually increasing even
in those sections that would prefer not to touch him with a barge pole in the
public.
His main competitor in the BJP
for Prime Ministerial candidate, LK Advani, on the other hand, is like Sachin
Tendulkar these days.
The form has deteriorated, the
fans are deserting him and discovering new cricketing stars, he is past his
prime but he still insists that there is more cricket left in him and needs to
play not only for Mumbai Indians but also for India .
In 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of the country and also
the Prime Ministerial candidate of the party. BJP lost the "India
shining campaign" and the election which it was widely expected to win.
Down with poor health, he retired to his Krishna Menon Marg residence in New
Delhi after playing a stellar role in national
politics for almost half a century. In 2009, Advani was the prime ministerial
candidate of the BJP. The party lost again this time with a bigger margin as
compared to 2004 and finally Advani too acquired a semi-retired status when he
did not become the Leader of Opposition and instead it was Sushma Swaraj who
assumed charge. Advani became the Chairman of the NDA, a position which
confirmed his semi-retired status as there is hardly any work profile for the
ceremonial position he holds. He will turn 86 this November and when the
premium is on youth, the BJP workers are gradually veering to the idea of a
party with Advani being only an elder statesman and not the Captain of the
ship.
Termed the perpetual yatri, the
grand old man of rath yatras, Advani rode on the rath half a dozen times,
starting with the Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990 to make the party really big in
the subsequent polls. His last rath yatra was in 2011 and there is no immediate
plan to launch another rath yatra in the near future. Fatigue, both in the
leader and also the supporters, has prevented Advani from mounting another rath
and looking for another cause.
Some in the BJP compare Advani
with Tendulkar insisting that there is a sell by date of any sportsperson and a
politician. In the case of a sportsperson, it is the body which starts showing
the symptoms and the sportsperson cannot make runs, score that goal or defend
the goal or simply cannot run the distance in the scheduled time. Newer and
younger bodies have taken over, who run faster, score more runs, field better
and bowl faster. In the case of politics, it is the idea which gets affected by
fatigue with no new thoughts coming and one becoming the prisoner of the past.
For the BJP, it is actually a choice between Dhoni and Virat Kohli on one side
and Tendulkar on the other. It is not a difficult choice to make after all. In
Modi, they see hope and are inspired and motivated, in Advani they see status
quo and political uncertainty. A similar situation prevails in the Congress as
well with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh past his sell by date and Rahul Gandhi,
despite all his limitations, emerging as the new hope of the party with fresh
ideas.
While Advani's rath has not moved
in the last almost two years, Modi has been moving and addressing the business
tycoons in Confederation of Indian Industry and also sitting with the saffron
clad sadhus in Haridwar after the victory in Gujarat Assembly polls last year
in December. He is at ease with Cyrus
Mistry of the Tata group and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and also with Baba Ramdev
of Patanjali Yoga Peeth and at Dharm Meemamsa Parishad in Kerala.
Post Godhra violence has been
often cited by the Congress and Modi's critics of the secular fundamentalist
brigade to pin him down. Perhaps, raj dharm was neglected for a while as the
then Prime Minister Vajpayee aptly reminded Modi then. But Congress has far
worse record on communal riots be it the numerous riots all throughout the
1960s, 70s and the 80s in various parts of the country when the party was in
power in most of the communally sensitive states like Gujarat, Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh and Maharashtra where violence broke out and the minorities were
repeatedly targeted. Then how can Congress brush aside 1984 anti-Sikh riots
when the genocide was carried out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in
the national Capital and elsewhere?
Many won't remember and
intentionally forget which party was ruling Maharashtra
in 1992-93 when the worst communal riots took place post the Babri Masjid
demolition. It was Sudhakar Rao Naik of the Congress who played the politics of
masterly inactivity by failing to act against the rioters. Why doesn't the
Congress remember that it presided over the killing of a thousand people and
did not follow the raj dharm ten years before Gujarat
riots? Has anyone in the Congress apologized for the Mumbai riots ever? I agree that unlike the anti-Sikh riots in
1984, Congress workers and cadres were not involved in Mumbai. But then, if you
want Modi to be accountable and held guilty for post Godhra violence, you should
also accept accountability for Mumbai riots and the anti-Sikh riots. You do not
have a better record on that front. A
pot cannot call the kettle black and that too repeatedly. This is what the
Congress has been trying to do all this while and instilling a sense of fear
amongst the minorities by making a demon out of Modi in all these 11 years.
"My manifesto is everyone
should be healthy and welfare for all. In Gujarat (where) riots happened every
other day and innocents were killed, today after 12 years there is not a sign
of riots," Modi said in Haridwar. I am not an ardent admirer of Modi's
style of dictatorial politics, but there is an element of truth in what he
said. I remember in my years of growing up, every alternate month I used to
hear about "clashes between two communities" in the All India Radio.
Invariably, these clashes led to death of innocents from both communities.
Punish all those who are found guilty of the post Godhra riots, including Modi,
if there is evidence, but do not condemn the person forever. Look ahead, do not
dig the graves and open the wounds time and again. Perhaps the Congress wants
to keep the wounds fresh to reap electoral dividends and play the insecurity
card amongst the minorities. You have been doing it repeatedly, time and again.
It was time you fulfilled the aspirations of the minorities for economic
progress, education, giving them an equal role in opportunities rather than
perpetually create fear and play on that.
Senior columnist and journalist
Swapan Dasgupta argued in this newspaper that "Modi is an idea whose time
has come". Undoubtedly, Modi promises to break status quoism in governance
with his model of development, successfully implemented in Gujarat
and it was time he got a wider canvas for implementing his developmental ideas.
In the Congress, I believe that Rahul is also an idea whose time has come.
Instead of inner party debates and machinations, let the voters decide who is a
better idea and whose time has come and for how long. Move away from the
decades old secular-communal debate which started over 100 years ago in early
1900. It has not done any good to the country nor will it ever do. (Monday, April 29, 2013)
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