Of Ayodhya and Saffron Attitude
Sid Harth
PM PITS PRIESTS AGAINST VHP
FROM RADHIKA RAMASESHAN
New Delhi, Jan. 3:
Taking a leaf out of P.V. Narasimha Rao’s book, Prime Minister A.B.
Vajpayee is trying to divide the sadhus and scuttle the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad’s plan to announce a date for the Ram temple construction in
its dharam sansad this month.
BJP sources said “influential” clerics, including those from the Bharat
Mata temple of Hardwar, and Nritya Gopal Das of Ayodhya’s Maniram
Chavni, believed that the time was not “ripe” for the construction of
a “grand” temple in Ayodhya.
The sadhus felt a government headed by a “popular” Prime Minister from
the heartland, an Uttar Pradesh Brahmin in particular, must not
be “disturbed”. “Disrupting status quo at the Centre would leave the
field open for the likes of Laloo, Mulayam and Mayavati. This should
not happen, the clerics believe,” a source said.
The Prime Minister is counting on the “dissenters” to persuade the
dharam sansad — which meets in Allahabad on January 19, 20 and 21 — to
defer the construction announcement. “Eventually, the sansad may
constitute another high-level committee to finalise the date and this
could help the Centre buy time for a negotiated settlement or wait for
the judiciary’s verdict,” a source said.
The VHP was earlier expected to declare the date in a meeting in Panaji
last September, but the announcement was postponed to January. The BJP
is bargaining for a second postponement.
Sources said Vajpayee was as “keen” to resolve the Ayodhya dispute as
he was to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir problem. He had even
sounded the VHP on the issue. “Indeed, a major target audience of his
Kerala musings (the two-part articles penned for selective newspapers)
was the VHP and he hopes they will receive his message for a negotiated
settlement in the spirit in which it was meant,” a source said.
After the first flash of anger against Vajpayee’s articles — in which
he obliquely warned the VHP not to violate status quo in Ayodhya — the
outfit has become subdued. Senior vice-president Acharya Giriraj
Kishore said: “The VHP did not have anything to rejoice earlier when
Vajpayee said temple construction was a national aspiration. Nor are we
anguished today. We stand by our agenda, and we will listen only to the
dharmacharyas.” But he was noncommittal when asked if Vajpayee’s veiled
warning would be a stumbling block to fulfilling their temple agenda.
RSS sources said they have decided not to criticise Vajpayee’s Ayodhya
turnaround. “We have decided instead to support him fully and this will
be reflected in the editorial pages of our journals,” a source said.
Narasimha Rao had nearly convinced one section of the clergy to
advocate building the temple outside the disputed site. But the VHP and
the BJP foiled his plans. This time, sources said, the conditions were
different. The mosque was not there and no party had demanded its
reconstruction at the site. Therefore, they claimed, the makeshift
temple could be upgraded to a permanent structure through talks or the
court’s verdict.
http://www.deccan.com/itop1.htm
Laxman greets guests with cross, crescent
New Delhi, Jan. 3: Attempting to push forward his policy of wooing the
minorities, BJP president Bangaru Laxman undertook a massive publicity
exercise at his residence on Wednesday where a picture-frame depicting
the Om, the Cross and the Crescent welcomed the guests.
Over 500 journalists were the invitees for the bash hosted by Laxman
ahead of the BJP national executive meeting scheduled to be held here
on Thursday and Friday. The picture was difficult to miss for the
guests who had come for bites of both kinds — the food and the quotes.
While BJP office-bearers — all of them were there — indulged in the
first variety, journalists gorged on both.
“Probably he wanted to show that the country had the will to solve the
Ayodhya problem. He wanted to tell everybody that it will be solved,
and there is no need to get desperate about it,” Laxman said when asked
why Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee chose to talk about Ayodhya in
his recent article published in select newspapers.
When asked if Vajpayee’s statement last month, that construction of Ram
temple was an expression of national sentiment, would help the BJP,
Laxman said: “Well, it has sent a message (among the cadre), but at the
same time, he has reiterated that the government would abide by the
court’s decision.”
When asked if the Prime Minister’s warning, that anyone disturbing the
status quo at the disputed site would be dealt with by the law was
aimed at the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, he said: “I don’t think it was
meant for anyone in particular, it was meant for all.”
The dinner diplomacy comes on the eve of the national executive meeting
of the Bharatiya Janata Party to be held in the capital from Wednesday
to January 6.
The executive is expected to discuss the upcoming elections in States
such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, and the possible election in
Uttar Pradesh. The recent controversy over the Prime Minister’s
statements on Ayodhya is also expected to figure during the meeting.
http://www.deccan.com/edit.htm
Keep channels open for communication
By S Viswam
Our prime ministers and chief ministers have yet to imbibe the kind of
holiday culture which has become a vital ingredient in the work culture
of heads of State and government of Western nations.
It was only in the latter years of his 17-year-long prime ministerial
tenure that Jawaharlal Nehru began taking an annual or half-yearly
break from the grind of New Delhi’s daily routine.
Indira Gandhi began going on brief holidays only after several years in
office as prime minister. The light-hearted aside during the Indira era
had it that she avoided holidays because she was afraid of being
toppled from power in her absence from New Delhi!
Both Nehru and Indira Gandhi were gluttons for hard work. Nehru used to
carry work home and dispose of files till the small hours of the
morning, dictating to two or three stenographers turn by turn.
It is only recently that chief ministers have begun holidaying within
the country or abroad, a trend set by Jyoti Basu. Our prime ministers
and chief ministers are loaded with routine work, the bulk of which
really should not come to them.
All our prime ministers have had to burn the midnight oil largely
because they have not believed in delegating authority to their Cabinet
colleagues. As a result, they are overworked and are constantly under
pressure. As the system has developed over the years, the prime
minister is not only the first among equals but the office has grown to
be that of the final arbiter.
As the country’s first prime minister, it was understandable that Nehru
was expected to take all the decisions but once the system stabilised,
he could have shed half the administrative burdens which had fallen on
his shoulders.
After him, instead of decentralising, Indira Gandhi did exactly the
opposite. For a variety of reasons which we need not go into here, she,
helped by a handful of advisers, concentrated all powers in her hands.
Indeed, the PMO, as it is called now, came into its own during Indira
Gandhi’s tenure and became more powerful than the Union Cabinet itself
which was converted into a rubber stamp. It is not surprising that
succeeding prime ministers were disinclined to cut the PMO to size.
Morarji Desai tried to dismantle the PMO, but succeeded only partially.
His successors, notably Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao made the PMO
even more powerful. In the Vajpayee regime too, the PMO is as strong as
ever, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra
being a super Cabinet Minister wielding more powers than even the
senior-most Minister, who happens to be Lal Krishna Advani.
It now seems that the PMO as a super-decision-making authority has come
to stay. The “Prime Minister’s Secretariat”, as the office was known
between the Fifties and Seventies, has disappeared.
President Truman kept a small placard on his desk in the White House
Oval office which said: “The buck stops here.” But then, the president
being the ultimate decision taker is understandable in a system of
executive presidency. On the other hand, a democratic regime needs
decentralisation at all levels, including at the top.
However, to return to the point about prime ministers and holidays.
Vajpayee has set a good example for his successors by enjoying a
holiday. By the very nature of his exalted position, as the “first
servant of the nation” as Nehru used to call himself, the prime
minister’s responsibility is continuous, his office travels with him,
his communication links with the system are never cut and he is still
required to take the final decision on many issues of national
importance. A holiday consequently becomes a somewhat glorified — not
to mention a well-publicised — busman’s holiday.
Even so, the few hours of relaxation which are available to him every
day for a few days at a stretch are crucial to him as an antidote to
pressure and tension. They enable him to “think”, an exercise which he
can perform only perfunctorily in the South Block or in 7, Race Course
Road.
Apart from disposing of files, prime ministers need to take a hilltop
view of the state of the nation, and this he cannot do while attending
to the numerous chores he is required to perform. One can be sure that
Vajpayee has returned to New Delhi and to the cares and pressures of
his office a more relaxed man, and can apply his mind to the national
challenges with greater comfort.
The second welcome aspect of Vajpayee’s holiday is his gesture in
penning down his thoughts, in the form of two articles, and sharing
them with the nation. We are not for the present concerned with the
contents of the articles.
But what is significant here is that Vajpayee has seen the need for
opening a channel of communication with the people and to take them
into confidence in respect of his perspectives on select national
issues which are dominating the polity right now, namely, the Kashmir
and the Ayodhya problems. One can only hope that Vajpayee, and his
successors would continue with this “sharing my thoughts” process.
Nehru kept in touch with the people directly by addressing numerous
public meetings. He wrote official and demi-official letters to the
chief ministers. Most of these letters are worth their weight in gold.
Besides this, till the 1962 Chinese aggression, he maintained the
practice of addressing a press conference every month. That kind of
prime minister-Press-people-chief ministers interaction does not exist
these days. And the nation is certainly the poorer for it, because
distance between the people and their ruler is the very antithesis of
democracy.
The Prime Minister’s message, the text of which has been carried by
some newspapers, is unlikely to be uniformly or universally well
received. But this is not as relevant as the point that for the first
time, Vajpayee has availed himself of the opportunity of backgrounding
some of the government’s decisions and his own personal utterances.
This is bound to stimulate a public debate in the country on both the
issues, which even otherwise, have been dominating media attention, the
former for several months and years and the latter ever since Vajpayee
chose to comment on the Ayodhya controversy.
The Kashmir issue and the Central government’s approach to it has
always received bipartisan approval, regardless of the ideological
complexion of the government in power. There is also wide agreement
that successive governments have been guilty of bungling in dealing
with the Kashmiris at a human level and with the problem as such at the
political level.
From Nehru to Vajpayee, every prime minister has contributed his little
bit to the deepening of the New Delhi-Kashmiri alienation. However,
Vajpayee’s efforts at normalisation of India-Pakistan ties and the
restoration of peace to Kashmir have been widely endorsed within the
nation.
His statement in his message that his government “shall not traverse
solely on the beaten track of the past” will be taken due note of by
everyone who has been studying the Kashmir problem for the last several
years.
Unfortunately, Vajpayee is unlikely to receive similar sympathetic
understanding in respect of his clarifications on Ayodhya. Indeed,
Vajpayee’s admirers in the country — they extend beyond the narrow
walls of the saffron citadel — received a rude shock from his
pronouncements on the Ayodhya situation.
Amidst the bitter controversy surrounding the Ayodhya problem and the
alienation of the Muslim minorities in the wake of the demolition of
the Babri Masjid, the one hope which sustained the secularists was that
Vajpayee, as Prime Minister, would safeguard the minority interests.
The minorities themselves have reconciled themselves to obeying the
court verdict.
However, Vajpayee set the pigeon among the dovecotes by stating that
the ideal thing would be for the temple to be built over the debris of
the mosque. The statement which caused the maximum disenchantment was
that the demolition of the mosque was a manifestation of the national
sentiment.
Vajpayee had to issue a clarification after his Lok Sabha speech which
sent alarming signals throughout the country. His remarks were such as
to cause maximum joy to the Sangh Parivar and great distress to all
other parties and citizens. His latest clarification from Kerala,
offered after a lapse of several days since the parliament utterances,
makes the situation worse.
Vajpayee pleads that the entire misunderstanding arose out of the
failure to note his use of the past tense regarding the manifestation
of the national sentiment. In other words, Vajpayee maintains that even
though he did not and does not support the demolition, the national
sentiment did.
The movement for a Ram temple would certainly have been an expression
of national sentiment had the construction of a magnificent mandir been
proposed at a different venue. No sane person, not even the Muslims, in
India are opposed to a temple for Ram.
What has alarmed people at large is the linking of the Ram mandir with
national pride and national honour, in clear violation of the need for
communal peace and understanding. Vajpayee’s reiteration that the
government will abide by the court’s verdict “whatever it is” is
welcome, but his persistent refusal to condemn the VHP’s temple
programme, reportedly in an advanced stage now, is intriguing. Vajpayee
rightly asserts that the status quo at Kashi and Mathura must remain
undisturbed.
But throughout his long clarification, there is neither a reference to
the VHP programme nor an announcement of the government’s intention to
halt it till the court delivers its verdict.
Vajpayee is obviously cut to the quick by the criticism that the
liberal mask slipped off his face after his Ayodhya utterances and that
he emerged in his true colours as a committed swayam sevak.
However, what is one to make of a Prime Minister who virtually endorses
the VHP programme by insisting that a Ram mandir (built over the ruins
of the Babri mosque) is a symbol of national honour just as Somnath was
a symbol of national culture? Vajpayee, one regrets to say, is playing
with words. However, the farthest he has now gone is to assure the
nation that the “law will take its course should any organisation
attempt to disturb the status quo.”
But are such assurances worth anything in the face of past experience
when the “karsevaks” were allowed to destroy a place of worship even
though the Kalyan Singh government had solemnly assured the court that
no harm would be done to the monument?
http://www.ndtv.com/topstories/showtopstory.asp?
slug=Jain+expelled&id=5181
BJP committed to NDA agenda says Bangaru Laxman
Thursday, January 4 (New Delhi):
The BJP today used its National Executive meeting to resurrect a more
moderate image of the party leadership. Echoing the Prime Minister's
remarks on Ayodhya, Party president Bangaru Laxman said, that the BJP
was committed to the NDA government agenda and would ensure that the
status quo prevailed on the Ayodhya issue.
Mr. Laxman also criticized the opposition parties for trying to
sabotage the NDA agenda by raising the Ayodhya issue needlessly. He
remarked, "The Prime Minister has made his stand clear on Ayodhya. I
don't think there is any need for this controversy to continue now."
The PM's announcement of ceasefire in Kashmir also found praise in his
speech. But, some veiled criticism also came forth over the
government's agriculture and food procurement policy and the continued
dumping of cheap Chinese goods in the country's markets.
Mr. Laxman's remarks are seen as an attempt to lend some credibility to
his renewed appeal to the minorities to support the BJP. There was
however a discordant note struck by some BJP MPs, who are keen to use
this month's mahakumbh at Allahabad to push the Ram Mandir agenda once
again. Mr. Vinay Katiyar, BJP MP Ayodhya, said, "The NDA has a
different agenda, and the BJP has a different agenda."
If the political resolution was designed to resolve the internal
tussles, the BJP's economic resolution is aimed at giving the party a
more populist face ahead of April assembly elections. The economic
resolution focusses on decentralizing the Food Corporation of India and
involving the private sector in procuring and distributing grain
instead -- a sign that the BJP realizes the importance of the farmers
vote in the run up to those elections.
The BJP's National Executive meeting is being held within days of the
Prime Minister making his stand clear on crucial issues like Kashmir
and Ayodhya. The party will pass its political and economic resolutions
during the meeting that will go on till tomorrow.
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