Politics, as the saying goes is the art of the possible. In pushing the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Bill through the Lok Sabha in the face of opposition by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Narasimha Rao government has, in my view, disregarded this well-recognised proportion. The consequences for it and its supporters can be serious.
Politics, of course, must not be allowed to degenerate into an unprincipled pursuit of power. Even if it is regarded as war by ‘other means’ in imitation of Clausewitz’s famous definition of war as ‘politics by other means’, it has to be remembered that war too has its rules. In fact, politics is a substitute for war and therefore not war by ‘other means’.
In this specific case, the Congress claims that it has been guided by the larger national consideration of avoiding a possible Hindu-Muslim polarization. It argues that in view of the magnitude the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy has assumed, it has had no choice but to seek to freeze the status quo ante in respect of all other places of worship which can become subject of dispute.
Strictly speaking, this claim is open to question on two counts. First, it cannot be denied that up to the time of the Lok Sabha poll in 1989, the Congress sought to turn the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy to its electoral advantage through a series of moves, beginning with the opening of the padlock in 1986 and ending with the Shilanyas at the site in 1989.
Secondly, the Congress made the promise to freeze the status quo ante in respect of all other places of worship, a euphemism for mosques, on the eve of the last elections primarily with a view to winning back the Muslim vote which had drifted away from it and moved towards the VP Singh-led Janata Dal.
Even the critics of the Congress in the National Front and the Left combine and indeed among a substantial section of the more articulate intelligentsia are, however, no longer interested in examining the party’s credentials on this issue. They have welcomed the Bill and accepted the Congress view that this measure would help avoid an aggravation of the Hindu-Muslim problem. So the more pertinent issue now is whether this assessment is justified. I for one doubt it.
The Congress leadership, it can hardly be disputed, held out the assurance in question on the eve of the last poll in the calculation that there would either be no adverse reaction among the Hindus, or that it would not be sharp enough to nullify such gains as it might make among the Muslims. It is difficult to say what gains the party made among the Muslims, if it made any at all in view of the continuing distrust of it among the Muslim leadership. But there can be little doubt that it lost support among the Hindus to the BJP.
Elections, like battles, are a complicated affair. Success and failure depend on a combination of factors which it is rather arbitrary to try to disentangle. Even so, in respect of the last elections, it is universally accepted that the BJP gained on account of its enthusiastic support for the VHP’s plans to build a Ram temple on the Janambhoomi site in Ayodhya and that the Congress lost on account of its ambivalence amounting to opposition to it.
The BJP’s gains, it is well known, were most impressive in Uttar Pradesh where it more than trebled its vote and won a majority in the Vidhan Sabha. UP was in the eye of the storm since Ayodhya is located there. But as far as the BJP’s performance was concerned, the state was not altogether an exception. For it also made notable gains in States such as Karnataka, Andhra, Assam and West Bengal where it had virtually no worthwhile presence earlier.
It would doubtless be an exaggeration to suggest that the Janambhoomi controversy alone accounted for this success. But it would also be wrong to deny the importance of this factor. More than anything else, it gave the BJP leadership a new kind of confidence and appeal which together made it possible for it to adopt a far more aggressive electoral strategy than it had ever earlier.
As was only to be expected, the BJP’s spectacular performance set warning bells ringing in all other parties. But they have not been able to think of a strategy which can possibly enable them to cope with the new political situation which this success has produced. On the contrary, by pushing the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Bill, they have further complicated their task.
On the face of it, two options have been open to the BJP’s critics and detractors – to isolate it effectively through a viable and durable anti-BJP alliance, or to seek to accommodate it in the legitimate calculation that that would help temper it. They have not been willing and/or able to take either.
There was a lot of vague talk of ‘realignment of forces’ in the wake of the last poll. Perhaps the proponents of the proposed realignment were encouraged by the sudden, even if brutal, demise of Rajiv Gandhi and the poor performance of the Janata Dal under VP Singh’s leadership. But, as could easily be anticipated, nothing came out of this meaningless prattle.
The talk was revived a couple of weeks ago in view of the feud between VP Singh and Ajit Singh in the Janata Dal. This time the once bright hope of intellectuals, Ramakrishna Hegde, put his weight behind it with an unequivocal call for a Congress-Janata Dal alliance for the specific purpose of containing the BJP which, according to him, would otherwise be well placed to come to power in New Delhi at the next elections. Again, the move has petered out.
VP Singh’s approach is sound on this question, whatever his motives and whatever one may think of him as a political leader. He has said more than once that for the Janata Dal to come to terms with the Congress is to surrender the entire opposition space to the BJP and he is right. Indeed, he could have gone on to add that this space, which accounts for two-thirds of the electorate in view of the Congress vote of around 35 per cent in the last poll, is likely to increase in coming months and years on account of the short-term adverse consequences of the government’s new economic policy.
In reality the so-called political realignment is a mirage. It cannot possibly materialize. But let us suppose for the sake of argument that it does. Then one does not need to be a political pandit to be able to predict that one certain result would be an aggravation of the existing disarray in the Congress, leading to a possible split.
Perceptive Congress leaders are aware of this danger. That is one reason, among others, why despite the government’s lack of majority in the Lok Sabha, they are not keen on a split in the Janata Dal and on the breakaway group joining their party, or the government, as allies.
Thus in realistic terms, only the second option of accommodating the BJP has been open to its opponents. Indeed, it is rather surprising that Prime Minister Narasimha Rao should not have explored it. One possible explanation for it can be the fear that his silent and not so silent rivals in the party would exploit such a move on his part to embarrass him.
Be that as it may, however, the price of accommodating the BJP would have been close to zero for its opponents in effective as distinct from symbolic terms. For all that they were required to do was to persuade Muslim leaders to agree to a shifting of a structure which the latter too cannot be so naive as to believe can ever again be restored to the status of a mosque.
Any number of issues, rendered irrelevant by time, have been, and continue to be, raised in this connection. That speaks rather poorly for our political and intellectual life. It shows that we remain mired in the past and incapable of looking the present in the face and of coping with it.
It is the totality of circumstances, as they obtain, that should concern us. Instead we have been obsessed with how this totality has come into existence as if we can wish it away.
The cost to the BJP of being accommodated would, on the other hand, have been prohibitive. A peaceful resolution of the Janambhoomi controversy would have virtually deprived it of its Hindutva platform and therefore of its distinction and appeal.
It seems to me that a number of considerations persuaded the BJP after the elections to adopt a non-confrontationist approach – its search for acceptance by the western-educated elite in control of the media and universities, its desire to ensure that the centre does not find some pretext to dismiss one or more of its governments in the states, its keenness, on the one hand, to reassure the Muslims and, on the other, to enable the government to try and cope with an extremely difficult economic situation.
But however legitimate these sentiments and calculations, the result could have been pretty bad for the BJP. It could have found itself disabled. The government, with the support of the National Front and the Left combine, has exorcised that spectre for it. The BJP is now free to pursue its goal of power in New Delhi on its own plank.
The effectiveness of this platform is almost certain to increase with the collapse of communism in the world as a whole, eclipse of socialism and the consequent demoralization among Marxists, pseudo-Marxists and left-of-the-centre liberals at home, and the inevitably adverse consequences of the new economic policy for at least the next three to five years.
It is premature to say how effectively the BJP leadership will be able to make use of the opportunity that its opponents have literally imposed on it. But it can be said with confidence that circumstances are, on the whole, favourable for it.
The BJP had virtually put itself into a trap with its decision to continue to support the VP Singh government in disregard of the then Prime Minister’s lack of concern for its views on vital issues! The Raja of Manda obliged it to assert its freedom with his sudden Mandalization move last summer. The benefit to the BJP is there for anyone to see.
The BJP was more than anxious to put itself into a trap again with its unilateral anxiety to help the present government despite the latter’s preference for an arrangement with the Janata Dal. It is no great secret that some BJP leaders had begun to dream of an alliance with the Congress with them as junior partners.
The deal on the election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker may have been a one-time affair for the Congress. For at least some BJP leaders it was to be the beginning of an alliance. They were working out their own version of ‘political realignment’. That exercise in illusion-building is over.
Sunday Mail, 15 September 1991