BJP has struck a political balance to force its leader L.K. Advani to withdraw his resignation and to keep the Hindu fundamentalist outfits like RSS and VHP within its fold. Advani is too valuable to lose just as the Sangh Parivar is indispensable at this juncture. But the Advani episode has indeed created an unprecedented divide within the BJP. Advani is stepping into the shoes of former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. How Advani conducts his politics in the coming weeks and months will determine if his experience in Pakistan has indeed forced a rethink of his Hindutva politics. Has Advani’s Pakistan experience helped him to move away from what many across the border in Pakistan and the Muslims in India see as reactionary politics?
Until his Pakistan trip Advani was seen as the man who stood in sharp contrast to BJP’s reflective leader, now the elder statesman Vajpayee. No less steeped in the Hindu version of the history of partition of India that created the new nation of Pakistan, Vajpayee saw wisdom in moving beyond it. He struggled within the party to replace the politics of communalism with the politics of fulfilling people’s needs. This helped BJP win in the last set of state elections. Yet in the 2004 national elections BJP with its “Shining India” slogan got a shock. Yet both Vajpayee and Advani separately identified ignoring of the electorate’s needs as the primary cause of the defeat. Within the party though a key concern was whether going “soft” on Hindutva caused the defeat.
Then came the Pakistan angle — very closely linked to the Hindutva question. In March the PML President Chaudary Shujaat Hussain’s proposal had taken the BJP President Advani by complete surprise. While making a courtesy call on Advani Shujaat proposed that Advani inaugurate a temple being restored in the Lahore Fort when he visits Pakistan in June. Advani, was visibly surprised. He agreed. The point man of art and culture in Lahore, Yusuf Salahuddin, gave Advani a quick intro to the Lao temple. The legend has it that the temple was built by the Hindu Lord Rama’s son. That temple was specifically chosen because historically that temple was protected by Muslims. Walls around it were built by Alauddin Khilji and subsequently by Emperor Aurangzeb. And after decades of anger and violence brewing on both sides of the border, a confident Pakistan was keen to make the first powerful move — break the mindless and destructive cycle of action-reaction, let’s move at another level of engagement, one of dignity, tolerance and mutual respect.
In inviting Advani to inaugurate the temple Pakistan had decided to draw from our own historical traditions and take a page out of Quaid-e Azam’s teachings, more specifically from his Aug. 11, 1947 address to the Constituent Assembly in which he said:
“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
If the Babri Mosque was razed by the BJP, would Pakistan learn from the BJP action or from our own religious traditions? Thirteen years after the demolition of the mosque and the angry reaction of damaging some temples in Pakistan, the Pakistani soul had risen beyond score settling. Hence the invitation.
Subsequently upon his arrival in Pakistan Advani found great hospitality wherever he went. Pakistan’s president, prime minister, provincial chief ministers, the press, intellectuals and politicians all hosted him. For Advani Pakistan was homecoming, reconnecting and also a religious journey. He went to the ancient temple at Ketas, near Islamabad. The government is now renovating it so it can become a functioning temple.
People of course had questions to ask of the man who is known to have been the political author of BJP’s plan to demolish the Babri Mosque in 1992. No less the man whose party has talked of Akhand Bharat, and opted for rewriting historical texts in educational institutions in accordance with the Hindutva ideology, Advani had personally complained that Muslims were a pampered minority and that the Hindus will never forget the cost of partition. A list of mosques is being circulated within VHP and RSS — about a dozen to be razed because those were built on temples.
Advani’s responses were brief and satisfying. The day Babri Masjid was destroyed was the saddest day of his life, Pakistan was an unalterable reality, Quaid-e Azam was a leader who not only left his mark on history but like very few he actually created history and finally that Quaid was a secular man. That his articulation of secularism as in his speech of Aug. 11 1947 is what must be followed by India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh. Advani laid a wreath at the mausoleum of the Father of the Nation. He left Pakistan having grown in stature. Also forcing Pakistanis to re-evaluate the man they knew as the diehard anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim.
The hospitality in Pakistan and his engagements counted for weighty gestures. That was the stuff of substance. These prompt reflection and often encourage change. They did in Advani’s case. It would be simplistic to conclude that Advani was merely engaging in political tactics. Perhaps for him there was a genuine reassessment. He can never go back to either seeking mosque demolitions or a united India as under the British. The two-nation theory resulting from political developments that Congress leadership must take responsibility for is a reality he has accepted. Congress leadership forced the issue of Pakistan’s creation by its refusal to accommodate the legitimate political rights of the Muslims. Hence it cannot escape the responsibility of the cost incurred in blood and flesh of Pakistan’s creation.
Now for Advani the challenge is of redefining the ideology of the BJP. The Advani controversy also forced some Indian political leaders like George Fernandez, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Chandrababu Naidu and others to call for reassessing Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the man they so much like to dislike. In Pakistan the hate-India politics is now a thing of the past. The focus is now on settling disputes and setting rules for inter-state interaction and moving toward greater cooperation as sovereign and secure states.
