Its bad times for political punditry and alas bad times for political parties except those of saffron hue. It would in fact not be an exaggeration to say that Ayodhya’s temple of trouble and strife has thrown everything out of gear.
So much has changed in the political atmosphere since the last Lok Sabha election that it is hard to believe that only a year ago the most important political issue in India’s villages was development Bofors was a factor of course but mainly because V.P.Singh was Very good at linking corruption at the top to lack of development at the bottom. To remind you of one of his most effective lines You may think that a commission of Rs 200 crores is not very much until you realize that the Bhakra Dam was built for less than that so just think that there is some Dalal’ (agent) out there wandering around with the Bhakra dam in his pocket.
The line went home like an arrow to the heart because the average villager particularly in the unfortunately crucial Hindi belt would look around him at the filthy strips of dirt that passed for roads in his village at the open drains the schools without teachers and the hospitals without doctors and realize that he could ask for more from his government. Since one of the achievements of Rajiv raj was the spread of television nationwide the average rural voter had also discovered to his amazement that not every Indian had to live in conditions as wretched as his. He had watched the seductive commercials that preceded his weekly dose of Ram-ayana noticed the plump middleclass children from the cities and the beautiful women who advertised Halo shampoo and Liril soap and even (hai Rama!) Masti contraceptives. And he had understood for the first time that India really had changed a lot and that he had every night to hope that similar changes should now occur in his village.
So those of us who traveled through rural UP and Bihar were pleasantly surprised at the number of people for whom hard economic issues were more important than for instance the shilanyas which the Congress (I) had only recently permitted in Ayodhya Muslims had noticed it of course and noticed also the notes in Bhagalpur and the fact that Rajiv had started his election campaign from Ayodhya with promises of Ram Rajya but even for them it was jobs hospitals drinking water that mattered if not more then certainly as much.
All this has changed both for Muslims and Hindus. Now the only thing that matters is the temple. In fact it matters so much that all previous political equations have changed and the fallout is naturally being felt in Delhi and especially in the Congress (I).
When Rajiv decided magnanimously to be kingmaker to Chandra Shekhar there were many in his party who felt it was the wrong decision. They pointed out albeit in the humble obsequious tones that the Congress (I) uses for dissent that there would be no advantage to the party from king making. They also pointed out that king making with Chandra Shekhar as king could turn out to be a tricky business. Chandra Shekhar they said was not Charan Singh and 1990 was not 1979. Then Mrs Gandhi had negotiated from a position of strength because there was nothing she wanted more than immediate elections whereas now the Congress (I) was negotiating from a position of weakness since there was nothing that they wanted more than the postponement of elections. Plus there was the possibility that the communal situation far from improving could actually deteriorate even further so how could the Congress (I) benefit in any way.
Rajiv’s whizz kid coterie were however of a different view and as a matter of fact still are They believe that once the country has seen that even Chandra Shekhar cannot stem the rot then everyone will return to Rajiv on bended knees virtually pleading for him to return.
Things however appear not to be turning out that way. The communal situation has not just deteriorated but gone completely out of control and somehow there are no queues of people on bended knees forming outside the Congress (I) office. In fact quite the opposite is happening. In Uttar Pradesh where I was recently there is a polarization between Hindu and Muslim votes of a kind that almost nobody can remember from before. There is now a distinct Hindu (upper-caste) vote even in the villages and it is currently going to the BJP. Hindus | spoke to said openly that their votes this time would be going to those who will build the temple in Ayodhya’. Many added that it would in fact be going to the party that would first have the courage to pull the mosque down.
In such a situation the Muslim vote is naturally as aggressive in its assertions so wherever I went I met people who sang the praises of V.P.Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav. What was unusual was the fact that even those who had been arrested by the hated PAC and tortured had nothing but praise for the Chief Minister. In Meerut’s Islamabad locality more than a hundred men and women gathered around to describe how they had been tortured. There were old women with bruised and swollen faces where they said they had been beaten with rifle butts and young men who said they had been kept in custody without food or water for more than twenty four hours. Everyone cursed the PAC but nobody had a word to say against Mulayam Singh
Mulayam Singh and V.P. Singh are the only two leaders we have since this country became free they said apparently without noticing that the two had parted ways.
On Chandra Shekhar both Muslims and Hindus had little to say other than that they felt he was nothing but a puppet.
Kya kehna hai unkey baarey mein woh to Rajiv key putley hain And as far as the Congress (I) itself was concerned nobody had anything to say at all as if it simply did not exist as a factor any more. The famous Congress (I) vote banks would therefore appear at the moment to be divided between the Janata Dal and the BJP and the message seems to be coming home to Delhi.
Vasant Sathi is not the only Congress (I) leader saying that the present arrangement of outside support is not working to the party’s advantage even if he is the only one who is daring to say it openly. The feeling appears to be growing both in the Congress (I) and the Janata Dal that the only way to contain the BJP is by forming a strong centrist secular party that would necessarily involve a combination of the two centrist parties we now have Moves appear to be afoot to make this happen but then what would happen to Rajiv Gandhi and V.P. Singh since clearly if such a combination did evolve there would be room for only one supreme leader’ to use Mr Sathe’s charmingly totalitarian expression.
This is personality clash is about the only thing that is preventing the fusion from having occurred already so great is the fear of the spreading saffron. The BJP for its part is riding a high. For the first time they are beginning to think seriously about the possibility of forming government in Delhi and the party’s rank and file make it clear that there is no likelihood of any improvement in the communal situation until the bhagwa jhanda (saffron flag) flies on top of the Prime Minister’s house.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 22, 1991
