Not too many weeks ago, on a rainy night in Bhubaneshwar, I had a firsthand en counter with the BJPs president Murli Manohar Joshi.

I asked Joshi a simple question: Could he explain what exactly he meant by calling all Indian Muslims “Muhammadiya Hindus”? I had merely sought a clarification, instead I was treated to a volley of theories, each more bigoted, preposterous and alarming. Indian Muslims said Joshi cat erotically, were all converts from Hindu ism. Did J not note that in ancient times the Hindu empire extended from Afghanistan to Indonesia? And was I aware that Japanese Shintoism “was nothing but a far eastern form of Hinduism™?

I tied variety of fact correcting responses and Arab plant in Sind, about the thundering hordes from the north, about the distinction between Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism, but it was totally in vain. Joshi has that overbearing lecture hall manner of professor turned pulpit Preacher; he pushes on like a bulldozer and regards dissent with professional disdain. Everyone unwilling to be proselytized, his illiterate.  It was better to leave than argue,

I though, before he started expanding the frontiers of the Hindu empire to the Medi  lerranean or claiming that the Caesars were closet Rambhakis.

Some days later in Kerala, I spent couple of hours talking to L.K.Advani in his car. Asked how susceptible would he be to VHP pressure, he said he was not, neither at the time of the ticket distribution nor after the elections (this, as Ashok Singh also statements of last week testify, is not quite the case). And when I asked if it was not cynical to use the Ram issue to attack problems like hunger and social injustice (i.e. roti and insaaf) Advani said that it might appear cynical but it was easier. “When you are communicating issues to large masses, unless you possess outstanding oratorio skill and talent, it is not easy to explain development or social issues”, Ram, on the other hand, he believed, had so galvanized public opinion that it had “become embedded in their psyche”. In short, the promise of Ram spelled hard, concrete gains as opposed to promises of roti and insaaf that were soft and intangible.

It is not surprising to find that for all their life eating rhetoric, which they have so successfully translated into unprecedented electoral gain, it is difficult to engage BJP leaders to answer basic contradictions in their game plan to come to power, If they don’t actually fly often weird tangents like Joshi, then like all politicians they are intelligent enough to express private views that are quite contrary to their public posture.

The best example of this is Atal Behari Vajpayee. There is no one to beat him for oratorio skill, and he is an equally fine sop for projecting a liberal, pro-Muslim view when the occasion demands, | recently asked hum on the campaign trail that sup posing the BJP got its temple in Ayodhya rather quickly, what then? This was the context of the party backing off on the original VHP demand for replacing not one mosque but three (the other two arc in Mathura and Varanasi) and my question nearly drove Vajpayee to handwringing despair.

Being the experienced and highly effective speaker he is Vajpayee is one of the few Hindi speaking leaders who actually ad dresses issues that should matter. And although he sees the efficacy of Ram as a powerful vote-catcher he also clearly perceives the gap between sloganeering and performance.

Everyone now knows about the BJPs brilliant career so far-their 20% national vote, their dominant voice in the Opposition benches with 119 MPs and their supremacy in UP and also how it got there. The question is where does it go from here? There is already fervent debate in the party as to how an when the temple issue should be precipitated. On BJP votary compared the Ayodhya theme to a ceiling fans regulator. “Jab chaho on kardo jab chaho off (You can switch it on and off when you please). Obviously when it will be switched on full blast again will depend on the Congress reaction, and secretary some BJP leaders are thankful that other acute problems, like the economic crisis, have already pushed the issue to the inside pages of newspapers.

That, however, will only make life harder for Kalyan Singhs ministry in UP where both roti and insaaf have been in short supply for centuries and where the opiate of Ram will be required, sooner than later, to dull the peoples senses.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 25, 1991