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Saisuresh Sivaswamy

Vajpayee's path of least resistance

Every minority prime minister the nation has had since becoming a republic -- and there have been as many as eight so far in 46 years, if this kind of trivia interests you -- starts off by talking of consensus, in a bid to acquire greater legislative cachet, but it is amazing that the first thing to be jettisoned, almost simultaneously with election promises, is this bogey of consensus.

Consensus and electoral politics do not go together, especially when the main antagonists -- as in the present case -- occupy two extreme positions, and are fighting for the same ideological space as the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party. And those making these lofty claims on commonality of views, know too well that their words ring hollow. Given that the ordinary voter is rather blasé about the words and actions of politicians, thanks to his increased exposure to this tribe over the last few years, it is a marvel that they have not so far realised the futility of playing to the gallery.

For the BJP, that consensus is nothing but a smokescreen behind which it could practise realpolitik, became evident when it engineered the election of the Telugu Desam Party's G M C Balayogi as Lok Sabha Speaker. There is everything right with the ruling party, or the single largest party getting its man elected as the presiding office of the Lower House -- a privilege that the BJP willingly forewent in 1996 -- but its actions in 1998 bespoke a desire to avenge that humiliation. And all the while, when it was involved in deliberations with TDP bossman Chandrababu Naidu, on record it stuck to its consensus theme.

The first step for the BJP to consolidate its rather tenuous hold over the 12th Lok Sabha was to break the Opposition ranks which it did by beguiling the Congress and its Sharad Pawar with all the sweet talk of consensus. The second step would be to concretise this number on its side -- in which it has fallen back on its familiar theme of consensus as enshrined in the national agenda.

But we have already seen that the BJP's -- or, to be fair, any other party's -- commitment to consensus is barely epidermis deep. Having shown its true colours once, can the BJP expect the world to turn its eyes away, or to pretend that its views, like the emperor's new clothes, are a perfect fit? The key to the future lies with its allies, and depends on what they do when.

But tackling them, who together contribute not less than one-third of the BJP's parliamentary numbers, is not going to be as simple as handling a bunch of disparate Opposition parties whose only common point is their antipathy to the BJP. And if anybody knows this, it is the man who is occupying the head of the Treasury benches and whose acceptability is often touted as the prime reason for the BJP having come this far in the recent election.

Despite the impediment of sagacity, it is obvious that the Sangh Parivar has no intention of eschewing any of its more contentious issues. Even its most acceptable face, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is an RSS adherent first and foremost, has not once spoken of its real agenda having been jettisoned for all time. In all his parliamentary utterances on this score, he has only emphasised that these issues have been icetrayed. "As long as I am prime minister..." have been the operative words running through his clearly-enunciated speeches.

It all boils down to timing, ultimately. Since the prime minister has ruled out heading the government when the real issues come out of the closet, one of the two things are possible. One, of course, is that he will step down from the prime ministership at a later date, on health grounds, making way for a man whom India may not await but the rank and file of the saffron brigade certainly does.

L K Advani, the second-most important man in the Government of India today but obviously the first among equals in Nagpur's worldview, is living proof of how methodically the Sangh Parivar goes about its business of securing power. Here is the man who single-handedly took the BJP to undreamt-of heights, from the plains where Vajpayee's Gandhian Humanism had confined it, and yet who was cast off like a booster rocket that had outlived its utility so that a more acceptable face could paper over the fire and fury associated with his home minister.

Vajpayee can tell Parliament and the world that he is not being remote-controlled, and he may even be right. But even the prime minister won't say that the RSS's agenda will never be implemented, either in Parliament or outside. He is, after all, an inveterate Sanghi, and knows that if the agenda has to have a chance of seeing the light of day, more than his silence what matters is his continuance in office. There is only man who can confer the respectability which the RSS craves for, and that is Vajpayee.

But there are pitfalls in allowing a pacifist like the incumbent prime minister continue in office. One, of course, is that the hardcore BJP supporter, reared on a staple of anti-minorityism and the spectre of a strong Centre, would find all the current talk of consensus, the present pussy-footing on issues close to his heart, offputting, and try and seek solace elsewhere.

This would pose problems to the BJP-led government only when the next round of balloting takes place which, if Vajpayee's luck and Jayalalitha's PMS hold good, could be anytime after three years.

Even that, however, would pose a fresh set of problems. In the time that Vajpayee would be alienating his party's traditional support-base with his line of least resistance, it is perfectly natural to expect that he would garner a fresh band of supporters, and assuming that the accretions and desertions would even each other out, the problem for the BJP would come from the fact that this new group would not be part of the pristine khaki shorts variety, and would readily move on when the man at the helm changes -- remember that Vajpayee has already said that he will not fight another election after five years. At which point, to bring back the old set, the party will have to not only promote Advani, but also bring its original agenda out of the freezer.

What this will do to the BJP's carefully cultivated image, its new-found friends, its credibility as it lurches from one extreme to the other, all raise interesting possibilities, but none more than what the man of the moment will do in the future. Obviously, the RSS think-tank have crowned him king in the belief that he alone can resolve this bunch of contradictions for them. Mask, anyone?

Saisuresh Sivaswamy