Advani is past his sell-by date

Going into the 2004 elections, and a little confused on the issue of leadership just as it is today, the BJP had tried to solve the problem by sticking labels on its leaders. At the time, the concern was whether AB Vajpayee, three years LK Advani’s senior, could be projected as the party’s face (and future prime minister) for yet another term.

Vajpayee wasn’t in the best of health. His reactions to everything — from the Gujarat riots, to Musharraf’s handshake at the UN General Assembly, to answering journalists’ questions — had been slow for a while. But he was also seen as the acceptable, moderate face of the BJP, and was looking at history to flatter him with one of its clichés (benevolent despot, or some democratic variant of that) when he began what are called ‘development works’, like the national highways project.

His younger (but not by much) deputy had, however, cultivated the image of the mosque-razing charioteer, the ‘firm of hand against the foe’ type of fellow who would preserve and protect all that was Hindu. As election time approached, it became quite clear that Vajpayee was out of it. But there was a problem telling the whole world this, because he was still serving. (Will Manmohan Singh lead the Congress into the next election? Heh, heh.)

The slightly oily BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, came up with the labels: Advani was the BJP’s ‘loh purush’ and Vajpayee its ‘vikas purush’. ‘Moderate man’ is hardly a superhero name, and development was what the Prime Minister was already up to, went the thinking. As for the future, however, given the security climate, ‘iron man’ was required. None of this mattered, because the BJP lost in 2004, but the tags suggested that in the early 2000s there was room for two faces at the leadership level in the party.

What happens when ‘loh’ and ‘vikas’ are fused into some new, improved superhero? What happens is that loh purush and vikas purush (long retired) exit the comic strip, and Narendra Modi enters. It’s easy to say Advani should have seen it coming. Loh purush has direct associations with Vallabbhai Patel, the man whose grip on the pens of rulers of the princely states is one of fledgeling India’s signature stories. But by the time the tag was stuck on Advani, he had a rival as the heir of Sardar Patel’s legacy. Narendra Modi’s firm and (sometimes) final solution to Gujarat’s minority issues had already earned the title ‘chhote sardar’.

Once that was achieved, time came for Modi to diversify into ‘development’: to make his state the best managed, most business-friendly spot in the country. So what if a few Muslims fled some time ago, industry sought refuge in Gujarat (like the Tatas, who ran from Bengal, wisely). Modi and his team went around parading willing industrialists, and spitting out the stats. Gujarat was all about ‘vikas’. Vajpayee’s brief and unspectacular stint as holder of the title had ended, and Modi was wearing both costumes: he was vikas and loh rolled into one. There was no space for anyone else.

That is where the BJP finds itself today. Advani may or may not have realised this, but he has, over his long career, seen something coming that never quite arrives: the Prime Minstership of this country.

It isn’t entirely his fault. In 2005, Vajpayee announced his retirement in Shivaji Park passing the mantle of leadership on. He said (slowly!) that Advani and Pramod Mahajan would from then on be the Ram and Laxman of the party. (Notice once again, that there was space for two.) What neither he, nor Advani may have realised then, is that it wasn’t about Ayodhya any more.

Besides, the next election couldn’t really have been about Advani: he would be 81, placing him equal first with Morarji Desai as India’s oldest prime minister when assuming office.

He is 85 now, and the record can be his (yeah, right!), so he fights on. It will be some record: you need to go back to William Gladstone, 83 when he took office in Britain for the last time, when looking around the world for ‘old’ prime ministers.

Advani has been pushed towards the centre politically, but parties out of power seldom veer towards the centre. Crafting a message for the masses that is inclusive is very difficult — dilutions and ambiguities creep in. Unfortunately, a clear message is often a polarising message. In the case of the BJP, there’s a cynical opportunism that is associated with polarisation: it knows that if Hindu India turns up to vote in numbers, then Muslim India can do jackshit. It’s happened time after time Gujarat.

What makes Modi more saleable that Advani apart from all of the above? You have only to look at their respective websites. Advani’s ruminations in recent times have been around Obama, Guantanamo Bay, the Emergency and rating Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. Modi’s activity has been a banner announcement that he’s off to Goa.

Advani talks nostalgically about Mankad and Hazare (just as he ducked the Goa meet, he had once bunked school to watch one of them). Modi took over the Gujarat cricket association in order to clean it up some time ago. Sometimes, anything that Modi says can sound ominous, but here is a message he’s put out for teachers (and mentors?): “A teacher who is only waiting for the bell to end the day, can never shape minds.”

The writer is an author, journalist and consultant editor with dna