Mood:
brightNow Playing: RAM IN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
Topic: BJP SHOULD THANK CONGRESS
During the BJP Maha Adhivesan held in Mumbai a few years ago I had a tete-a-tete with L.K. Advani. On the second day of the function it was surprising to see him with just of few hangers-on on the second floor foyer of Hotel Rang Sharada in Bandra. Journalists covering the function were on a wild goose chase to find out a sex scandal that never was. There were rumours of a senior RSS functionary caught in camera in compromising position. Even as I heard of the scandal I had two theories of my own. Someone has employed professionals for the occasion. Or someone in the Congress was trying to cock a snook at RSS high moral ground. Either way, it was a non-starter.
It was in such circumstances that I met Mr Advani. Mr Advani is probably the most influential politician for my generation, especially the Hindu youth. In the college I was a confused Communist, wanting to make this world a perfect place to live. I was a rebel with a hell lot of causes -- from socialism to salvaging the environment to moral rectitude. My moralising on all things sexual could put Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Jesus Christ to shame. Medha Patkar and Rustum Tirandas were whom I campaigned for as student activist, both for political as well as social causes.
Tirandas, for the uninitiated, was the most promising politician in Mumbai, with a naïve and reckless agenda to provide clean and orderly administration in Mumbai. We all had got together after a Parsi gentleman's letter to the editor in the Times of India on how we Indians should get on the streets to remove the corrupt Rajiv Gandhi government. This was during the height of the Bofors scandal. Those days I would shake with anger every morning reading Arun Shourie and Ram Jethmalani in the Indian Express. In time I, just as Tirandas and a vanar sena of about 1,000 people, found that people want to discuss the need for US-like perfect systems only at the dinner table. As I said in another blog, we Indians are utterly parochial, whichever class or caste we belong to. For any of us, economic/ development issues don't real matter. Nor does corruption. Nor does reservations.
But I was incredulously enamoured with people who would talk of the perfect world. I once handed over Rs 1,000 to a Narmada Bachao Andolan student activist in college. I used to do a bit of photography in college -- take pictures at Christian marriages and make albums for them. My charges were Rs 3,000 for the day-long event (which at times would not be more than three hours along with the benefit of partaking in the finest liqour that flowed!). My expenses came to about Rs 1,200 and I pocketed about Rs 1,800. It was from this earning that I gave away the money to the activist who was on his way to Gujarat to join Medha Patkar. But soon I started to read about the mega-project and I began to realise my mistake.
The project was supposed to be a natural disaster. The water was supposed to benefit only the rich farmers. Millions were estimated to be uprooted on the banks of the river in MP and Gujarat. Rehabilitation was supposed to be an eye wash. Today, I am older and wiser. On all these charges made by Medha Patkar none has proved right. Rather on the converse, magazines like India Today reported that NBA threatened villagers who took up the rehabilitation package, destroyed their new houses and infrastructure build for the evicted people. I didn't get the opportunity to meet Narendra Modi at the function to apologise for my 'funding' the NBA activities. Never mind the fact that I had supported the NBA a long time before Modi came into Gujarat's political scene.
But let me come back to my encounter with the former deputy prime minister of India. Mr Advani, I am not sure, realises that he has been the biggest influence on Hindu youth. I remember, in my school and college days being Hindu was considered infra dig. Going to temples was a matter of shame and unfashionable. Especially, English-educated children would sneak into a temple and won't let his friends know about it. Only Christians and Muslims took pride in their religion and their rituals. Even an apostate like me found the Hindu origin a little ashaming. We would love to run down Hinduism in public only to gain brownie secular points. I once even wrote an article in the college magazine titled,
'Ramjanmabhoomi Babri Masjid: Last Place God Made'.
Even today I am not a believer, but according to the true Hindu traditions, I am a Hindu just because I am born a Hindu. And I immensely take pride in it, solely for Mr Advani's movement. Mr Advani with his no-holds-barred campaign reinstated the lost self-respect in Hindu youth. I have heard the same experience also from M.V. Kamath. It's only after Sadhvi Rithambara and Uma Bharati coined the war-cry 'Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain' and logically argued over it that the English-educated Hindus youth felt their self-esteem being restored. But Mr Advani was the poster-boy of that Hindutva.
In the 90s, Mr Advani once came to Ghatkopar, a Guju suburb in Mumbai, very close to my college. That one visit changed my outlook -- I was converted from a rabid Leftist spewing fire and brimstone to a logical, reason-based nationalist. Today, I have my head on my shoulders all because of people like Mr Advani, Mr Shourie and Mr Kamath.
Mr Advani at that meeting spoke incredulously well; I consider him to be a better speaker than Atal Bihari Vajpayee or even Narendra Modi. He is under-stated in his speech, logical and cogent. It's hard to beat his argument, including his recent Jinnah comment. Successful politicians are those who can be as effective in arguments as Kapil Sibal or Arun Jaitley, but also poignant in their appeal to the cause. But what struck me hard during Mr Advani's speech at Ghatkopar on that day was that he did not utter a word against the Muslims. The Ghatkopar (east) area is predominantly Guju population. There is no Muslim population in and around Pant Nagar or Garodia Nagar. He could have chosen to go hammer and tongs against Muslims and Islam as that would have been quite impressive on the Guju crowd. Yet he didn't. I had gone there to listen to his fulmination as often reported in the press. He was mature and sophisticated and blue-blood nationalist.
Recently, Narendra Modi talking to Times Now channel, challenged Arnab Goswami to find any footage that has him (Modi) making a communal comment. Having experienced Advani firsthand, I can now believe Modi. Advani's public meeting at Ghatkopar happened at the height of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement.
I am giving you all this back ground because what I asked him on that afternoon at Hotel Rang Sharada might haunt him. The moment I introduced myself as a reporter from Organiser he told me to sit down beside him while the hangers-on kept whispering something into his ear. I have seen hangers-on do this even to George Bush. Wonder what secrets do they keep whispering to the politician's ears. After I introduced myself and exchanged pleasentries, which I am good at,Advani asked me what did I want to ask him. Quickly I told him that on the day Babri Masjid fell I had writen a type-written two-page letter to him supporting his cause, while asking him to get the middle-class involved in the process of nation-building alongside -- by way of promoting excellence, professionalism and sophisticated way of thinking. He dismissively told me he does not remember any such letter. It was then that I asked him the question which visibly stunned him.
"In the Hindu pantheon of gods many have been real-life characters -- be it Shiva, Ram, Krishna or the assorted bigger and smaller gods. It is by their outstanding deeds, character and philosophy that they managed to enter the pantheon. Do you think after thousands of years you, Narendra Modi, Vajpayee, Arun Shourie would all be part of the Hindu club of gods? After all, Mahatma Gandhi is almost there?" Even as I waited for his all-considered opinion three TV reporters had made their way up to the second floor looking for any senior politician for a sound-byte. Advani, sunk further into the thick sofa. But I instinctively knew my exclusive interview was over. Former Union minister for Broadcasting Ravishankar Prasad walked in after the securitymen and stood near another exit in the room at the far end almost as if waiting for Mr Advani to join him. The securitymen herded the TV reporters out of the room just as one black cat commando politely told me it will good if I too followed suit. I looked at Advani to rescue me. He smiled and said: "I will reply to that question on the phone. Call me later".
Thereby hung a tale.
(To be continued)
