In the last four years of my rather long career in the civil services, I had the good fortune, as Cabinet Secretary, to live in a Lutyens bungalow on Prithviraj Road in Delhi. Occupying the very next bungalow was the redoubtable L. K. Advani, who played a significant role in the revival of the BJP as a party. I met him invariably on festive occasions, presented him with a bouquet, sat down, and conversed over tea. I was always conscious that I was in the presence of a great personality, a man who was a part of Indian history.
In 2011, my tenure ended, and I went to Advani’s house to bid farewell. As usual, he was the epitome of courtesy. As I left him, he gave me his book, My Country, My Life, and said to me, “Main bus itna kehna chahta hoon, aap jahaan bhi raho, swasth raho aur khush raho ( I only wish to say, wherever you are, be happy, be healthy).”
Advani’s role in the BJP was that of the great organiser. When the party was virtually wiped out by the Rajiv Gandhi electoral tsunami in 1984, it was left to him to rebuild it brick by brick. He was the man who gave it a new aggressive outlook with his Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya, which gave the party mass appeal that transcended religion.
Advani believes in “genuine secularism," but he does not accept that Indian people can be separated from religion, which plays such a massive part in their lives. The masses who joined his yatra until it was stopped in Bihar taught him the lesson that, no matter how our Constitution is interpreted, religion resides deep in their psyche. He writes in his book, “Recalling what Swami Vivekananda had said about the place of religion in India’s national life, I realised that if this religiosity were to be channelled in a positive direction, it could unleash tremendous energy for national reconstruction.”
In an appendix to his book, he quotes Vivekananda again. The great Vedantin said in 1898, “We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Veda nor the Bible nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonising the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran. Mankind ought to be told that religions are the varied expressions of religion, which is oneness, so that each may choose the path that suits him best.” In reply to a question asked at a conclave, Advani said he had discussed the Hindu domination question with M. S. Golwalkar in the distant past. Golwalkar had told him the country would have to accommodate diversity and could never be a theocracy.
This, in short, encapsulates Advani’s view of secularism. All religions must be harmoniously brought together for the nation’s greater good. It is not distancing the government from the reality of religion, for religion plays a significant role in the minds and hearts of humankind. Nor is religion to be used as an instrument of political oppression or to return to the colonial paradigm of ‘divide and rule’. Divisions may make it easier to rule or to gain temporary electoral benefits. But it will cause incalculable harm to the nation, make it more fragile, and eventually lead to a dictatorship.
The Ram temple at Ayodhya came upfront in the BJP's manifestos only after Advani’s hugely successful Rath Yatra. In his book, he wrote, “We in the BJP had all along declared that our goal was to construct the Ram temple at Ram janmabhoomi after respectfully relocating the mosque structure, and that we would like to achieve this either by a due process of law or through an amicable settlement between the Hindu and Muslim communities. However, as it turned out, we could not live by our word. The credibility of the entire movement was undermined by those who took the law into their own hands on December 6. It is in this sense that I felt, and I continue to feel, that our entire movement suffered a setback on that day.”
Today, as more mosques are sought to be pulled down in northern India, it is necessary to remember that the country cannot flourish without its religions and that each such act of demolition, with or without judicial sanction, will inflict further wounds on Indian society.
The RSS taught Advani discipline, which he cherished throughout his life. Speaking to the Brahmakumaris in 2017, he said, “I believe there are several good organisations in India, and the RSS is one of them. I am proud of it because I have got my education from the RSS as also qualities of discipline, honesty and idealism.”
At the zenith of his power and mass appeal in the mid-1990s, when he was president of the BJP, the position of prime minister was his for the asking when the BJP came to power. Yet he made it clear that Vajpayee would occupy that position, as he was older than Advani, senior in the party, wiser, and more knowledgeable than him. When the chance arose in 2014, the same party put him in cold storage. The man he had saved from the wrath of PM Vajpayee in 2002 after the Gujarat riots took his place. Seniority and age did not count.
The chapter relating to the Emergency is one of the most poignant in his book. He was incarcerated first in the Bengaluru central jail, where Vajpayee cooked for him and other party leaders. When he was released after court intervention, he was immediately rearrested and sent to the Rohtak jail.
Advani wrote that the signs of creeping autocracy were visible even two years earlier, when Jayaprakash Narayan had started his movement. He quotes with approval the last paragraph of the Shah Commission report, “If the administrative machinery in our country is to be rendered safe for our children, the services must give a better account of themselves by standing up for the basic values of an honest and efficient administration.” This is an eternal truth, as relevant today as it was then.
(Views are personal)
(kmchandrasekhar@gmail.com)
K M Chandrasekhar | Former Cabinet Secretary and author of As Good as My Word: A Memoir