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Ayodhya yet again

As I write this, the grandly titled House of Elders is all set to vote on the Opposition's motion on the Ayodhya issue. Perhaps the Elders, in their collective wisdom, will see fit to behave differently from their counterparts in the House of the People; maybe they won't. But regardless of which way the vote goes, what the fortnight-long breast-beating over a non-issue proves to us thinking Indians is that ultimately and always, it is the non-issues that take centre-stage.

It was a non-issue that brought down the Chandra Shekhar government in 1990-91. It was a non-issue that brought down Vajpayee's second government in 1998. And, it is a non-issue that has paralysed Parliament for more than a week, at the end of which logjam nothing really happened. After breathing fire, political parties voted on lines as was only to be expected from them.

Regardless of the reservations expressed by Messrs Mamta Banerjee et al, the NDA's allies really have little choice in the matter. Even agreeing with their claim that the prime minister had committed a crime so heinous that the only way out is for him to give up or go, the allies are frozen in their track for lack of an alternative, leave alone a better alternative.

Which brings up the question: Are the allies running the BJP, as was hitherto believed, or is the BJP running the allies?

The Lok Sabha debate last week -- the highlight of which was that not one, not one single member demanded that the Babri Masjid be rebuilt at the original site -- should lay all such doubts to rest.

After a few years of giving in to its allies and 'softening' its hardline image, the BJP has finally come out of its reserve and taken them head-on, but is it a welcome sign?

It sure as hell is not a welcome sign for the allies who have chosen the BJP over the Congress as a lesser of the two evils -- but a closer look at the reasons why the choice was made should leave no one in doubt about their actual intentions.

The reason they chose the BJP was not only that it was perceived to be stronger at the national level than the Congress, but also that it was perceived to be weaker at the regional level than the Congress and hence posed little challenge on their home turf. So far the allies have been smart by half: they have kept their suzerainty at the state-level, and have a finger in the national pie too, a deal far better than what Sonia Gandhi was willing to offer in 1999.

And finally the BJP has turned, on the eve of a crucial round of assembly elections. Perhaps it would have allowed the status quo to continue had the forthcoming round of elections not touched it where it was the strongest, and where it is at its weakest right now: Uttar Pradesh.

There is no way the BJP can hope to retain its primacy on the political front if UP were to slip out of its grasp, and there is no way the party can hope to maintain its lead in the state if it were to proceed along the namby-pamby course the NDA has confined it to. Ayodhya is the magic potion the BJP hopes will resuscitate its fortunes.

Strange, since Ayodhya is a non-issue in the nation's life. An average Indian voter, whether from a conurbation or the countryside, can think up at least five burning issues that touch his life and which are crying for redressal, and Ayodhya will rank nowhere among them. Frankly, and personally, I find it execrable that a wannabe developed nation should expend so much of its time, energy and resources on debating what structure stood where and when, and whether history needs to be revisited. It is important not to forget history so we don't overlook its lessons, I feel like telling our politicians, but it is equally important not to redraw geography on the basis of history, but this lesson just won't sink in.

It won't sink in precisely because non-issues are what propel politicians. When I said Ayodhya matters in UP, I did not mean that every Hindu denizen of that state is a card and pickaxe carrying kar sevak who has taken the 'saughandh Ram ki khate hain' vow. Ayodhya matters for the BJP in UP not because of the voters, but because of its own organisation.

The link between a political party and the voter is the rank and file who could either be a weak or an effective tool for communicating the party's message. But in order to be the latter, the rank and file needs to be enthused about the message they are conveying. The BJP's problem is that its rank and file, after being fattened on a non-vegetarian diet, has been put on a Jain regimen, and I use the simile without any offence to the latter.

Ayodhya is not the demand of the voter, but the demand of the BJP's workforce. The BJP could afford to ignore their cries elsewhere in the country -- where anyway it did not amount to much. It ignored the cries even in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, states which had been crucial in its march to federal power. It could ignore these two states only because they did not have a direct bearing on the Centre.

But with UP, things are entirely different. For most of India's electoral history, it has been an axiom that the party that hoped to rule New Delhi has held UP with a clear title. The Congress's decline turned into a stampede when it lost out UP to BJP and Mulayam Singh, and at least to this extent the BJP has learnt its lesson from history.

Parliament has shown that there is no real political opposition to the prime minister's line on Ayodhya, and a rejuvenated rank and file may well deliver UP to the BJP yet again. But, there is a chasm between what the party grassroots want and what the PM has spoken about. Moderate Vajpayee's biggest challenge in this non-issue will be to bridge the two extremes.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy