Twenty one years is a long time, especially in the political history of a dynamic participative democracy. It almost magically invokes an entire gamut of young aspirations and personifies post liberalized modern century, where remixes run into the realms of redundancy and unwritten norms become contentious, draconian figments of academic absurdity. Twenty one years is a long time, and it’s precisely after this generation gap that a perennial dreamer, like a battered gladiator is taking one last shot at his solitary, lurking crowning glory, literally and figuratively.
Lal Kishanchand Advani, the 84-year old BJP patriarch and an eternal PM aspirant has summoned his trekking shoes, yet again. Yes, the Rathyatra is back. Starting October 11, the birthday of Late Jaiprakash Narain, Advani’s odyssey of ostentation will be flagged off by Bihar’s Chief Minister Mr. Nitish Kumar from Sitabdiara in Saran district of Bihar, also Narain’s birthplace. For a man used to such air-conditioned junkets of jingoism, it must be a sense of déjà- vu. Circa 1990. On a September 25 morning, also the birth anniversary of Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhahya, Mr. Advani discovered the fire within. He let out a clarion call and shot off from Somnath in a decked up motorized chariot. His overriding ambition-“Mandir wahi banayenge”. Having played the divisive communal card with consummate ease, Advani’s adventures lasted a little under a month before his rath and yaatra ran into a fuming Lalu Prasad Yadav. Advani was arrested in Samastipur, Bihar on October 23, but not before he had fanned popular frenzy in the Hindi heartland.
As pseudo nationalism reached its crescendo, the brand of divisive politics endorsed by the BJP-RSS ideology crossed its boiling point, transforming the north of India into a cauldron of suspicion and susceptibility. Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, leading to a spate of pan India communal clashes. The yatra left a bloody trail and December 6 remains the biggest blot on India’s much vaunted secular agenda.
Cut to present, and a question begs to be answered; a generation later, in an upwardly mobile and largely intelligent social ecosystem, how relevant is a yatra? A number of theories can be adduced and deduced to ascertain its blatant opportunism.Corruption, the central malaise that ails us all is supposed to be its core issue. The proposition sounds vague and preposterous, considering a certain BSY’s proclivity to pound the farmers and farmlands with mining and Modi’s visible discomfort with the appointment of the Lokayukta. So while the Lokayukta’s indictment of Raman Singh led BJP government in Chhatisgarh on corruption charges sounds antagonistic to the anti- corruption sojourn, the hasty appointment of ‘clean’ Khanduri as Uttarakhand’s CM and BSY’s atrocious arm-twisting in Karnataka’s cabinet formation dictate a diabolic dichotomy and questions the very premise of the initiative. BJP and its allies govern ten Indian states, among which only Nagaland doesn’t have a Lokayukta. Partisan politics or glorious negligence or both, it doesn’t really paint a pretty picture. Moreover, the BJP after having readily relinquished its privileged position of opposition to Messer’s Anna Hazare and Company, suddenly appears bereft of ideas for next year’s UP Assembly Elections and 2014 General Elections.
UP traditionally has been a strategic political vantage point. Those in the know vouch for the fact that the road to New Delhi indeed wades its way through the northern hinterland. So when a blue-eyed scion embarked on a Padyatra to conduct a ‘Mahapanchayat’ in UP, the embattled BJP was left embarrassed and insecure, and its venerable octogenarian oligarch shaken out of his cocoon.
Also, in current context, the internal politics of BJP, widely uncertain of its PM’s candidate for 2014 polls is inadvertently subverting the last precious remnants of his long standing fancy. From the leaders of opposition in both the Houses to Gadkari himself, the perspective PM’s candidature has vacillated vigorously within the party circles. This move, being widely seen as a detour from party line could well be a covertly overt attempt to stamp his supremacy.
It will also be interesting to note the route this expedition eventually takes. Will it traverse the burgeoning North-East; a place where angels fail to tread? Will it encompass the crucibles of communism and corruption (read Gujrat and Karnataka)?Advani would know. Habitual ‘yaatri’ that he is, he presumably has his priorities straight- Hindu votes by way of planned, divisive tactics, though the viability and durability of this adventure remains to be seen.
Here’s a look at Mr. Advani’s previous excursions-
| S No. | YEAR | YATRA | FROM | TO | THEME |
| 1 | Sept 25, 1990-Oct 23,1990 | Ram Janmbhoomi | Somnath | Ayodhya (however, he was arrested in Samastipur on Oct 23,1990) | Mandir Wahi Banayenge |
| 2 | Sept.11, 1993 | Janadesh Yatra | Mysore Started from four different corners of country and led by four different leaders. | Bhopal (Mysore – Bhopal was the stretch covered by Advani alone. The yatra had three other starting points as well) | Against Constitution 80th Amendment Bill and Representation of People Bill. |
| 3 | May 18, 1997-July 15,1997 | Swarna Jayanti | Mumbai | New Delhi | Patriotic pilgrimage to commemorate 50 years of Independence. |
| 4 | March-April,2004 | Bharat Uday | Was conducted in two phases- Kanyakumari- Amritsar | Rajkot-Jagannath Puri | India Shining |
| 5 | April 6, 2006-May 10,2006 | Bharat Suraksha | Dwarka (it had two phases, the second was led by Mr. Rajnath Singh from Jagannath Puri to New Delhi) | New Delhi | National integration |
Looking at BJP’s current position in national political equation, one can only pity its pontificating leadership. Given UPA II’s shoddy and shabby tenure, if the leading opposition party still resorts to shouting from the roof - (or rath?) tops, it only explains its desperation to connect to its very own people. Stuck in time warp and consumed by irrational appreciation of its outmoded ideologies, BJP needs a reform, but not of this kind. Rath yatras, especially the ones prescribed and practiced by the mandarins of BJP are effete efforts to assert their feudal mindsets, wherein the caprice of a patriarch defines the path of ‘patriotic’ passions. Late Mr. Albert Einstein once famously exclaimed, “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism- how passionately I hate them!” If only the self appointed guardians of nationalism cared.
Crusade against corruption or defining divisive designs? Political renaissance or retired, redundant recourse? Venomous joyride or venerable expedition? Response and responsibility, sense and sensibility, are the exalted virtues of social order mere words of wisdom or do they have deeper, more definite socio-political implications? The question hour starts now.
