Advani, the original Rath Yatri of Indian politics

New Delhi: Lal Krishna Advani, the original Rath Yatri of Indian politics who articulated the alternative political idiom to ‘secularism’ without getting into demonstrative religious rituals, was on Saturday conferred the highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Advani’s ‘pseudo-secularism’ pitch gave the BJP an ideological mooring and confidence to aspire and seek a lead position in the nation’s polity during its formative years.

When he took over the party’s rein from Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1986, the BJP had touched a nadir. The Shah Bano case and the opening of the gates of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya by the Rajiv Gandhi government gave the BJP under Advani a perfect launching pad. 

Shunning Vajpayee’s Gandhian-Socialism and backed by its ideological fount, the RSS, the BJP under Advani, who holds the record of being the longest-serving president of the party, sought to reinvent itself with a strident Hindu nationalism. 

The Mandir-Mandal face-off forced the BJP to part ways with the socialists and communists. Advani signed the divorce paper with a political statement—the Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya. The rest is history. 

“I still distinctly remember Pramod Mahajan, Govindacharya, and Kushabahu Thackeray coming to meet Advani ji with a map to chalk out a route. Advani wanted to travel by foot,” Advani’s close aide Deepak Chopra told this writer a few years ago.

“It was Mahajan who prevailed upon Advani to take a Rath instead. ‘Aap kitna paidal chal paenge,' he told Advani,” Chopra adds. 

Promoted by the then RSS chief Bhaurav Deoras, Advani became the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha in 1991, and the BJP’s tally in the House shot up to 120. 

The success also engendered political isolation of the BJP, especially after the destruction of Babri Masjid in 1992.

Advani was quick to realise the party needed to make tactical changes to win allies. Perhaps the reason why he unilaterally announced Vajpayee as BJP’s PM candidate ahead of the 1995 polls. In politics, where there are no free lunches, that’s a rarity. “There was an unwritten agreement between the two all these years,” a BJP general secretary, who worked closely with Advani once, said.

“The understanding was that Vajpayee would give a free hand to Advani in running the organisation. But whenever there was a dispute, it was Vajpayee who would prevail,” he added.

Vajpayee’s projection helped the BJP emerge as the single-largest party in the 1996 elections. But the 13-day Vajpayee government collapsed as the party failed to muster support from regional parties.

In his Bharat Ratna acceptance note, Advani remembers two leaders with whom he had the “honour of working closely” — Jan Sangh founder DD Upadhyaya and Vajpayee.

2004 came as a rude shock for Advani. The next year, his Pakistan trip and attempts to bolster ‘secular credentials’ boomeranged. 

In 2009, the RSS gave Advani another shot at the top by formally backing him as the BJP’s PM candidate and then moved on. 

But Advani couldn’t. He had his share of run-ins with Nitin Gadkari, who had taken over as the party chief in 2009. In June 2013, the day Narendra Modi was nominated as the campaign committee chief by the BJP national council in Goa, Advani resigned from all positions in the party. 

With the BJP winning a majority under Modi, Advani was promptly nominated to marg-darshak-mandal—a body of imminent leaders to guide the party. And that’s where he has remained. 

Late last month, the party patriarch was again in the news when an Ayodhya Ram Temple trustee claimed that Advani and Joshi had been requested not to attend the consecration ceremony considering their ‘age and health’. Later, there were reports that Advani would go for the ceremony, but he gave it a miss. 

Two days later, the Modi government gave the Bharat Ratna to Karpoori Thakur, the doyen of Mandal politics. 

Ten days later, Advani was also conferred with the highest civilian award.