ADVANI IN THE DOCK

It was a well orchestrated media campaign on Thursday when all the national channels had “exclusives” to corner Lal Krishna Advani on the Kandahar hijack episode. Former National Security Adviser Brijesh Mishra was quite generous in giving “exclusive” interviews to all those who sought one and he was there in almost all the channels saying the same thing. Was it just because of the competition among the channels or was there a design? Difficult to say! But, it appeared to have been orchestrated because all these channels devoted the whole day showing Mishra, Yashwant Sinha, George Fernandes and Jaswant Singh and also excerpts from an interview with Advani in 2008, just to prove a point that Advani was aware of Jaswant’s escort mission to Kandhahar along with three terrorists ten years ago.

While Times Now called it “explosive exclusive”, it was “Devil’s Advocate” special bulletin in CNN-IBN. How can NDTV 24x7 lag behind? It also had an interview with Brijesh Mishra with the same questions and answers. The only difference was the backdrop for the interviews. Where Mishra exposed himself as Vajpayee buddy was when he spoke for Atal Behari Vajpayee and thus underscored the existence of two powerful factions in the saffron party. He also said while Vajpayee is a statesman, Advani is a mere organiser. To a question as to how Vajpayee would have handled Jinnah book controversy, he said something to the effect that he would not have banned the book and would not have expelled Jaswant. His intent for revealing the “facts” after a lapse of ten years was obvious.

There were corroborative “exclusives” with the former Union Minister Yashwint Sinha as well. Well, nothing new can come further from Jaswant Singh who already described the party with which he had three-decade long association and held three most important portfolios in the NDA government, as an Indian equivalent of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the US. (For the uninitiated, KKK is a hate group created in 1865 to protect interests of white farmers and the group used to indulge in violence against immigrants based on race and torched churches.) So, he said, Advani was quite “economical” on facts.

For a better perspective of any controversy, context is important. In his book, My Country, My Life, published last year, Advani sought to give the impression that he was not aware of Jaswant’s mission to Kandahar. There were momentary ripples as you don’t expect the Home Minister of the country not to be privy to such a crucial decision. Of course, as usual, everything was forgotten thereafter until the Congress raised the Kandahar issue at the time general elections this year. Interestingly, Jaswant stood for Advani. Now, after he was expelled from the party in a most undemocratic manner, Jaswant says he covered up for Advani. It should be noted that other members of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) who are opening up now were keeping mum then.

The talk shows that followed the so-called exclusives in all the channels had the same set of panellists – Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Chandan Mitra. Needless to say, discussions were on the expected lines except that the Congress spokesperson wanted an “apology” from Advani for “misleading the nation and his deception and prevarication”. On Times Now channel, Singhvi called Advani a “liar”, saying he would like to use a four-letter word for Advani starting with “l” and ending with “r”.

In none of these shows, the anchors asked a simple question as to whether the Congress party was aware of the decision to free three terrorists and why did the party wait for one full decade to raise the issue. Brajesh Mishra no doubt gave a juicy (or is it explosive?) bits. No one asked him why did he not rebut Advani immediately after the publication of his book? Poor Chandan Mitra was straining his vocal chords to make a point that there was an all-party meeting to find a solution to the crisis and that Sonia Gandhi was present at the meeting. There was no effort on the part of these channels to present the controversy in its correct perspective except to paint Advani black because as Singhvi said “he was caught with his hands on the till”

First of all, why did the Congress make Kandhahar an election issue? There were two reasons. BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate was caught on the wrong foot in his book where he demonstrated his selective amnesia. He made himself quite vulnerable and quite naturally, the Congress did not want to spare him. Two, the Congress wanted to push the principal Opposition into defensive position before the latter could succeed in targeting the ruling coalition for its successive failures in tackling terror culminating in 26/11 and the lacklustre performance of the then Home Minister Shivraj Patil leading to his unceremonious ouster. But the anchors were clinging to their blinkers.

Singhvi said during the show that the nation’s image was sullied when the country’s External Affairs Minister was seen escorting dreaded terrorists. True, if the incident is seen in isolation. The Congress spokesperson conveniently forgot that his own party activists were among those who made high decibel demand in December 1999, effectively channelized by the frenzied media, for the rescue of 160 plus hostages holed up in the Indian Airlines plane in a place surrounded by daredevil Talibans and extremists. Because the media was revving up the campaign for the release of hostages and the nation was sitting on an emotional tinderbox, the option before the government was either sacrifice the lives of 160 plus innocent hostages or free three terrorists as a trade-in. After a series of all-party meetings, the government decided to secure the release of hostages. Assuming for a moment that the government decided to sacrifice the lives of hostages, what would have been the impact of such a decision? It was therefore a Hobson’s choice for the then government.

Of course, this does not absolve Advani of his effort to distance himself from an important decision of the government when it does not suit him politically. To be fair to Jaswant, he clarified in his interviews that he had to escort the terrorists in the same plane for two reasons. Indian negotiators in Kandahar wanted the presence of a senior member of the government just in case of last minute hiccups and they did not want to take any chance with the lives of hostages and secondly, the Pakistan government had refused to allow two planes to overfly its territory and thus the minister and the terrorists had to be accommodated in the same plane. While Singhvi was talking about the “sullied image” of the nation, the channels did not think it fit to re-run the tape as they did in the case of Mishra’s bytes and other portions of Jaswant’s interview where he lambasts Advani.

So much for the national channels’ sense of objectivity and fair play.

JINNAH'S GHOST

It is quite amusing that Jaswant Singh, castigated by the media all along for having played the role of a villain in the Kandahar hijack episode, suddenly finds an adoring and admiring press for himself. What brought this sudden change in the perception of our media? After he released his last book which referred to a “mole” in the Prime Minister’s Office, everyone was after him including our Prime Minister who pinned him down on the floor of the Rajya Sabha to name the “mole”. Jaswanth did not come out well with a convincing response and he had to concede that it was only his “guess”. For the media, he was only a scotch-drinking feudal in a safari suit and with baritone voice which at times was irritating.

May be, there are reasons for the media to develop love for him in the last couple of days. He took on the mighty RSS calling them “Suvidhabhogis”. He could defy the party higher-ups and release his book, Jinnah: India-Partition Independence which blamed Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel for the partition of India – last century’s worst event in human history which displaced 15 million people and killed atleast 1.5 million Hindus and Muslims, ghosts of whom are still haunting both the nations.

Those who were born after Independence, and therefore, not witness to the freedom movement, were fed with the theory that Mohamad Ali Jinnah was the sole culprit and the demon who was responsible for the vivisection of the country. Such a theory suited Jawaharlal, Gandhi and the Sangh Parivar. For the latter, it was yet another tool to demonise the minorities. For nearly sixty years, Jinnah continued to be a devil in the eyes of Indians.

Countless number of publications must be in the market dealing with the freedom struggle and they are only a repetition of the myth that was created by the vested interests – Gandhi was infallible and it was his struggle alone that won freedom for us burying the fact that there were quite a few leaders in different states who contributed in no less a degree to attain independence. To digress a bit, someone filed a petition in the Supreme Court that there should be a law to prohibit any criticism of Gandhi and the apex court in its wisdom dismissed such a plea.

Similarly, Jawaharlal’s blunders were swept under the carpet and he was projected, to the exclusion of his contemporaries like Patel, Rajaji, Subash Bose, as the jewel of India. While the nation is suffering because of his miscalculations and misjudgements, it is his family that has been cornering all the privileges.

Lal Krishna Advani may now be an uninspiring and failed leader, but it was he who changed the perception of atleast a section of Indians towards Jinnah, much to the chagrin of both the Congress and the Sangh Parivar. And he had to pay a price for it. Regrettably, our mediamen, more so, our noisy anchors seem to have a short memory. They have been harping on the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party had adopted double standards while dealing with Advani and Jaswanth. After his talk about Jinnah’s secular credentials in Pakistan, Advani had a harrowing time and he was stripped of the Presidentship of the party. Since he was the President of the party at that time no one could have expelled him like Jaswanth was expelled by the party. That was the only difference. Otherwise both had to pay a price.

Having said that, we have to admit that the manner in which Jaswanth was shown the door was undoubtedly bereft of grace and highly undemocratic. A frontline leader of Jaswanth’s stature deserves the decency of a notice and an opportunity to explain his case. Or, as he himself suggested, he could have been asked to quit. It is still a mystery why such a precipitate action was taken against him though the media loves to point out its finger at Jhandewalan.

As if to add fuel to the fire, Narendra Modi’s government has banned the book. By its very nature, interpretation of history is bound to give expression to diverse views, both subjective and objective. Jinnah has gone on record in 1947 in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly that the state will have nothing to do with the religion of its citizens and they are free to follow any religion of their choice with equal rights. Unfortunately for Pakistan and also for India, he succumbed to his terminal illness within a year. But for this quirk of history, things could have been different.

It is no secret that both Nehru and Patel did not want further delay in the declaration of Independence and therefore wanted to concede the demand of the Muslim League for partition. They perhaps wanted to ensure that the British rulers did not use this vexed issue as an excuse to delay the independence. Their decision is, therefore, unquestionable. Even Rajaji was party to the decision of conceding the demand of the Muslim League.

Jaswanth interpreted this fact of history to say that there was no point in demonising Jinnah for partition and Nehru and Patel were also equally responsible. This also destroyed the earlier myths about Nehru, Patel and Jinnah. Everyone need not agree with certain universally accepted perceptions. There are people who criticise Gandhi as being hypocrite, Hindu fundamentalist, dictator etc. though we have accepted him as the Father of the Nation. Similarly, Patel is a national hero and the architect of united India despite the fact that Congress leadership has deliberately failed to commemorate him in a manner that he deserved.

Banning a book because of certain uncomplimentary references is not in keeping with our civilisational and democratic ethos. Why did the BJP criticise the then Rajiv Gandhi government for banning Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses? Why did the party lambast the Left government for throwing Tasleema Nasreen out of West Bengal?

Well, there are “holy cows” in every state. Like Patel in Gujarat, you can’t say anything against Chatrpathi Shivaji in Maharashtra, against Tagore and Subash Chandra Bose in Bengal, against Kamaraj in Tamil Nadu. They are not Gods. In fact, Hindu tradition allows you to find fault with God himself. If we don’t allow interpretation of history, however subjective it may be, we may not only be policing the thoughts of our citizens, but leading the posterity in a blind alley. Jaswant may not belong to the BJP now. But as a citizen of this country, he is entitled to his views. Ban on his book smacks of extreme intolerance and prejudice which have no place in a pluralistic society.