Lucknow is known for its poets, linguistic elegance and civil behaviour of its traditional fun-loving denizens. But last week when the prodigal poet-son returned to nurse his home constituency the Lucknowis shed their languorous pace of life. Some of them rushed out, not with a Saraswati vandana on their lips, despite being disciples of the BJP school in Legislative Assembly, but with an unending ‘alap’ for a recital by ‘Hridaya Samrat', the one and only Vajpayee, if not actually a 'jugalbandi’ with him, in their new ‘raga’ Mayawati.

But the muse was apparently not amused. Understandably, the crusty old Ustad of the Lucknow gharana, having defected to the New Delhi gharana was disinclined to essay into the unstable new raga Mayawati. So, a hapless Atalji came up with the most uninspired of the lines which the Lucknowi poets of yore in their hard-to-get-mood produced down the years once they found themselves hemmed in by undesirable admirers. "Gala kharab hai" (sore throat). That, of course, did not beat back the exponents of raga Mayawati. Their elan for joining the almost 100-piece new ministerial orchestra far exceeded their mandatory consideration for the "anushasan" (discipline) that made the BJP a party with a difference. Atalji didn't wait for good sense to take its own course. He beat a hastry retreat to New Delhi where apparently his 'sore throat’ was needed even more urgently to postpone a cabinet meeting in order to ward off a ‘Mahabharat’ between his ministers, Arun Shourie and Ram Naik, and their respective admirers, on the issue of privatisation of PSUs. Also to lend not his sore throat but his ears to distant roars on the same theme of the Mumbai Tiger, Bal Thakeray. Vajpayee must have felt like ‘Abhmanyu’ who knew how to get into the ‘chakraview’ of 'privatization' but didn't seem to know how to get out.

Vajpayee's problem is not the occurrence of ‘sore throat’ but the rise of ‘cut throats’ and ‘deep throats’ in his party. First the ‘cut throats.’ They have not taken over in a day. Or appear on the scene suddenly. The rise of the RSS and its supported political parties (BJS, BJP) depended entirely on the ability of its cadres to make sacrifices. Their faith on the integrity of their leadership was almost blind. Now syawamsevaks want to make sacrifices for a price. The rebel BJP MLAs of U. P. have now underlined this message. This is the cumulative effect of the series of scams and scandals like ‘Tehelka Tape', ‘Kafan Chor’, ‘Petrol Pump’ , UTI, et al. How Vajpayee/Advani will face this rising fide of ‘dissatisfaction’ with the leadership remains to be seen.

But perhaps the worst are the ‘deep throats’. You might recall that the two reporters who brought down the Nixon government were supplied information by a mysterious ‘deep throat,’ some one who knew the secrets of the American government. Our ‘deep throats’ are neither mysterious nor inaccessible to the public at large. They are ministers in the Vajpayee government dealing with sensitive issues. The country has not seen such spectacles before— Shourie attacking the Shiva Sena, Bal Thakeray attacking the BJP government, Ram Naik attacking Shourie, Murali Manohar Joshi and George Fernandes joining the fray, all of it over the privatisation of PSUs.

As a dissident MLA from Lucknow put it "Huzoor ki bolti band hai." (The PM is tongue-tied) . Understandably, Vajpayee is reluctant to meet the dissidents. Compared to what he is facing, dissidence in U. P. is a minor issue. His main headache is the message from Jammu. The BJP was considered invincible here due to the predominance of the RSS. Yet, in the recent Assembly elections, the BJP has been all but wiped out, despite the efforts of Gujarat's ‘Chhote Sardar.’ Does it mean that the RSS has lost its influence in Jammu? Or is it that the RSS decided to throw in its lot with the Congress (I).

Be that as it may, the synchronisation of political objectives between the BJP and the Sangh Parivar (including the Shiv Sena) has seemingly broken down. In State after State (U. P., Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir) the popular mandate to Hindutva forces seems to have been withdrawn. Their leadership now is in complete disarray because they have different perceptions of their political destinations.

Things would have been simpler if the Sangh Parivar had conceded that basically it was not Advani's Rath Yatra or demolition of the Babri Masjid that had catapulted the BJP into power. After all, the Hindutva forces have been spearheading their movement for a ‘Ram Raj’ since Nehru's "Tryst with Destiny." Remember the march of the sadhus to Parliament demanding a ban on cow slaughter in the early 1960s. But people voted Nehru to power because they saw in him the provider of a new and just economic order. His personal integrity was never in doubt. Despite charges of corruption against his "license-permit Raj" people had not lost faith in his ability to provide effective governance. Indira Gandhi was voted out when people lost their confidence in her ability to provide good governance due to excesses during the Emergency.

It is true that Ayodhya is a highly emotive issue. But the BJP was not catapulted to power entirely due to whipped up emotional frenzy over the construction of 'Ram Mandir'. It was voted to power because Rajiv Gandhi, due to the Bofors scandal, stood, rightly or wrongly, discredited at that point, as also Narashimha Rao later for similar reasons, in the eyes of the public. If the people wanted a ‘RSS/VHP Raj’ the entire country would have voted for the BJP. But that was not so. The JD, TDP, BJP and a host of smaller parties emerged as alternatives to the ‘corrupt’ Congress (I) in different regions.

The Sangh pariwar believes that the BJP has lost its shine because it has sidelined its Hindutva agenda. This is nothing but self-deception which is leading them to desperate measures. Instead of insisting that the BJP provide good governance, they are seeking to revive the Hindutva agenda through means of doubtful efficacy. The communal holocaust in Gujarat was part of this strategy. But it did not pay off in Jammu. Neither did heaping choice abuses by the VHP on Sonia Gandhi. In fact, it had quite the reverse effect. Even those who might have nursed a reservation against Sonia because of her foreign origin went out to defend her in order to maintain the level of human decency in the country. In fact, thanks to the VHP-Shiv Sena's intemperate language, the ‘foreigner issue’ pertaining to Sonia Gandhi now stands fully blunted, though at one stage it would have tilted the balance in the BJP's favour.

The recent fulminations of the VHP now indicate that the RSS parivar is slowly preparing a sacrificial goat to shore up the BJP's sinking image and it is none other than Brijesh Mishra of the PMO, who, it thinks, has misguided 'Atalji' in the Ayodhya issue. The VHP would like us to believe that 'Advaniji' wasn't allowed to handle the issue when it wanted to donate stone pillars to mark the symbolic beginning of Ram Mandir construction.