In his true colours

Advanis autobiography shows a reckless disregard and profound contempt for the truth.

THERE must surely be some rational explanation for a politician whose recollection of matters of which he was personally aware is constantly wrong, who makes misstatements, utters palpable untruths and, where these do not suffice, makes convenient inventions. It is a weird collage and explicable only by the fact that this is a politician whose ambitions make him disregard the truth completely. Here is a list. It is illustrative, not exhaustive.

1. Robert D. Blackwill was not the Ambassador from whom L.K. Advani sought urgent American assistance on the Kandahar hijacking in 1999 (page 622). Blackwill arrived in 2001. The added claim that a few days after the crisis had ended he expressed his displeasure to Blackwill is also untrue (page 622).

2. Bhagat Singh was one of the most beloved figures in Indias freedom struggle. How, then, did Advani get the facts about him so wildly wrong? For, he was not hanged by the British because he had hurled a bomb in the Central Assembly on April 8, 1929 (page 792). Only slight injuries were caused because, as the Viceroy admitted, the bombs were not very high class in order to restrict the damage. Bhagat Singh was sentenced to death for the murder of Assistant Superintendent of Police Saunders on December 17, 1928. Saunders was thought to have inflicted a mortal injury on Lajpat Rai which had enraged Bhagat Singh. Advani does not mention that Bhagat Singh had fallen out with his mentor [Lajpat Rai] because of his communal politics. He was secular to the core and a Marxist.

3. Advanis Cabinet colleague in the Janata Party government, Charan Singh, was not made Deputy Prime Minister at the outset in 1977 (page 270) but on January 24, 1979, on his return to the Cabinet after his sack in 1978 (The People Betrayed by L.K. Advani; 1979, page 68). Charan Singh collaborated with Indira Gandhi and betrayed the party. In November 1983, the Bharatiya Janata Party and his Lok Dal set up the National Democratic Alliance on which this book sheds no light.

4. G.M. Syed was a renowned Sufi Philosopher. The politician was no Sufi or philosopher. His renown is imaginary. He moved a motion on Pakistan in the Sindh Assembly in 1943 when he also launched a campaign for the boycott of Hindu goods. He fell out with the Muslim League when his men were not given the party ticket in 1945.

5. Advani was surprised to see Jinnah wearing a boat-shaped fez cap when he arrived in Karachi on August 7, 1947. Most people in Sindh came to know of him only in 1940 when the League adopted the Pakistan resolution (pages 9-10). The Turkish fez cap, which Jinnah wore at the League session in 1916, bears no resemblance to the Jinnah cap, which he wore a decade before it stunned Advani. How did the political activist miss Jinnahs photographs in the newspapers showing him wearing the cap at a League Conference in Karachi in December 1938? Jinnah was well known in Sindh as a champion of its cause much before 1940. His 14 points of March 2, 1929, insisted: Sindh should be separated from the Bombay Presidency. He had close relations with leaders in Sindh like Sir Abdullah Haroon.

6. Why did Advani go to Alwar, of all places, when he arrived here after the partition? I looked after the Sanghs activities in Alwar city; later in Bharatpur district. He was put in prison in February 1948 after Gandhis assassination and cites Nehrus letter to Vallabhbhai Patel on February 5 for giving currency to rumours and provides an incorrect reference (Sardar Patels Correspondence; Volume 4, pages 31-32). Nehru had expressed his concern much earlier about Alwar and Bharatpur to Patel on September 30, 1947. He told Lord Ismay on October 30 that their rulers had either killed all the Meos in their States or just turned them adrift. Alwars Prime Minister was N.B. Khare, president of the Hindu Mahasabha. Mosques were pulled down and there was looting of the Muslims for eight days. Nehru wrote, again, to Patel on November 4 and December 3 (Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru; Vol. 4, pages 110, 204, 532-533; footnote 2). The letter of February 5 is in Vol. 5 page 47. It complains that considerable numbers of prominent RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh] people have gone to some of the States, notably Bharatpur and Alwar. Advani was not mentioned because he had not yet acquired fame.

7. RSS supremo M.S. Golwalkar was a sanyasi, a great soul (page 180) with a saintly face. Rajeshwar Dayal, Chief Secretary to the United Provinces government in 1947-48, held a different view. His memoirs A Life of Our Times (1998, pages 93-94) record the officials discovery of Golwalkars plans to stage a pogrom of Muslims. Chief Minister G.B. Pant saved him. Golwalkar absconded, to be arrested only after Gandhis assassination. The whole plot had been concerted under the direction and supervision of the supremo of the Organisation himself (Golwalkar). He was still in the area, but was not arrested.

8. Despite differences, the RSS seniors used to speak deferentially about both Mahatma Gandhi and Shaheed Bhagat Singh (page 39). The RSS held him in high esteem. It is also evident that Gandhiji himself reciprocated the positive attitude (page 75). Golwalkars Bunch of Thoughts refers to Gandhi contemptuously (pages152-153). To preach non-violence was to preach impotency. Breaking the proud spirit of a virile society has no parallel in the history of the world for such magnitude of its betrayal. No wonder nemesis overtook such a people in the form of such a self-destructive leadership (page 53). Gandhi met Golwalkar, but did not trust him. It was impossible to rely on their word. The RSS was a communal body with a totalitarian outlook (Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase by Pyarelal; Volume 2, pages 439-40 and 750). The Times of India noted (October 17, 1989) that Mr. Advani, while holding forth on Bharat Mata, now goes so far to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was the Father of the Nation. His mentor Deen Dayal Upadhyaya said in 1961: With all respect for Gandhiji, let us cease to call him Father of the Nation.

9. Advanis reaction to the deaths of Gandhi and Upadhyaya are a study in contrast. Patel wrote to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on May 16, 1948, that an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghostly tragedy became possible. Both the RSS and the Mahasabha were responsible. Frontline of January 28, 1994, had Gopal Godses interview in which he said that Nathuram did not leave the RSS and called Advanis denial cowardice. Savarkar was acquitted because there was no independent corroboration of the approver Badges evidence. Savarkars aides testified to the Kanpur Commission after his death. Justice J.L. Kapur found a conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group. Neither Savarkar nor the RSS are condemned by Advani.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was murdered by unknown assailants on February 11, 1968. The Central Bureau of Investigation found he was killed by common thieves. The Jan Sangh predictably alleged political motives. Both accused were acquitted of murder. One was convicted of theft. A Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, not only rejected charges of political motivation but also Nana Deshmukhs evidence. A diary by Ramachandracharya Pandey he put forth in evidence was found to be a total fabrication. Advanis claims that the report satisfied no one (page 143) is untrue. It exposes double standards rejection of cogent evidence of conspiracy in Gandhis case, reliance on unfounded charges in Upadhyayas.

10. Indira Gandhi could not have taken a strong stand against Sheikh Abdullah in the 1983 elections in Kashmir. He died in 1982.

11. The idea of an Indo-Pak Confederation was born out of an intensive discussion between Upadhyaya and Ram Manohar Lohia. They issued a joint statement on this on April 12, 1964 (page 145). Nehru had suggested it much earlier; vaguely in 1950, explicitly to Selig Harrison of The Washington Post (December 19, 1962).

12. In 1962, Advani suggested to Vajpayee that he demand a White Paper on China. In the history of Parliament he became the first M.P. to demand a White Paper from the Government. Prime Minister Nehru accepted the demand (page 103). By October 1962, however, the government had published seven White Papers since 1959.

13. Jinnah was not Bal Gangadhar Tilaks defence counsel in his sedition trial in 1905 (page 819). The trial was held in 1908, not 1905, and Jinnah was not the counsel. He defended Tilak in 1916 in security proceedings.

14. One of the reasons why India accepts U.S.A. to be a natural ally is because of Chicagos unique association with Swami Vivekanand (page 658). One would have thought it was based on the national interest, not on a speech in Chicago in 1893.

15. Lord Ram and Babar were sought to be equated (page 857). False. It was a question of demolition of a house of worship. Rajendra Prasad reproduced Babars will to show his tolerance. Do not ruin the temples and shrines of any community; avoid the sacrifice of cows; wipe all religious prejudices off the tablet of the heart (India Divided; 1947, pages 38-39 for the text).

16. The doors of the disputed structure (Babri Masjid) were locked after 1934. From 1936 to 1949 the disputed structure was a de facto temple (pages 358-359). Reports by the Waqf Inspector, dated December 10 and 23, 1948, recorded that prayers were being said at the mosque and from the surrounding houses shoes and stones are hurled towards the namazis. The City Magistrate, Faizabad, reported on October 10, 1949: Mosque and the temple are both situated side by side. Hindu public has put in an application with a view to erect a decent and vishal (sic) temple instead of the small one which exists at present on the Ram chabutra (platform) near the mosque. Abdul Gaffar, its imam, testified to that and to the installation of idols on December 22 and 23, 1949 (Nilanjan Mukhopadhyaya, Sunday Mail, July 2, 1989).

Advanis disregard for the facts stems from his determination to alter them by brute force: The Hindu side made it clear that the birth of Ram at Janmabhoomi is a matter of faith held by crores of Hindus, which cannot be challenged, proved or adjudicated (page 387). This is Savarkars thesis of the superior race. The BJPs claim to speak for the Hindus is spurious. If Muslims object, they are adding communal colour to a legitimate demand of the majority of the people. Why is it wrong for Hindus to expect a Hindu atmosphere in Ayodhya (page 366). Or, for that matter, in any city of his choice, if not in the entire country? This is what we are up against.

Advani has begun lately to assert that the demolition of the Babri structure on December 6, 1992, was the saddest day of my life (p. xxxii). The claim is belated and hypocritical.

The Hindu and Indian Express reported the next day (December 7) that Advani was heard ordering sealing of all entry points to Ayodhya to prevent Central forces from entering. He refused permission to Chief Minister Kalyan Singh to resign even at 2 p.m. He did so at 5.30 p.m. after all the three domes were brought down.

On December 10, he cited in defence, incredibly, destruction of temples in Kashmir, the killings of the Sikhs in 1984, and attacked the President and others who reviled them merely because an old structure which ceased to be a mosque over 50 years back is pulled down by exasperated people. The BJPs resolution of December 23 was in the same vein. Advani said in Ahmedabad on January 24, 1993, that the demolition would change the course of Indian history. Mr. Advani said he did not regret the demolition of the mosque though he was sad that day because his fervent pleas to kar sevaks not to damage the monument had been ignored (Indian Express, January 25, 1993).

What he told the RSS Organiser reflected his own feelings: The average Hindu today is not distressed over what happened in Ayodhya (February 28, 1993). Five of the accused in the case alleged instigation by Advani and others (The Times of India, June 8, 2003). The Akhil Bharatiya Ayodhya Ram Mandir Kar Sevak Sangh endorsed the charge. Kalyan Singh alleged betrayal by the leaders, Advani included. The language Advani used then reflected neither sadness, remorse nor repentance. Nor does his conduct since.

Two judicial orders have found him and others prima facie guilty of conspiracy to demolish the mosque after perusing a mass of evidence collected by the CBI. On August 27, 1994, Special Judicial Magistrate Mahipal Sodhi concluded this and committed the case to the Sessions Court for a full trial. On September 9, 1997, the Additional Sessions Judge, Jagdish Prasad Srivastava, reached the same conclusion and framed charges against Advani and other accused.

Well after the demolition, Sushma Swaraj said on April 14, 2000, that the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was purely political in nature and had nothing to do with religion (The Telegraph, April 16, 2000). How very political was revealed by Uma Bharati: Advanis rath yatra fanned a power struggle between him and Vajpayee thereby increasing the gulf between the two (Hindustan Times, December 30, 2005). The country has paid in blood for Advanis politics (see map).

If Vajpayees summit with Pervez Musharraf at Agra in 2001 had succeeded, his clout would have increased. Advani foiled it on specious grounds. As with yielding the crown to Vajpayee in 1995, he repeatedly claimed that the summit was his idea, something unusual in the Cabinet system (page 789). But his idea was to have a get-acquainted meeting. Advani panicked when the leaders agreed to have a Declaration. He was seen pacing up and down the floor agitatedly (emphasis added, throughout).

Both Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh had to suffer his interruptions while the parleys were on (The truth about Agra, Frontline, July 29, 2005). The texts of the agreed drafts, including Clause 1 in Jaswant Singhs own handwriting published there, belie Advanis version. From June 23, 1997, and even in the NDAs talks with Pakistan in 1998, the expression used was Terrorism and drug trafficking not cross-border terrorism, which implies guilt. All through July 15 and 16, the 1997 formulation was used in the drafts.

Advanis account of his meeting with Musharraf on July 14 reveals his incompetence in foreign affairs. You do not ask a head of state about a particular fugitive (Dawood Ibrahim) and that too at your first meeting before he could meet your Prime Minister and, worse still, in the presence of officials. No wonder Musharrafs face suddenly turned red (page 699).

Advani took his revenge under the pretext of cross-border terrorism, an issue which was already settled in the drafts discussed on July 15 and 16. His real grouse was against the first clause which Jaswant Singh had accepted as revised in his own hand. It envisaged talks on Kashmir and other issues. With Advanis interview to Dawn news channel on April 20, 2008, the cat has emerged from his bag. My bottomline on Kashmir is that let other issues come first and Kashmir later It will take a long time. He is opposed even to talks on Kashmir, let alone a settlement.

On this Vajpayee disagreed with him fundamentally which is why, at the Lahore summit with Nawaz Sharif on February 21, 1999, he not only agreed to talks on Kashmir but set up a back channel to conduct them. In Agra, alas, he was overborne and overruled.

On March 14, 2004, Advani came out in his true colours; saffron, of course. He gave a brazenly communal colour to foreign policy. The BJP alone can find a solution to our problems with Pakistan because Hindus will never think whatever we have done is a sell-out. It is, besides, a McCarthyite imputation of lack of patriotism to all three political parties. On February 20, 2007, Advani warned Pakistans Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri against any haste. The BJP wanted him to wait till it returned to power when, of course, it would not settle. Nor would it let Manmohan Singh get the credit for a settlement.

The ignorance surfaces on other issues also. It is pointless to harp on Patels letter of November 7, 1950, to Nehru. It was Girija Shankar Bajpais idea and his draft. It was confined to the McMahon Line. Aksai Chin was not mentioned. The boundary was undefined here and Nehru refused to negotiate. The Jan Sangh and others egged him on crying appeasement, with terrible consequences. It is equally absurd to blame Nehru for referring Kashmir to the United Nations in 1947. If India had not, Pakistan would have. Extension of the campaign to its borders would have led to war and direct great power involvement.

But what of Advanis own role in triggering off U.N. intervention in Kashmir? After the nuclear tests on May 11 and 13, 1998, he said in Srinagar on May 18 that hot pursuit of intruders would not be ruled out. Pakistan must realise the change in the geo-strategic situation which would help in finding a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem on the basis, no doubt, of Indias superior strength. He was astonished when Pakistan held its tests, on May 28 and 30. The last resolution on Kashmir was adopted by the Security Council on November 5, 1965. It adopted one more on June 6, 1998, certifying Kashmir as one of the root causes of India-Pakistan tensions.

The book is strangely silent on Jaswant Singhs three offers to Strobe Talbott in 1998 to settle the dispute on the basis of the Line of Control, as revealed in Talbotts memoirs Engaging India. His government was prepared to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and send troops to Iraq, a folly which public opinion prevented.

On two important issues the lack of candour is particularly reprehensible. It is an insult to intelligence to aver that by citing with the obvious approval Sarojini Naidus praise of Jinnah as the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity and recalling simultaneously his speech of August 11, 1947, as a classic, a forceful expressal of a Secular State, he had only referred to a particular speech and as a matter of fact, I had not called Jinnah secular (page 814).

Far worse is the devious hit at Vajpayee in two places. He complains that the country was denied a major success in its war against Pakistan-supported terrorism by way of bureaucratic non-cooperation (page 648-649). Neither the Foreign Secretary, the mild Chokila Iyer, nor the Home Secretary, his own man, could have acted thus. His charge is against Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. But could he have been so unpatriotic? Or acted in any way without Vajpayees approval? This is in the context of the dangerous folly, Operation Parakram, in January 2002.

When (Colin) Powell (U.S. Secretary of State) came to India, I was unpleasantly surprised to know that I was not among the Indian officials meeting him. The PMOs explanation, from what I gathered, was that since I had met the U.S. Secretary of State only ten days earlier in Washington, there was no need for me to meet him again. It bewildered me. I suspected, not without basis, that somebody in the bureaucratic system was trying, in Indias dialogue with Americans, to de-emphasise or derail the issue of getting Dawood Ibrahim and other Indian terrorists back from Pakistan (pages 653-654). He implies that Vajpayee was less keen than Advani.

I must mention here that there was a significant difference in my approach to the talks with Hurriyat leaders and that of Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and A.S. Dulat, a former Chief of RAW [Research and Analysis Wing], who was serving as an adviser in the PMO on Jammu & Kashmir affairs. I learnt that Dulat, who was in regular contact with the leaders of various groups in Kashmir, had given some Hurriyat leaders the impression that the government was prepared to look at solutions to the Kashmir issue outside the ambit of the Indian Constitution. If the offer was made by Dulat, why bring in Brajesh Mishra unless Vajpayee is the real target?

Vajpayee gave him a piece of his mind when Advani became party president, for the fifth time, on October 27, 2004: We are happy to have him as our president, but even when he was not the president, he behaved like one (Indian Express, October 28, 2004). He continues to do so still. The BJP president had informed the participants at a meeting that his flight was delayed. Advani asked the leaders to disperse before Rajnath Singh reached the headquarters (The Telegraph, April 1, 2005, for details).

The Kandahar bits in the book have an unsavoury background which Vir Sanghvi revealed in The

Hindustan Times (April 16, 2006). Capitalising on revulsion at Jaswant Singhs behaviour (hugging the Taliban leaders), journalists were briefed by Advanis staff that he was opposed to the deal. But Ministers did not confirm this claim, even then.

Vajpayee lost his temper; phoned Advani and demanded to know where those stories were coming from. Advani denied all knowledge. Vajpayee asked him to clarify the situation to the press.

Press Trust of India put out Advanis denial that he had opposed the deal though till then no paper had reported his opposition. Then the Advani plants appeared the next morning. Advani revived his claim in the second week of April 2006. Vajpayee went ballistic again.

Advani is obscenely ambitious and power-driven. He will act ruthlessly and deviously. Do not believe a word of his claims that he wanted to retire. He is a divisive figure both nationally and within the BJP. The party announced on December 10, 2007, that he would be its candidate for the Prime Ministers office; but as a result of an understanding with the RSS (Neena Vyas, The Hindu, December 11, 2007). The national council endorsed the decision on January 27, 2008.

Advani pleads for a consensus on national issues. The Congress must not think that the BJP is evil (page 873). At the same time, he revives Hindutva, the temple issue and praises Narendra Modi. A polity rests on national consensus. How is it possible to forge a consensus with such a party? Or trust a man who denounces sin and exonerates sinners?

Reports on corruption fill him with agony (p. xxxiv). Advani personally forged an alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalithaa in Chennai on December 17, 1997, just two days after the Madras High Court had censured her for clear abuse of office as Chief Minister in the TIDCO-SPIC case (Frontline, January 9, 1998). On December 26, 2005, he opposed the expulsion from the Lok Sabha of MPs half a dozen from the BJP who were involved in the cash-for-questions scam. They were being stupid. But the punishment is not commensurate with their crime.

The contrast with his role model, Vallabhbhai Patel, is stark. The Sardar was a man of few words. Advani approaches every subject with an open mouth. One was dignified and very private, the other is flamboyant and loud. He revels in exposure to the media and indulges in self-praise. The book is studded with words of praise he lapped up. Patels action matched his words. Advanis oft-promised White Paper on the Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence never appeared.

The book confirms the worst impressions which Advanis tenure in office conveyed. Advani should not complain of his image. It flatters him. The reality is far worse. No one, since Independence, has injected communal poison in the body politic to the degree he has. The bloodshed he has caused and his partymen cause does not affect him one bit. Corruption he readily condones if it helps his politics. He has lowered the level of political discourse and shown a capacity for low intrigue even against colleagues in the party, the Cabinet and the leaders of both. Add to these a reckless disregard and profound contempt for the truth and there emerges the real persona of Sri Lal Krishna Advani.

The secular parties face a grim challenge which they can meet only unitedly. What will Advani not do if he returns to power? For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? (St. Luke 23: 31).

If Advani succeeds in fulfilling his 20-year-old ambition, this book will rank as the Fuhrers Mein Kampf. If he is defeated in 2009, it will be remembered for ever as the swansong of a man who wanted to be Prime Minister of India too badly.