Analysis: Question mark remains over Advani's acceptability

It was meant to be the cabinet reshuffle that would carry the prime minister's stamp of authority.

In the end, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's attempt at spring-cleaning his government half way through his term has ended as a meaningless ritual of musical chairs. The only abiding memory will be the fact that the reshuffle marked the first entry of Bollywood into the union council of ministers.

That Shatrughan Sinha who once acted in liquor ads should be given the health ministry and Osho disciple Vinod Khanna should land up with the tourism and culture ministry tells its own story of how portfolios in the country are distributed. But at least Shotgun and Khanna add a bit of glamour to an increasingly humongous, but largely faceless ministry.

If Vajpayee's exercise has any significance, then it stems from the elevation of L.K. Advani as the country's deputy prime minister. Many observers have seen Advani's new appointment as little more than a de jure recognition of his de facto status as the number two in the government. But while Advani's deputy prime ministership may have only formalised the existing arrangement, its significance should not be underestimated.

Three years ago, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power, the conventional wisdom was that only Vajpayee's consensual image could hold a disparate coalition of parties together. When the NDA's common manifesto was released, there was only one face on it. At the press conference to announce the release, large cut-outs of a beaming Vajpayee were omnipresent. During the election campaign, the publicity material almost entirely focused on Atalji as the 'Man India Awaits'.

This was almost a presidential-style campaign in which only one man was seen to possess the charisma and the personal appeal to combat anything the opposition would wish to throw at the NDA. Yes, there were other leaders in the NDA, such as Advani and George Fernandes, but the people of the country were being asked to vote for just one larger-than-life figure. 'Atalji' was in 1999 the supreme leader of the coalition.

The reason for the projection of Vajpayee was simple enough: it was felt by the NDA's political managers that although he was a member of the BJP, he was in the public perception larger than the organisation he represented. So, if any ally had any apprehension that a BJP-led government would mean a return to the party's Hindutva agenda, then Atalji was always there to shepherd his government in the right direction.

His critics may have dismissed him as a mask, but in a coalition arrangement, Vajpayee's mask of avuncular reasonableness was reassuring to his allies. By contrast, the Karachi-born Advani was so closely identified with the BJP's model of Hindu nationalism that he was seen as incapable of leading a coalition government. The conventional political wisdom was that the home minister could only become the prime minister of a BJP-majority government, not a government which depended on a range of allies from Chandra-babu Naidu to the DMK to the Samata party, many of whom remained deeply suspicious of the BJP's saffron agenda.

And yet, today it is these very allies who appear to have acquiesced in Advani being only a heart beat away from becoming India's chief executive.

What has changed in the last three years to enhance Advani's political acceptability? In the first instance, the change has come from within the ruling NDA. From being a gaggle of disparate interest groups, the NDA's constituents have now found the ultimate glue to bind them: power. For the anti-Congress parties like Naidu's Telugu Desam or the anti-left groups like Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool, a BJP-led coalition appears to be the only logical alternative in the medium term at least. When you are guaranteed power at the Centre, then whether you have to co-exist with a Vajpayee or an Advani is not a choice that determines your political preferences. So what if he led the rath-yatra that is widely seen to have culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid? When political opportunism becomes the basis for power-sharing arrangements, then the past is easily dispensable.

Along with the NDA, the BJP too has undergone a metamorphosis in the last three years. From being a party that prided itself in its ideological distinctiveness, the party has found it convenient to use Hindutva like a gas cylinder that can be switched on or off depending on the political situation.

So, in Gujarat, where the party has an absolute majority, its cadres are free to engage in minority-bashing. But in Delhi, where it is in power on the crutches of 24 parties, it is willing to place a moratorium on all contentious issues.

It's a dualism exemplified in the BJP's new president Venkaiah Naidu latest slogan: Ek Haath mein BJP jhanda, doosre mein NDA agenda (the BJP flag in one hand, the NDA agenda in the other).

It's a dualism which has also enabled Advani to almost effortlessly make the transition from being the BJP's ideological mascot to becoming the NDA's prime minister in waiting. The artful political strategist that he is, Advani seems to have made a deliberate effort to project himself as the "moderate" leader of a coalition project, and not as the ultimate flag-bearer of political Hindutva.

Where once he would be more than willing to pronounce his party's views on issues like Article 370, uniform civil code and Ayodhya at every available public platform, today he is far more circumspect in courting controversy. Instead, Advani's "hardline" image is confined to issues like demanding the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim or taking a tough stand on cross-border terrorism, issues on which there already exists a broad national consensus. Indeed, where once the dominant image of Advani was of a politician astride a Toyota rath surrounded by kar-sevaks, today there is conscious attempt to show the "softer" side of the Advani story: pictures of Advani with his family, reports of the home minister at the movies, and books on his prison days during the Emergency.

But while his political acceptability has increased, the central question remains: will any of this be good enough for Advani to become the country's prime minister?

As a first-rate communicator, and a politician with vast experience, Advani seems to have many of the qualities that are desirable in a potential prime minister. There is one factor though which remains nebulous: quite simply put, it involves trusting the man at the wheel.

Ayodhya may have got Advani national recognition and the BJP plenty of votes, but the bloody fallout of the yatra did raise serious credibility questions that have never been really answered. Can we trust a man who claims December 6th was the saddest day of his life, even while he was in Ayodhya at the time and did very little to control the mobs which had gathered? Its the kind of question that may well return to haunt Advani at some stage in the future.

For now, Advani as deputy prime minister has crossed an important lakshman-rekha to realising his ultimate ambition.

Next time, the NDA goes to campaign, Vajpayee's won't be the only face on the posters.

The writer is managing editor NDTV.