While in Karachi on the last leg of his visit to Pakistan, India's Leader of Opposition and president of the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, reiterated on Sunday what he had said earlier in Lahore and Islamabad - that the political environment has 'completely changed' for the better. Though in his address at the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law, he also observed that "the peace and tranquillity that exists is still tentative".
True, but there is hope of it becoming permanent because what has also changed completely is Advani's own tone vis-à-vis Pakistan.
He has clearly come a long way from the days when he launched his party's pro-Hindutva campaign, a substantial part of which was directed against Pakistan and Indian Muslims for their ancestors' role in his country's history. He was the one who took out the infamous 'Rath Yatra' to agitate for the construction of a Ram Temple in the place of the historical Babri Mosque that was ultimately demolished, in December 1992, by Hindu zealots.
His name, along with some other leaders of the BJP and its auxiliary outfits, appeared prominently among those accused of having instigated the outrage. His inflaming of Hindu passions over the Mandir-Mosque issue was to lead later to a horrific anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat state under the BJP rule. Now Advani was at great pains to alter his image of a Pakistan-Muslim hater.
He repeatedly told his audiences that his 'public persona' and actual personality are quite different. And, as he recalled, he had termed the demolition of the mosque as "the saddest day in my life", in an article he wrote for the Indian Express a few days after the incident. His critics may like to carp at it and say that he wrote that piece not because the incident had saddened him, but out of political considerations.
Whatever the truth, what is important in the present context is that the BJP leader averred at every available opportunity that his party continued to support the Pak-India peace process. In fact, he rightly pointed out that it was his party that had initiated the process when the former prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, undertook the historic bus journey to Lahore; and, after a break, picked up the pieces again to invite President Musharraf to Agra. Advani sought to dispel the general impression that he was responsible for the failure of the Agra talks, saying that it was actually on his suggestion that Vajpayee had invited the Pakistani leader for the talks.
Credit also goes to his party, he correctly claimed, for signing the Islamabad Declaration in December 2004, which has continued to serve as the basis of the on-going peace dialogue between Pakistan and India. Even so, until recently, the Indian leadership had not shown any flexibility on the core issue of contention between the two countries. At one point, despite his government's peace
overtures, BJP's then foreign minister Jaswant Singh, had moved one step further from the usual 'Kashmir is an integral part of India' refrain to call it the "core of Indian nationhood", meaning, of course, that there was no chance of a compromise on the issue. Happily for the peace process, such rigidity is not on display anymore either from the ruling party or the BJP.
While he refused to comment, for understandable reasons, on the details of the current peace dialogue, Advani made the important assertion that even though his party and the government may differed on domestic issues, they were in agreement on the question of peace with Pakistan. He also observed at a select gathering of journalists and representatives of civil society in Lahore that any eventual solution of the issue has to be acceptable to both India and Pakistan as well as all sections of the 'diverse communities' living in Kashmir.
Surely, this hard-line Hindu nationalist leader could not have undergone a change of heart; but he has certainly changed his tone in view of the new economic imperatives that call for peace and co-operation.
Yet oblivious of the new demands of time, some Hindu extremist organisations from BJP's larger 'Sang Parivar' have come out strongly to condemn Advani for describing the Founder of Pakistan as a secular leader, and also for giving up the dream of Greater India (Akhund Bharat). Back home in Delhi on Monday, Advani reminded these people that he had referred to Jinnah's speech - made in the Constituent Assembly - [thus without compromising the party's stand on the partition of India], and said that he [Jinnah] had favoured a secular, non-theocratic state, and that he was of the view that there should be no discrimination between Hindus and Muslims as well as others.
Advani also invited debate on the issue. Still, he felt pressured enough to offer his resignation as the party president on Tuesday morning. Of course, accepting his resignation on this issue will harm the party's own image and interests as a major contender for power. Probably, it will be rejected, though only after making a spectacle of India's secularism.