THE CONSTITUTION IS CLEAR

The Indian constitution, drafted after considerable debate and enlightened discussions in the Constituent Assembly, gives the people with foreign origin the right to acquire Indian citizenship, and further guarantees in the preamble "equality of status and of opportunity" to all Indian citizens. This was done keeping in mind the specific circumstances at the time of independence. The country's partition and the migration of millions of people across the newly delienated borders required that the question of Indian citizenship be defined in a very precise manner, as was finally done in the constitution.

Thus the very constitution that gives us the parliament, the president and democratic rights, also gives the Indian citizens, irrespective of their origin or place of birth or any other distinctive character, an equal right to contest elections to and participate in these democratic institutions. Thus the constitution is clear and there is no need to amend it only to deprive one individual, in the run-up to one general election, of the opportunity to exercise this constitutionally sanctioned right.

It is a different matter, however, if this right would be exercised by the Congress party in these elections to project Mrs Sonia Gandhi as its candidate for prime ministership. The choice of exercising the right or not lies with the Congress party. The constitution cannot be amended to prevent the Congress party from exercising such a right. The mere provision of a right in the constitution does not automatically mean that it would be exercised. For instance, every married person in the country has a right to get a divorce. But if all married couples wish to exercise this right, it would simply lead to social chaos. In any case, a vast majority of them would never contemplate exercising this right. But if some feel the need to do so, the constitution provides for this right. It cannot therefore be argued that the constitution should be amended to delete the right to divorce for the sake of social harmony and to protect the institution of marriage.

It is, therefore, upto the Congress party to exercise the right provided in the constitution, and for the people of India to accept the decision of the Congress or not by exercising their right of franchise through elections.

With some prominent Congress leaders joining the BJP chorus on this issue, the country's attention has temporarily been diverted from the people's more pressing problems and real concerns. At this stage one need not speculate on these leaders' motivations. This, however, throws new light on many developments, that remained inexplicable, since the fall of the BJP-led government, when efforts to form an alternative secular government were thwarted.

THE BJP'S GAMEPLAN

But the BJP's gameplan is clear. They wish the people to forget the miseries heaped upon them during the 13 months of disastrous governance. The BJP would like the people to forget the inhuman and cruel attacks they mounted against the Christian minority. The BJP would like the people to forget the rapid mortgaging of our economy and the sale of public assets to private capital for a song. The BJP would like the people to forget their videshi policies that have made India more vulnerable to imperialism, both politically and economically. The BJP would like the people to forget how they tried to systematically undermine parliamentary democracy and also misused their office for large scale infiltration of communal elements into administration. The BJP would like the people to forget the way they continue to clandestinely rewrite Indian history.

Unfortunately for the BJP, however, the people are not going to forget their miserable experience under its government.

NDA: A NEW TRICK

The BJP is also attempting to mislead the people by another method. With some of its allies, the BJP has announced the formation of a National Democratic Alliance (NDA). It has further declared that the NDA will have a common manifesto; that the BJP will not have a separate one. It is indeed unheard of that the major constituent of an alliance does not put forward its manifesto before the people. This is being deliberately done to mislead the people and to pursue a hidden agenda in case they manage to come back to power. This we have seen most eloquently during the 13 month period.

It is another matter that, with the BJP's allies like the Telugu Desam, Trinamul Congress and National Conference refusing to join the NDA, the claims of "stability" sound hollow even before the exercise has begun.

Such tactics, however, are nothing new to the BJP. The communal forces have always chosen the diabolic methodology of never putting before the people their real intentions but pursuing them in a clandestine fashion. It needs to be recalled once again that, when banned following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, the RSS adopted a series of deceitful postures to get the ban lifted. One of the assurances it then gave to the government of India was that the RSS would not take part in politics.

However, having assured the government that they will remain a mere cultural organisation, they were on the look-out for a political front to achieve their pernicious objective of converting a secular democratic republic into a rabidly intolerant "Hindu Rashtra." In the early 1950s, the RSS sent certain of its key functionaries to assist Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who had resigned from Nehru's cabinet, to form a new political party; it was thus that the Jan Sangh was born. Among the people the RSS sent for this purpose were the late Deen Dayal Upadhyay, L K Advani, Atal Behari Vajpayee and S S Bhandari. Since then the Jan Sangh -- or its later incarnation, the BJP -- have assiduously sought to implement the RSS agenda and functioned as the political front of the RSS.

Subsequently, in order to gain political breakthrough that was since long eluding it, the Jan Sangh dissolved itself soon after the Emergency was lifted in 1977 and merged with the Janata Party. Through this method, they came into government for the first time. This they could achieve only by concealing their real identity to mislead the people. The deceit was evident from the fact that even though the Jan Sangh was dissolved, its members continued to retain their RSS affiliation. Their insistence on this score led to the famous dual membership controversy during that period, disrupted the Janata Party and led to the collapse of its government.

From this emerged the RSS's new political mask, the BJP, in a period when it was fashionable to seek the people's support by adopting the "left" postures. The BJP too announced Gandhian socialism as its ideological tenet. Failing miserably to garner popular support even by this method, however, the BJP fell back on its pet communal agenda for its political survival. The rabid communal campaigns undertaken by the other RSS outfits during the early eighties paved the way for the BJP's political advance. It was such a communal agenda that ultimately led to the destabilisation of the V P Singh government and later the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Thus the BJP gained the support of a section of the people through such rabid communalisation of Indian politics which poses the severest threat to India's secular fabric and national unity and which has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people through widespread and inhuman communal riots.

Having done this, the BJP is seeking to mislead the people once again now, by posturing to drop its communal agenda and, instead, adopt the programme of the NDA. The game is clear: while the BJP will resort to such deceitful manoeuvrings, the other RSS outfits like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal will continue to wreak havoc by pursuing the communal agenda vigorously, and the BJP in power would continue to patronise the communal forces and facilitate their activities. Precisely this has been the experience of the last 13 months.

RABID INFIGHTING

Through such diversionary tactics, the BJP is also trying to conceal from the people's attention the rabid infighting and factionalism in its own house. Its Uttar Pradesh unit is plagued by unresolvable dissensions. Similar is the situation in Delhi and Gujarat.

At the same time, the BJP is preparing to destabilise the government of its alliance partner in Haryana. In fact, its current alliance partners would benefit from looking at the BJP's track record of how systematically it has decimated its allies politically whenever it joined with other parties. Right from the days of the Swatantra Party, any party with which it was associated eventually found itself disrupted. Similar will be the case with many of its current allies. Already such developments are taking place within the Samata Party, Biju Janata Dal and Hegde's Lok Shakti.

Desperate in its lust for power, the BJP is seeking not only to mislead the people but also its own allies.