Lk advani autobiography of a face

[ad_1]

Lal Krishna Advani is a prominent leader of the BJP. In fact after Vajpayee he is the most recognizable face of the BJP on the Indian Political horizon. Advani’s life spans over eight decades of Indian polity. From this angle alone, his autobiography ‘My country, My life’ is a significant contribution.

The book is voluminous and covers Advani’s life from his days at Karachi before independence to the 21st century. It’s a vast canvas and Advani has spent considerable time on it to present the facts as he sees them. Hardly any Indian political leader of significant stature has written an autobiography, with the exception of Nehru. Advani thus needs to be complimented for this step.

Advani’s book makes interesting reading as its gives an insight as to how the thought process of the Hindu social and political party the RSS led to the launch of the political outfit the Jan Sangh. This party later transformed into the BJP. The first part of the book particularly his period in Karachi and the influence of the RSS on him makes interesting reading. He brings out his disenchantment with the Congress party for their perceived failure to prevent partition and eulogizes the work of the RSS during the difficult days of 1947 when India was aflame with Hindu Muslim riots. Advani also discusses the bomb plot of 1947 at Karachi in which a few Hindu Sindhi leaders were implicated.

Advani’s does clarify his equation about Gandhi. He brings out the fact that he has all respect for the leader, but his analysis of Nehru and Indira Gandhi are revealing. He is critical of them.

The book spread over a thousand pages, could have been edited by at least 200 pages and the inherent content would not have been lost. After reading his book one can appreciate the brand of nationalism of Advani. His interpretation of the Shah Bano verdict as well as his Ram Rath Yatra and Ram temple at Ayodhya which led to the down fall of the VP Singh gover

LAL KRISHNA ADVANI became BJP president in 1986, at a time when the party had only two seats in the Lok Sabha, and Congress Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, naïve and conceited with a brute majority in the House, had ridiculed the BJP lawmakers—AK Patel and Chendupatla Janga Reddy—using the famous Family Planning slogan of the period: ‘Hum Doh, Humaare Doh’ (We Two, Our Two). In the 1984 General Election, despite a wave of support for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the wake of a series of riots in several parts of north India, BJP’s AB Vajpayee had adopted a soft Hindutva posture to secure a wider appeal for the party. This strategy backfired in the polls held after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in which her son Rajiv Gandhi led a campaign, as pointed out by Christophe Jaffrelot and others, crafted around the theme of national integration with a pro-Hindu bias. The RSS chief at the time, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, was an astute political mind who sensed an opportunity in a hardline Hindutva stance that had already won the RSS grassroots appeal. And Advani was destined to become the poster boy of this aggressive brand of politics, transforming the BJP—founded in 1980 as a successor to the earlier Bharatiya Jana Sangh—into a mass movement. He became the face of the Ayodhya agitation first started by the VHP to reclaim Hindu sites lost to ‘invaders’ over centuries past. Hindu pride became an irresistible slogan for the party following the poll drubbing. A political opportunity soon arose for Advani’s party when news of the Bofors arms scandal surfaced, putting the inexperienced Rajiv Gandhi on the backfoot. Advani and other senior leaders of the BJP, including Vajpayee, worked day and night to cobble an electoral understanding with the breakaway Congress group led by VP Singh, the Left parties and others. While Janata Dal, the new front launched by Singh and others, managed to form the second non-Congress national Governme