Blog: Amid sadhus and chants, the search for political salvation at Kumbh

Allahabad: At the Kanchi Shankaracharya's camp, a 24-hour mantra jaap (chanting of hyms) echoes across Sector 6 of the 70-sq km large Kumbh city. Adjacent to the Kanchi Peeth camp, the SGPC team at the Kumbh prepares for the afternoon langar (community lunch). Hundreds of pilgrims, visitors and homeless at the Kumbh have already queued up for the lunch. Across the road, the gate of new age dharma guru Asaram Bapu's enclosure dwarfs the rest. It's gaudy like a poor commercial.

But these are the usual sights and sounds of a Kumbh. Disturbed suddenly by a police escort jeep. Its sirens blaring, the jeep zooms inside an adjoining large cluster of tents. Three white Ambassador cars, one of them with bullet proof windowpanes, follow. Commandos from a paramilitary force jump out. They help the VIP inside a tent. The austere but significant looking gate reads "Vivekanandpuram" and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). It's guarded by two tough-looking security men armed with INSAS assault rifles. But what grabs the attention is the image of a battle ready "Lord Ram". A bow raised, an arrow set to vanquish all enemy.

Soon chants of Jai Shri Ram punctuate the silence. Champat Rai, national general secretary of the VHP, walks out, busy marshaling 'parishad activists'. A bench is placed with few chairs on the radial road, which is part of the 330-km steel-sheeted causeways created in the Kumbh city. Kilos of pamphlets are heaped on the table and each pilgrim passing by gets two sets of messages. One on the UPA government's "devious" plan to build a mosque at the disputed site in Ayodhya. The other is a litany of charges of how minority communities have been appeased since 1947.

I have known Champat Rai since 1989, the year when the agitation for a Ram temple in Ayodhya at the disputed site turned into a movement driven by LK Advani, Uma Bharti, Ashok Singhal and a host of other nouveau-Hindus. Rai is one of the accused in the Babri mosque demolition case rubbing shoulders with the giants of Hindutva. The moment we asked him about the VHP's next move, he said in a sharp, rehearsed tone: "The marg darshan manual of the VHP, which has top saints as members, will meet on Wednesday. Its agenda will be the interest of 100 crore Hindus. We will launch a new appeal for a grand Ram temple at Ayodhya. Parishad activists will be visiting three lakh Indian villages with a message of Hindu dharma. Cow slaughter, the pollution of Ganga, conversion - all issues will need to be presented before the public."

The signal was getting clear, so I asked him, "Where does the BJP stand?" The reply was quick - "This this is a VHP programme. We have not invited any leader. They can come but they will not share the dais with the saints."

Champat Rai was indirectly confirming two things. Just last week, the RSS top duo, Bhaiyyaji Joshi and Suresh Soni, presided a meeting between VHP bosses Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia and BJP leaders L K Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi. Sources say the VHP had one query - where does the BJP stand on Hindutva? Will the BJP back the parishad's Hindutva agenda? The BJP's answer was a yes, and was confirmed by Ashok Singhal later in the day.

But as the Tuesday sun started heading westwards, it also became clear that there was little unanimity between the BJP and other Sangh members. In the afternoon, a small goods carrier stopped right in front of the VHP camp. Five men offloaded small sized hoardings - with the picture of the Gujarat Chief Minister waving. Within minutes, they fixed the hoardings outside the VHP camp. But before they could leave, a group of VHP supervisors descended, asking them to remove the hoardings.

This is the new faultline in the Sangh Parivar. A faction in the Sangh wanted the saints at the VHP meet to officially anoint Narendra Modi as the face of the Hindutva brigade. But some BJP leaders have been uncomfortable with Modi's rise and are averse to him being made the face of the saffron brigade. While the two groups were jostling, the Sangh, steadily improving its grip on the BJP, moved in. It ruled out projecting anyone.

Speaking to us, Ashok Singhal, who was one of the first Sangh functionaries to publicly back Modi as the "most popular leader", said: "The BJP has agreed to return to the Hindutva agenda. It will be good for them. But the agenda is more important than personalities."

Singhal had issued a public appeal to the voters of Gujarat to support Modi in the recent assembly elections that he won. Forty lakh copies of the letter were distributed, and Sangh sources say that contributed to Modi's third straight win. Singhal still bats for Modi. He said, "Modi is the man capable of carrying forward the agenda. It's for all to see."

But despite Singhal pitching for Modi, the Sangh vetoed anointing him, ignoring the fact that the clamour for Modi in the Sangh ranks is rising. At the meet, Kamta Nath, a VHP activist who lost two of his sons in the violence that ensued immediately after the Babri mosque demolition on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, said, "The average worker wants Modi, and his time will come."

A top Sangh source explained the hesitation on Modi. He said that in the 1990s, the Sangh backed Advani as the mascot of Hindutva. But in 2005, Advani praised MA Jinnah in Karachi, attempting a secular makeover. The Sangh's Hindutva agenda suffered immense loss as the mascot started representing what the Sangh didn't stand for.

Champat Rai went on record to voice this concern. He said, "The Ram Janmabhoomi movement or other Hindu agendas be trusted with two or four leaders." Other senior Sangh leaders said that the organization cannot take another body blow like Advani in 2005. "The movement was discredited then and will collapse if all eggs are put in one basket and that basket collapses," said another leader.

This somewhat spells out the Sangh plan. It's averse to projecting one leader. The idea is to create a fertile ground for the rise of the BJP and then back one of them. The Sangh expects this will keep all BJP leaders guessing and dependent on the organisation. Since Modi has the strongest claim, new names of BJP leaders are being added to the crowded list of claimants for the coveted "face of the party".

One such name is Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is months away from an assembly election. "If Chouhan wins Madhya Pradesh again, he cannot be denied a place in the pantheon of BJP's probables for the top slot," said a top VHP functionary.

This makes the road ahead for Modi somewhat cluttered with hurdles, say BJP sources.

Once the BJP national council endorses Rajnath Singh as president, his new team of office-bearers will have Narendra Modi as a member of the parliamentary board, the BJP's top-decision making body, to give him greater say. After that the RSS and BJP may get down to deciding Modi's role. Some are of the opinion that he should be made the head of the BJP's campaign for the 2014 elections. They feel Modi needn't give up the Gujarat Chief Minister's post. They feel that if the BJP gets nearly 200 seats in the next Lok Sabha polls, Modi can't be stopped. But if the BJP falls short, Modi, with poor chances of being a coalition maker, may lose the race to someone else.

This means the BJP, which accuses the Congress of dynastic politics, is heading for serious Parivar trouble. Given the odds, the Sangh has decided one thing. It's creating a plot with a Hindutva twist and plans to decide the star cast later. Meanwhile, its crucial meet in Allahabad is all set to turn the land of salvation at Prayag, the confluence of three rivers into an akhada for politics.