Why L K Advani is the most misunderstood politician in India?

The headline might raise the eyebrows of many who think that the man is the primary reason for the ‘communal divide’ in the country. While the media has been prompt to endorse the likes of Laloo, the railway minister over Laloo, the corrupt politician, they have been more unfair in their potrayal of Advani as the single faceted leader.

Though the media loves to hate the man, the media forgets that it was L K Advani who as the Information and Broadcasting Minister in Morarji Desai government had opened the media for an impartial working. He removed the draconian laws which clamped on media. The central censorship also was thrown in the dustbin during his ministerial regime. He was the man behind Prasar Bharati, which aimed at removing DD and AIR from the clutches of government and reduce government interference in media. Alas, media never hailed the man who in more ways than one is the reason why media started enjoying freedom.

Many call Rath Yatra as the start of division in the society. But a look into the history and one sees Bhivandi, Meerut, Baroda, Bhagalpur, Kanpur, Malegaon, Ahmedabad (the religious Jagannath yatra was always under attack in certain areas), post Hazratbal riots and many more riots across the country since 1947. And these were much before the Rath Yatra. The Rath Yatra if not anything else was a symbol of identity for the people who till then had seen minority appeasement or reservational appeasment as the common occurance. For the first time, the silent mass found a reason to assert its identity. So if few feel it was a divisive move, for many others it was an assertion of identity. So in more ways than one, it did open the secular v/s pseudo-secular debate in the country. And also it changed the uni-polar politics of India and people were given a credible alternative to Congress

Somnath Chaterjee, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani … what is common between all of them? They all have had a long innings in public life but haven’t been smeared with stigma of corruption. He was named once in 1996 in the fake Hawala case which then Congress government had foisted on most of the opposition leaders. Only L K Advani had the courage and personal integrity to quit electoral pursuits till his name was cleared. And mind you in 1996, he could have been the 13 day PM since he was the face of BJP. But it takes nothing less than sheer clean conscience to put principles before ambitions.

Many try to hide the ineffectiveness of current regime Home Ministers by saying that terror attacks happened during L K Advani’s ministerial stint too. But what they forget was that the action or reaction by the Indian government in all the cases was fast and decisive. I remember Diptosh Majumdar from CNN IBN comment on a chat after 26/11 that had L K Advani been the HM, he would have alteast tried things different and quickly and cut the time lag of decision making. Remember Akshardham and the promp action? Or even the trials after Parliament attack. No home minister can completely remove terror in this age but the least one can do is to inspire confidence that there will be steps and strong ones.

Self made man that he is, the last thing one can associate with him is that he can be remote controlled by different powers. That’s the strength both Atalji and Advaniji have. Their years of experience in public life have given them a stature that they will not bow down to extra-constitutional authorities and undermine the respect – individual or national.

There are many such points where L K Advani scores heavily, where his aachar (actions), vichaar (thoughts) and prachar (his voice) has kept country above others. But misunderstood man that he is, media and intelligentsia has painted him with only one brush and ignored the vast positives of his. Sit back and do some reading and thinking on him and maybe even the critics and cynics will see the positives.

To sum it up, I will borrow some words from Mr. Sudheendra Kulkarni’s blog and say – It’s time to defocus on the ‘Vansh Bhogi’ (ones who live on the dynasty) and hail the ‘Karma Yogi’ (those who work on for country endlessly)