L K ADVANI

November 8, 1927

Politics is a cruel business. LK Advani, more than any single person, made the BJP a player on the national scene. Yet today’s BJP leaders treat him as a tiresome irrelevance, a man who should huddle in silent retirement with his old enemy Murli Manohar Joshi. A lifelong RSS man, Advani always hero-worshipped Vajpayee and the two men even lived together for a while. Till the mid-1980s, this mentor-sidekick relationship endured. Then, Advani decided to break free of Vajpayee’s moderate policies and attached himself to a VHP agitation over the Babri Masjid. Till Advani got involved, this had been a fringe activity but Advani took it to centrestage, going off on a theatrical rath yatra that reopened old communal divisions and argued that Hindus were “second class citizens in our own country.” This nakedly divisive appeal turned the BJP into a player in North India and eventually helped lead it to power in Delhi. Because no party would align with Advani, Vajpayee became Prime Minister and Advani resumed his role as sidekick, eventually rising to be deputy prime minister. His single most significant achievement in government may have been his open support of Narendra Modi, who Vajpayee wanted to sack as chief minister of Gujarat in 2002. When Advani did eventually take over the party, he led it to defeat in 2009. In 2014, Modi elbowed him aside and gave the BJP its greatest victory. Ironically, the new regime reveres the moderate Vajpayee more than poor Advani.