What will happen to Varun?

The making of Varun Gandhi has coincided with the unmaking of the BJP. The podgy poet got his spotlight moment with a hate speech and a thumping win. But with the BJP at war with itself, can he survive the heat?u00a0

Gandhi is a funny family name to flaunt in the parivar. The Gandhis and the Sanghis after all have never had a kiss-and-make-up moment in history. And it is not just the stain of the murder of the Mahatma, as some allege to be the handiwork of men in khaki short pants, which has been the bone of contention. The Sangh Parivar has opposed the very foundations of the Nehruvian political project.

So when the 29-year-old, poetry-loving great grandson of the man who stood for a secular state as opposed to a Hindu India, allegedly threatened to cut off the hands of Muslims in the backlanes of Uttar Pradesh, it was delicious irony. But while the speech yielded electoral dividends for Varun Feroze Gandhi, his party, the BJP, was wiped out in the polls. In hindsight, for the BJP that has tried hard to project itself as a right-of-centre party and not just the fanatical, political arm of the RSS, was the speech and the party's tacit support for Varun during the entire controversy a mistake?u00a0

It would be an oversimplification perhaps to suggest that the hate speech reflects the dilemma in young Varun Gandhi's mind: to carve an identity for himself outside of the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. Or that the BJP was simply trying to humiliate the Gandhis by unleashing Varun. What the speech ended up doing rather was expose the faultlines in the BJP on its ideological position and its future course of action.

At one level, it made political sense to divide the electorate on communal lines. A demographic study shows that of the 1.3 million voters in Pilibhit, 3,50,000 are Muslims and 1,00,000 are Sikhs. The constituency has about 8,50,000 Hindu voters and Varun Gandhi got a bulk of that vote. As a BJP leader says: "All Hindus in Pilibhit voted for Varun. Through his speeches he had made them proud of their religion. Varun shattered the image of the Hindu as a wimp and was justly rewarded by the voters."

Varun's uncle and Congress candidate for Pilibhit Lok Sabha constituency, Virinder Mohan Singh, who lost to Varun by a huge margin counters: "The hate speech was a pre-planned ploy. Lal Krishna Advani couldn't be seen as overtly anti-Muslim, not at a time when he was the prime ministerial candidate himself. But they needed someone to stoke the communal fire, appeal to the fundamentalist Hindu fringe, the BJP's core support group."

Singh, who handed over the CD containing Varun's alleged hate speech to the EC, talks of a larger conspiracy that was hatched by the BJP to garner Hindu support. "What Varun was unaware of was the fact that the BJP had hoped that after his speeches, he would by attacked in Pilibhit by Muslims. If that happened, there would have been a Hindu backlash. And the BJP would have gained electorally from it not just in Pilibhit but across Uttar Pradesh, like they did in Gujarat after the post-Godhra riots. Varun was simply used as a pawn. While Advani was busy portraying himself as a moderate leader, secular even, it was left to Varun to do the dirty job."

"It's not just about the hate speech. Try as they might, the BJP cannot shake off the RSS influence," says a Congress leader. "This time also, the chaddiwalas forced the party to talk about Ramjanmabhoomi in their election manifesto. Left to themselves, some party leaders would have rather done away with such obscurantist issues. There is an internal strife within the BJP among new-age leaders like Arun Jaitley who want to take the party to the next level and those who still take orders from RSS headquarters. Think of the irony of the situation: An 80-plus Advani talks about a new India, while a 29-year-old Varun talks about Muslim bashing."

This good BJP-bad BJP theory, in fact, has been thrown up earlier also. BJP watchers say the party tries to maintain a modernist image in urban centres, but is forced to practise hard Hindutva in the interiors by the RSS.
When Atal Behari Vajpayee was the face of the BJP, it was left to Advani to saddle the rath and Narendra Modi to give hate speeches. And now that Advani is at helm of affairs and Modi has prime ministerial ambitions of his own, leaders like Varun have been assigned the task of keeping the heartland happy.

"BJP leaders portray the image of a progressive party in Delhi's television studios, while outfits like the Bajrang Dal and the Sree Ram Sene have their tacit support to go about raping nuns, burning churches and attacking women in pubs. BJP leaders think they can fool voters by playing this double game, but poll results showed that people know them for what they are. I feel bad that Varun chose to represent the ugly face of the BJP. Even though he won this time, his political future is doomed," says Singh.

Doomed or not, Varun's close associates say he is a man much misunderstood. "He is a charming, intelligent young man, far removed from his saffron soldier image," says Esha Batra, an MNC employee, who has known Varun since her college days and even campaigned for him in Pilibhit. "Varun is against Islamic terrorism, not against Muslims. The hate speech CD was doctored by his political opponents. He is a very sensitive person with a love for poetry."

BJP's Sudheendra Kulkarni agrees: "That CD was doctored. We are certain Varun didn't say those things. And if they were Varun's words, well, our party leaders have already said that the BJP would dissociate itself from him. We don't subscribe to such views. There are healthy internal debates on issues like Article 370 and Ram Mandir, but the BJP won't follow a fundamentalist path."

For Varun, as well as a humbled BJP, that may be the road to salvation.