Advani recasts Hindutva, says change is good

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New Delhi: L K Advani on Sunday attempted to refashion Hindutva as “an inclusive, tolerant philosophy which was not averse to change with the changing times”.

Speaking on the concluding day of the BJP’s two-day national executive meeting — the first since last month’s Lok Sabha election defeat, and one which has been wracked by strong ideological disagreements and finger-pointing — Advani invoked former RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras’s concept of change in the organisation.

“It is said that the Sangh is changing and that it has to change further. It is a sign of their evolution. That which doesn’t change is not living, it is dead,” Advani said, quoting Deoras’s 1980 Vijayadashami speech and, in the process, also sending a subtle message to assembled delegates.

Emphasising the BJP’s RSS roots, Advani said: “How can a people believing in the dictum ekam sat vipra bahuda vadanti (truth is one, sages call it variously) ever become champions of a state which would uphold the interests of one religion at the cost of others?” The BJP’s Hindutva, he said, “was in accordance with the 1995 Supreme Court view that described it ‘a way of life’”.

Party president Rajnath Singh reiterated that “the BJP couldn’t be expected to snap its umbilical chord with the RSS”.

Seeking to put the lid on the debate on Varun Gandhi’s Pilibhit speech, Advani warned against “any narrow or bigoted anti-Muslim interpretation of Hindutva”. He made a mention of “two eminent Muslim colleagues” (Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain) who had raised the issue at the BJP office bearers’ meet a couple of days ago. The party had taken an ambivalent stand till then, and it was during that meeting that Advani said that “he had asked party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad to disown Varun’s statements”.

Advani’s bid to refashion Hindutva found support from state BJP leaders. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said “Muslim women, at times much against the wishes of their husbands, voted for (me) because benefits of development reached every section of society.” Therefore, said Chouhan, “Muslims must not go off the party’s radar”.

BJP general secretary Gopinath Munde — whose aide Pasha Patel is a leading advocate of the Sachar Committee recommendations in Maharashtra — said that “the party must reach out to Muslims even if they don’t vote for it”.

Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, too, spoke on similar lines.