The air is rife with speculation on what the BJP victory in Uttar Pradesh would amount to. The ascension of Yogi Adityanath especially is being seen with a lot of expectation of all the good and bad he might deliver. Just like the BJP leadership, most people seem to be willing to give him a chance to prove himself on a scale much bigger than Poorvanchal or Gorakhpur. Firebrand Hindutva is his life and breath, his USP, and some people argue he will have to dilute it to a great extent to emerge as a viable leader at the state and also the national level. It remains to be seen how capable Yogi is in aligning his words and deeds, if not the inner workings of his self, to suit able governance in Uttar Pradesh. Sanyas is about taking birth twice, once biologically and then spiritually. Those wary of his extremist Hindutva will be more comfortable if Yogi, the sanyasi, takes another birth politically as a much more moderate leader than he has been till now.
Politics in a democracy is a baffling pursuit. Things make sense mostly in hindsight, as was the case in the UP polls granting the BJP a victory even its electoral stalwarts could not foresee. They talked about a two-third majority in the run-up to the polls and were amazed by the three-fourth majority the party got. I am reminded of a sage piece of advice that wily pundit of politics lalu Yadav gave to Baba Ramdev when the yogi seemed willing to try his luck in politics a few years back based on the mass following he had. The gist of what lalu told him was: “Baba, the crowds that flock to your yoga camps will not vote for you. Politics is not yoga. People came to listen to me in my campaigning for the assembly polls in Bihar, but they did not vote for me and I lost power.” Akhilesh Yadav too is befuddled by the results. He said after the verdict that people came to his poll addresses, making him assume erroneously that they were with him and would give him another chance.
Yogi has had five consecutive wins in this slippery game as MP from Gorakhpur. His politics has been a much different version of the saffron he wears as a sanyasi. He seems to have mastered the waters of his seat where communal politics made a lot of sense in winning elections. But the whole can be a lot more than the sum of its constituents and the politics, administration and electoral fights of Uttar Pradesh do not equal 10 Gorakhpurs or 20 Gorakhpeeths put together. Yogi is a big fish in the waters of Gorakhpur and Poorvanchal but the whole of Uttar Pradesh may drown him if he tries to replicate his erstwhile politics in the entire state.
But again, politics, like life itself, can be read correctly only in hindsight. For who knows, Yogi’s militant Hindutva card may prove to be an ace in state level politics and governance too. Who knows, Yogi might not take political rebirth and moderate his saffron affinity and this may work for him just like it has in Gorakhpur and Poorvanchal. Who knows whether the mandate of UP is a huge affirmation of the saffron politics Yogi practised in Gorakhpur. If Uttar Pradesh wants to wear the colours of Gorakhpur, the saffron Yogi is the perfect choice as chief minister. In democratic politics, electoral gurus can all go wrong in reading the minds of the people not just before elections, but after elections too when it comes to deciphering the mandate.
I am reminded of a little game that came to me as an email forward from a friend some years ago. The game was to cast the deciding vote to elect a world leader from three choices of real life prominent leaders whose traits, habits and credentials were enumerated but whose names were not disclosed at the beginning. It was only after you had chosen a leader that you were told whom you had. I am not sure how correct the game was in mentioning the credentials of the leaders, but the information on Franklin D. Roosevelt was that he associates with crooked politicians, consults astrologers, had two mistresses, chain smokes and drinks eight to 10 martinis a day. Winston Churchill, the mail said, was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening. Adolf Hitler had this about him: a decorated war hero, a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.
It was an interesting proposition and being naive about the workings of politics and governance on the big stage of the globe, I chose Hitler, not knowing whom I had chosen until scrolling down the page to where the names of the leaders were tucked away. To my shock most people I played the game with in office and home selected either Roosevelt or Churchill on the basis of the information given about them. They had selected wisely for when I asked them the reason behind their choice, they said unadulterated idealism and uprightness do not work in the rough and tumble of life and you need real people with ample shades of grey and not ideal people to handle problems at the global level. It is as simple as this. The true sanyasi that Swami Vivekanand was, would he be a successful politician in today’s IndiaIJ Perhaps yes, but equally likely no. You need just the optimum amount of crookedness to succeed in politics today. The straight path of truth, honesty and integrity leads to God, but not the chief minister’s chair. That’s why true spiritualists find and meet God on the fringes of their worldly experiences. God and his world are two parallel straight lines that meet only at infinity.
Yogi Adityanath is a sanyasi like Swami Vivekanand. Both wore saffron but I realise with a lot of sadness that if the saffron of Vivekanand was true, the saffron of Yogi is not, at least up till now. The saffron of Yogi can win elections in today’s India, but the real saffron, which Vivekanand wore and practised, is wiser and humbler. India’s true saffron, the real colour of Hindutva, is all-inclusive, tolerant and committed to the service of all, practising belief in the oneness and not divisiveness of mankind. The saffron of Yogi confers on him the status of a sanyasi with the accompanying exalted social, physical and worldly benefits. But this saffron revels and excels in divisiveness of his electorate. This shade of saffron wins elections in patches of today’s India because the common Hindu masses too are shifting to an increasingly false Hindutva that believes in divisiveness.
This false Hindutva has played a decisive role in installing Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, Yogi as Chief Minister of UP, and Amit Shah as a very smart cookie running a party that sees a great future for itself by mixing impressions of development and good governance with communal politics.