Commentary/T V R Shenoy

Advani, the air-raid shelter!

L K Advani has had a rich and varied life. He has been a politician, a journalist, and an author. But never in my wildest dreams did I think to see him in the role of an air-raid shelter!

I hasten to state that this is none of his own doing. It is simply how he is being typecast by our lords and masters. Whether it is Inder Kumar Gujral, Laloo Prasad Yadav, or half the All-India Congress Committee, the refrain is the same when confronted with charges of wrongdoing -- to avoid the flak they chant Advani's name.

"Look at what the CBI did to poor Advani!" they say, "Doesn't it prove the CBI is witch-hunting? And if it could prosecute him, isn't it possible that Laloo Prasad/Narasimha Rao/Rajiv Gandhi are equally innocent?"

I am happy that the leaders of the Janata Dal, the Congress, and all the rest are finally openly admitting the Bharatiya Janata Party president's innocence. I only wish that they had done so earlier, instead of dragging his name into the mud at every opportunity.

But why are all these worthies ignoring V C Shukla? After all, the Delhi high court struck down the charges against him too. So why aren't they comparing themselves to him?

Everyone seems to believe that Advani was let off because the high court ruled that the notorious Jain diary wasn't admissible in the absence of supporting evidence. To set the record straight, this argument was propounded by Shukla.

Advani's defence did not rest on such details. He did not contest the CBI's argument that the Jain dairy was a book of accounts. Nor did he tie himself up in arguments that an MP isn't a public servant within the meaning of the Act (as Shukla did).

No, Advani's argument was far simpler -- he pointed out that his name didn't figure in the Jain dairy. The initials 'LKA' were written on a loose sheet.

This may seem like quibbling, the kind of squabbling over details that epitomised Shukla's defence. But it isn't, because of one all-important fact: the amount written against those initials did not tally with the grand total in the Jain diary itself.

There is a basic difference between the defence offered by Shukla and Advani. The Congressman's arguments were purely technical, stating that CBI case wasn't legally admissible. The BJP president's case rested on facts.

By now, it is well-known that the Central Bureau of Investigation knew that there was no real case against Advani. The investigators knew it, and their legal advisers knew it. Why Vijaya Rama Rao (the then CBI director) chose to chargesheet an innocent man is known only to himself and his mentor P V Narasimha Rao.

But it isn't just the nature of Advani's defence that sets him apart. It is also his behaviour outside the court.

Despite all the provocation, Advani didn't campaign against the CBI or its director. He did not utilise his post as party president to organise mass rallies, and then claim that "the people are with me". He did not fight to keep his seat. And he certainly didn't say, "I'll continue to rule even from jail."

What he did do was to resign his treasured Lok Sabha seat, pledging never to contest any poll until he was cleared in a court of law. And he was as good as his word, refusing to set foot in Parliament House even when the BJP Parliamentary Party met!

And the second thing that Advani did was to insist on a speedy trial. So far from resisting charges, it was he was dragged the CBI to court!

I defy any impartial observer to claim that Laloo Prasad Yadav has behaved half as honourably. In every instance the Bihar chief minister has done exactly the opposite of what Advani did.

Yadav has unceasingly abused the CBI, charging it with political motives. He has adamantly refused to resign his office. He has spared no effort to avoid facing the judiciary.

Most shocking of all, his antics seem to have the tacit support of the prime minister, who has publicly spoken out against the CBI and promised to ban "witch-hunts".

True, Gujral hasn't backed up his words by trying to actually halt the investigations. But he has also refused to send out a message against corruption by sacking one of his own ministers (for fear of Yadav's anger).

But to return to my original point, if Laloo Yadav is seriously looking for a precedent, he won't find it in the BJP president. But he will have better luck with the Congress.

When the Allahabad high court found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral corruption -- no mere chargesheet here! -- she too refused to quit. Instead, she changed the law with retrospective effect, on the strength of which she was found 'innocent'.

I am sure Gujral, Indira Gandhi's colleague and admirer, remembers all this. Would he care to tell Laloo Yadav? That way the Janata Dal president can cite precedents at leisure, while Advani is relieved of his role as a shelter!

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