A beefed-up Varun is back

The New Indian Express
First Published : 02 Apr 2010 12:31:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 02 Apr 2010 12:57:16 AM IST

Varun Gandhi is back. He had disappeared — literally because he was jailed — after his inflammatory pre-poll anti-Muslim speech last year alarmed his own party, the BJP, and encouraged others like the BSP to use it to buttress their own position among the minorities. It was only after the change of guard in the BJP, which saw the RSS’ favourite, Nitin Gadkari, take charge that Varun has found his way back into reckoning with the relatively minor position of a secretary in the organisation. But the belief that he has the backing of the RSS seems to have silenced those in the party who thought him to be more of a liability than an asset.

Now, however, they may begin to worry again, for he has started on a controversial note. In one of his first speeches after his return to the public domain, he has chosen to call for a ban on cow slaughter, describing the practice as matricide, which suggests that he intends to continue to focus on the Sangh Parivar’s traditional agenda. The stance may please the hard core, but is unlikely to have the blessings of those, like Arun Jaitley, for instance, who had held the BJP’s shrillness to be responsible for its electoral setbacks.

Yet, Varun may have chosen his subject well this time, for few in the saffron camp will openly object to the topic which, along with the building of Ayodhya temple, the sanctity of the Ram Sethu, the activities of the Christian missionaries, etc, is a part of the BJP’s and the RSS’s pro-Hindu agenda. From the historical perspective, however, it is intriguing that Varun should have chosen the subject of cow slaughter because his great-great grandfather, Motilal Nehru, was once at the receiving end of an internal battle in the Congress on the subject. Motilal’s charge against another stalwart of his time, Madan Mohan Malaviya, was that the latter was undermining his popularity by alleging that the head of the Nehru clan ate beef.

It is worth noting that the same old dietary prejudice is being used by a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to advance his own political fortune. Even if he follows a more cautious line, it is obvious that he has decided to project himself as a right-winger in a party which its critics think belongs any way to the hard right. As the years go by, the contrast between Varun and Rahul, the two members of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the BJP and the Congress, cannot but become sharper.