Once the inspiration of his party because he was credited with a huge upturn in its fortunes, he is now a lonely figure, the butt of jokes on television, where he is presented as an advertisement for an adhesive for his success in sticking to his chair.

But nothing quite underlined his failure more than his comment that he would visit the Somnath temple every year till the Ram temple was built. The fact that he made the remark on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his 1990 rath yatra highlighted not his success, but what he failed to accomplish.

Two decades are a long time in politics. Since the temple hasn't been built in all these years, it is unlikely that it will ever come up. Yet, Advani's hope is indicative of the very factors which are responsible for his failure, for it is evident that he hasn't understood exactly what went wrong. In this respect, his failure on the temple front can be linked to the negation of his prime ministerial ambitions. Both show an inability to grasp the essence of Indian politics, which is inherently secular.

It isn't that his idea of embarking on a rath yatra did not face opposition. The BJP's numero uno then and even now, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was against an adventure which was fraught with the possibility of arousing communal passions. Vajpayee had advised the more excitable among Advani's supporters not to act like Vanar Sena who had set Ravana's kingdom of Lanka on fire.

His fears were proved right. Not only did the rath yatra come to be known as “riot yatra” because of the communal outbreaks in its wake, the violence-ridden journey led to the demolition of the Babri masjid and more riots. What is worth noting, however, is that Advani has remained largely unrepentant. He has rarely expressed any regret for either the post-demolition riots or the Gujarat riots, both of which made Vajpayee contemplate resignation. To him, the question of an apology of the kind which Manmohan Singh made for the anti-Sikh riots was out of the question.

In contrast, Advani and his ardent supporters were fond of comparing the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation with the independence movement when the stark contrast between the two was obvious to all except the blind supporters of the Sangh parivar. While the Ayodhya agitation set Hindus against Muslims, the freedom struggle eschewed vicious sectarianism and aimed at boosting the country's composite culture.

It is this kind of a tunnel vision which points to the basic flaw in Advani's politics, which ruined his chances of stepping into Vajpayee's shoes and becoming prime minister. As a swayamsevak, the anti-Muslim world-view of the RSS has become so much of a second nature for Advani that it is out of the question for a multicultural polity to accept him as a possible leader.

As the rath yatra showed, he saw India through the distorting lens of RSS propaganda, which demonized the minorities. It was a dangerously polarizing exercise which no leader, who had communal amity and the country's integrity on his mind, would have undertaken. Only those to whom India was for, by and of Hindus could have started that fateful journey.

Ironically, while a secular and liberal India rejected Advani's quest for premiership, the fascistic parivar is now rejecting Advani himself. The reason is obvious: a loser has no friends. This selfish norm is even more rigid in politics than in ordinary life. As long as Advani was able to whip up communal sentiments with his yatra and his rhetoric, the party and the RSS were with him.

But now that it is clear that his attempts to present a gentler, kinder face have no takers, he is being advised to take sanyas, the prescribed last stage in the life of all Hindus. Arguably, if Advani had stuck to his belligerence, the RSS might still have backed him. After all, despite his advanced age, he remains perhaps the only person, apart from Narendra Modi, who can draw a crowd of the faithful.

True, the NDA would have splintered if Advani tried to revisit 1990. But he would have been spared the humiliation of being asked to resign by all and sundry. It is possible that his fresh reference to the temple, especially during a visit to Somnath where it all started, is an attempt to recover lost ground. But a retracing of steps is not a viable option in politics.(IPA Service)