***When guns boom, they suppress the people's voice. Something like that happened after the Kargil incursions. There is no doubt that one day the high walls that fear and distrust have raised on the borders will crumble and the peoples of the subcontinent, without giving up their separate identities, will work together for the common good.***

That the success at Kargil will be claimed by the BJP and Its allies was not really in doubt. Nor is its adoption by them as the poll plank. There was a flicker of hope that they might refrain from doing so because of Prime Minister Atal Beharl Vajpayee's assurance not to politicise the triumph of tne armed forces.

At one time it looked as if his word had prevailed in the BJP. Party chief Kushabhau Thackrey retracted his statement on using the Kargil conflict for the election purposes. Even hard-liner LK Advani lay low. But all that has turned out to be a part of tactics.

It seems that when Vajpayee gave the assurance and Thackrey changed his line to concur with the Prime Minister, they were not sure whether the intruders would be pushed out so quickly and so convincingly. The briefing that they had from the army also said that the operations could go right up to winter. Then their assessment was that they might not have a categorical win to project the vyay at the polls in September.

Since the pieces have fallen into the slots early enough, the BJP and its allies have shed their tactical hesitation and have come out in the open to exploit the Kargil conflict. But they are neither ethically nor otherwise justified to do so. The armed forces fought the war and won it. The entire country stood behind

them and the government. Then why should the BJP exclude others and take the credit for the expulsion of the intruders?

This was my plea to President K R Narayanan

when I met him in the midst of the conflict My argument was that the country would eventually restore the line of Control (LoC). To stall the payee government from appropriating all the kudos, the President should constitute an advisory committee, drawing members from the main political parties, to supervise the affairs of war and peace. Vajpayee, in fact, told me that they were finalising the names of members to man the advisory committee. Apparently, the withdrawal by Pakistan hastened matters In such a way that everything else was forgotten. Hogging the glory by the BJP is robbing the nation of what is its due. The entire country deserves congratulations. That means all political parties, not just the BJP.

Still more disturbing is the effort by the BJP and its mentor, the RSS. to give the success at Kargil a saffron colouring.Religion is sought to be mixed with the state at different functions. The silence of Vajpayee is intriguing. He has emerged as a leader with sagacity. He should assert himself to stop the fanatic lot — the RSS and Its parivar members, the Vishwa Hindu Parlshad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal — from communalising the atmosphere which has remained harmonious and secular for the first time during the hostilities with Pakistan.

The Sindhu Darshan Yatra. an annual festival, held by the RSS on the banks of the River Sind in Leh, was converted this year into a victory parade. The presence of RSS activists and their associates on the dais was not a surprise but that of the top brass was. It was an RSS show. Why did the army participate in it? A cheque of Rs 25,000 to every family of soldiers killed is understandable but not the, portraits of Hindu gods and a citation signed by the RSS chief Rajinder Singh to each recipient. Eyen Lt Gen VS Budhwar made a speech on the occasion.

Not Jong ago, Chief of Army Staff VP Malik strongly objected to my observation that he had briefed the BJP executive at Delhi. He was justified in expressing his resentment because it was not he but some senior army officers who had conducted the briefing. However, when he spoke to me on the phone to deny his presence at the BJP executive, lie said he was not responsible for what his senior

officers did. Budhwar probably comes in that category. No doubt. Malik "is not responsible" for what Budhwar does or says. But the army chief can at least pull up senior officers for not making a distinction between a function held by the state and the one organised by a political party.

Of course, one has no complaint against Defence Minister George Fernandes because his commitment is not to principles but to the power politics he has played for years. That he was present at the Yatra, along with Advani, who took the party in his official plane, does not come as a surprise. Fernandes had to ensure the presence of the army officials at the function. The RSS is highly pleased with him. And so is Advani.

Where will this kind of politics take the country to? It is ironical that the progressives find nothing between once they move from left to right. Persons like Sharad Yadav. Ram Villas Paswan and the outgoing Karnataka Chief Minister H M Patel, who have socialist background, should go the Fernandes way and sup with the BJP underlines a point: once the progressives cut themselves loose from the ideology, they find harmony only in conservatism. It means that their faith in pluralism is skin deep. In contrast, the BJP has seen from its experience that by even deferring its Hindutva programme, it has been able to form the government at the Centre

and carry conviction with a large section of the intelligentsia. Of c o u r s e , Vajpayee's leadership is the key to its success.

It is sad to find the BJP government at Gujarat still going soft against the BHPand Bajrang Dal. State Minister for Horne Affairs Haren Panday has admitted that the activists of both organisation were Involved in the recent violent incidents against the minorities in Ahmedabad. And how can Vajpayee reconcile himself to the BJP-Sena alliance in Maharashtra when Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackrey says that he will not give up the Hindutva plank?

The Congress is not helping the situation either. By parading some Muslim Ulema or others at poll functions, It is making a mockery of secularism. Once again the party is at Its old game of playing with the sentiments of Muslims. What the BJP Is trying to do through its thesis of Hindutva. the Congress Is doing by conveying that Muslims are its preserve. The principle is the same: invoking religion for electoral purposes. Somewhere the two parties should focus attention on the Kargil fallout: how the Hindus and the Muslims have spanned the distance between them.

The unhappy follout from Kargil is the cancellation of the vigil at the India-Pakistan border on the 14-15th August midnight. Some of us. members of the Hind-Pakistan Dosti Manch, have been celebrating for the last four years the Independence Day of both countries by lighting candles at the Wagah border. This time we have felt that when the armed forcesof both countries are standing eyeball to eyeball and when dead bodies of soldiers have drowned homes and hamlets in sorrow, the lighting of candles will be out of place and out of tune.

When guns boom, they suppress the people's voice. Something like that happened after the Kargil ■ incursions. Therejs np deubt-that one day the high, walls that fear and distrust have 'Faised'ofi' the ■borders will crumble and 'the peoples of the subcontinent', without giving up their separate identities, will work together for the common good. To bring those times closer, people on both sides will have to work hard to oust bigotism and terrorism. They will have to bring about conciliation and normalcy to solve their differences. Only then will they be able to silence the guns.