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The Rediff Interview/ Uma Bharti

'I do not think the government will fall over the RSS issue'

The firebrand member of Parliament from Bhopal, Uma Bharti, hopes that Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha will roll back the price hike on urea he announced in the Budget last week.

"Keeping in mind the larger interests of the farmer community who continue to produce foodgrains for the country despite the fact that they still do not get correct prices for their produce, I hope the finance minister will withdraw the hike," she told rediff.com's Onkar Singh, in an interview.

Bharti -- who resigned as Union minister of state for tourism last month to "fight" what she described as the misrule of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh -- denied she was the only MP from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party who has protested against the urea price hike. "There are many who are worried about this. These MPs have voiced their concern to the finance minister. Since my name appeared in the newspapers everyone thinks I am the only one to raise this issue," she said.

Discussing the furore in Parliament over the Gujarat government's decision to lift the ban on its employees joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, she felt the issue would not snowball into a controversy and lead to the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

"The country has a prime minister who a was a pracharak in the RSS. We have a home minister who was a RSS pracharak. We have a chief minister in Gujarat who was a RSS pracharak. We have a chief minister in Himachal Pradesh who was a RSS pracharak. Our allies understand us much better than what they did in 1979 which led to the fall of the government then," she asserted.

You are the only BJP MP who has protested the urea price hike in the Budget. Why?

I am not the only one who is concerned about this hike. Other MPs from our party are also concerned about it. Since my name appeared in the newspapers there is an impression I have criticised the government on this issue.

We are concerned about the welfare of farmers. The farmers are the ones who are actually running the country. We profess to work for the farmers. The BJP is working to improve the lot of farmers who are still tilling the land at an enormous loss.

The hike in urea prices will add to the farmers's problems. I am confident the finance minister will consider the case sympathetically and revise his decision accordingly.

Did you brief the finance minister about your views before going to the press?

I did not go to the press. You newsmen have your own ways of knowing what is going on. I raised this issue with the finance minister. Not just me, many other BJP MPs raised this issue with him. Farmers are a dominant factor in all constituencies. I put across my views on the right platform, but it got leaked to the media.

You resigned from the Union ministry to fight Digvijay Singh. Have you achieved something more in this mission in recent days?

I have not resigned to fight Digvijay Singh. I am not fighting a person. I am fighting his misrule. In my constituency the atrocities committed on women have been on the rise. I decided to raise my voice against this. There is total chaos on the law and order front. I am fighting misrule in the state. I resigned to counter his political guile.

The Congress is non existent in the state. In the local bodies election recently, the BJP has got more then 70 per cent votes. We have won more then 60 per cent gram panchayat elections. To finish him politically there was no need to for me to resign. He is finishing off himself. He is chief minister because the Congress does not have another leader in the state.

If he is finished, how did he become chief minister when you claimed the BJP would romp home in the 1998 assembly election?

He became chief minister because of the indifferent attitude of the BJP party. Even the poll surveys showed we were winning in MP. We became complacent. We showed an indifferent attitude towards our election campaign, ignored our party workers. We made no effort to carry them with us. Candidates became rude and overconfident.

The other factor we have not been able to bring forth forcefully is how he managed the counting of the crucial 10, 15 seats to ensure victory. He managed to get recounts done where we were leading and refused us recounts where he was winning. This is how he has become chief minister again.

Did you take Prime Minister Vajpayee into confidence about your resignation or did you only consult Home Minister L K Advani about it?

Even Advaniji did not know I was going to resign. If he had known he would have told me not to resign. Even I did not know I would tender my resignation. When I asked Advaniji if I could sit on dharna to protest against the atrocities committed on women in my parliamentary constituency, he said so long as I am a Union minister I could not do so.

He had no inclination that I would resign. That was the last incident in my constituency. I would not let it happen again. Soon after Digvijay Singh became chief minister for the second time a girl called Priti Srivastav was killed by Congress goons who ran over her several times in Ambikapur. In his own constituency, Rajgarh, a confidant of the chief minister stripped an Adivasi woman naked and forced her to move around thus in the village. The woman was raped and her husband killed in front of her. Many such incidents have taken place in the state.

If we look at law and order we find that in Bhind district alone more then 300 abductions have taken place. His cabinet minister was killed by Naxalites. I felt I could do more for the people after quitting than by remaining a minister.

Did Prime Minister Vajpayee try to persuade you to withdraw your resignation?

Of course, he tried to persuade me to continue. He is my leader as well as a father figure to me. He has known me a long time. I was nine years old when I first met him. He told me I should withdraw my resignation. But I asked him wouldn't people call it a political gimmick if I took back my resignation. He agreed with me.

Where is the lioness Uma Bharti who roared from public platforms when the BJP was in the Opposition?

The fighting spirit of the lioness is still there. Then we were in the Opposition and expressed our views forcefully and loudly. But now we are in the ruling party, hence we cannot do this. I do express my opinion in the right fora.

You resigned to fight for the cause of women in Madhya Pradesh, but your party is doing precious little in giving 33 per cent seats to women candidates at election time?

There is a big difference between Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes, OBCs and reservations for women. There is no doubt that women have talent and they can work hard. But they hesitate. In 1996 (then Uttar Pradesh BJP leader) Kalyan Singh announced that each district would have a woman candidate (for the state assembly election). Accordingly, 80, 90 women candidates would have got nominations. Surprisingly, the nominations from women candidates fell short of the expected figure.

Those who applied, they had no chance of winning. You can take care of other factors, but you must have the capacity to win an election. Otherwise, there is no point in contesting an election. Hence, reservation is the only way out to force women candidates to come out and contest an election.

There could be a variety of reasons for women not coming forward to contest an election. Criminals could be one such reason. Corruption and hard work could the other reasons. Family pressures could be the reasons for women not wanting to contest elections.

Mamta Banerjee and myself had no political background. We came up in politics because of our hard work. I fought on streets. I worked for my people and state and today I have some standing of my own that I was included in the Union ministry.

Since I had merit and courage, I could make it. Somewhere the fault lies with the women themselves for not mustering up enough courage to join active politics.

You speak about the rights of women in politics, but you have the example of Sushma Swaraj who has been denied a berth in the Union Cabinet despite the fact that she has been obeying party orders and even contested against Congress president Sonia Gandhi in Bellary. Why?

As far as I know, she has been offered a post in the party. She was offered a ticket from Delhi, but she refused it. I think no injustice has been done to her. She is a capable woman and she can fight back.

You opposed the shooting of Water by Deepa Mehta and you said the crew would be stoned if they tried to shoot in Madhya Pradesh. A member of Mehta's unit asked who Uma Bharti was.

If they do not know who Uma Bharti is, then what can I do? I am also a modern person though I am a sanyasin. Even a sanyasin can be a modern person. But I am definitely not a western person. I think I am more modern than people like Deepa Mehta and Shabana Azmi. I have modern, fresh, new thinking, certainly not pervert thinking.

Let me clarify that modernisation is not Westernisation. I would like to be the first person to walk on the moon. I believe in the moderisation of society. Where I disagree with Deepa Mehta is that she is bringing perversion in society on the surface. The spirit of a film should be that good wins over evil.

When you leave a film without a message you are trying to tell people it is evil which ultimately wins. Her problem is she picks up topics that show Indian society in a bad light. I would not say these things do not exist. But not to the extent as she is trying to project through her films.

Fire was in bad taste. In Water she wants to show atrocities committed on widows in Hindu society. But she is not projecting the other side of it. She is not telling the world that Hinduism is the only religion which has been accepting reforms from time to time. I like the films made by Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal. Shabana Azmi acted in Ankur which was made by Benegal.

When I say patthar pari gayee I meant problems will be there. I never said they would be stoned. If Shabana recalls, the shooting of City of Joy was disrupted when the Leftists blew up the entire set of the film because they did not the way Calcutta was being projected. She should know because she acted in that film.

She is showing the adverse side of Kashi, our holy place. She is only trying to sell her product. I would have had no objection if she had shown the other side of Kashi as well. The rich cultural heritage of the place would have countered the adverse side of it effectively. The film condemns Hindu society. It gives the impression that there is nothing right with Hindu society.

Child windows are forced into prostitution. In the end the hero says he does not like this religion. This gave the impression that the film is a Christian conspiracy funded by some missionary organisations. Was she trying to condemn Hinduism internationally?

Have you spoken to her?

She called me up once and said she wanted to meet me. But after Jyoti Basu invited her to shoot her film in Bengal she has not come back to me. I reacted because Digvijay Singh said he would finish off the RSS in the state if the shooting of Water was disrupted in Madhya Pradesh. So I took up the challenge.

Coming to the RSS, there has been a furore in political circles over the decision taken by the Gujarat government which permits its officials to join the RSS. Do you think the Vajpayee government will fall on this issue just as it happened in 1979?

The situation is entirely different today from what it was in 1979. Today we have Prime Minister Vajpayee who was a RSS pracharak. Home Minister Advaniji was a RSS pracharak. Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel was a RSS pracharak. We have another chief minister in Himachal Pradesh who was a RSS pracharak. We have had two former chief ministers of Delhi, Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma, who were also RSS pracharaks.

Our allies have been acting in close coordination with these people and they know that people from an RSS background are capable of giving a clean administration. I do not think the government will fall over the RSS issue.

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