Sanjay Gandhi is reborn in the BJP

THERE are two ways of seeing Varun Gandhi's anti-Muslim speeches in Pilibhit, where he's contesting as a BJP candidate. The first views him as an insecure, pathologically disturbed person, obsessed with getting attention, and prone to anti-social behaviour. Given his psychological makeup, he was bound to make trouble.
Varun grew up in fraught circumstances, aware that this father Sanjay was despised for human rights violations and forced sterilisation of Muslims during the Emergency. His mother was estranged from Indira Gandhi.
Young Varun was obnoxiously rude. He managed what very few children who attend the prestigious Rishi Valley School succeed in doing: getting expelled. A teacher from another school he attended recalls Varun as a difficult boy "with a huge chip on his shoulder about his cousins Rahul and Priyanka" prone to getting into trouble and "convinced he's superior" for being Sanjay and Maneka's son.
Varun is also given to lying. He swore before a court that he studied at the London School of Economics and holds a Masters from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (SOAS). He was never admitted to LSE, only enrolled in its distance-learning program. And he quit SOAS without a degree.
Varun behaves shockingly to gain fame. He stunned everyone by his "chop them … sterilise them" war-cry and became a hero for the Sangh Parivar's Muslim-haters.
The second view is that Varun is a shrewd, calculating politician, whose ideology is shaped by his intense dislike of the Congress, shared with his mother. His discovery that his great-grandfather defined the Congress's vision impelled him to reject the Nehruvian paradigm, comprising democracy, secularism, socialism, and non-alignment. He probably embraced Hindutva as a foil against Rahul and Priyanka, too.
He calculated that vile anti-Muslim rhetoric would communally polarise Pilibhit, which has a large Muslim and Sikh population. Varun knew the short-cut to prominence within the BJP passes through the terrain of extremism, not moderation. It's far easier to fit into the BJP's Far-Right niche than compete hard within the crowded Centre-Right space where most party leaders operate.
A hep Westernised, English-speaking youth can capture the quasi-lunatic niche -- especially if he stoops to the gutter level, pleasing those who admire uncouth behaviour and macho Hindu-chauvinism.
Varun's hate-speech script wasn't written by the BJP-RSS. He himself drafted it knowing the BJP wouldn't be able to fully disown it. After all, what he said about Muslims is exactly what many in the Sangh Parivar think, but don't say.
So which angle is right, Varun the psychopath, or the shrewd strategist? The answer is: both. Going by his Supreme Court petition, he's also a deceitful and cowardly person.
L.K. Advani has invited ridicule by comparing Varun to Jayaprakash Narayan. Varun depicts himself as his father's reincarnation. The slogan is: "Varun nahin yeh andhi hain, doosra Sanjay Gandhi hai." (This isn't Varun, but a hurricane; it's Sanjay reborn.) Like Sanjay, he has brazenly defied the law, torn civility and political decency to shreds, and used goon power.
When Sanjay was legally charged for his excesses, he defied court summons, declared the presiding judges prejudiced, and asked his supporters to unleash violence. After he was held guilty of destroying a film that criticised the Emergency, they unleashed merry hell in Delhi.
Varun has violated the Representation of the People Act (RPA) and the Indian Penal Code, including Section 153A, which concerns inciting enmity against particular communities/classes. He would have instigated even more violence if not detained under the National Security Act, 1980.
Regrettably, he couldn't have been debarred from the election. According to most legal interpretations, the Election Commission cannot disqualify a candidate until a court holds him guilty. Because of this legal loophole, it must watch helplessly while he wreaks communal havoc.
Varun Gandhi stands booked under the draconian NSA, which allows detention for up to a year without bail, subject to approval by an advisory board. The case must be referred to the board within three weeks and decided within another seven weeks. If the detention is approved, Gandhi cannot campaign although he can contest the election.
The NSA has been used by many governments, including BJP-led ones, for acts that don't remotely threaten public order. The BJP used it in Rajasthan in 2007 against pro-reservation agitators, and in UP in the 1990s against uncooperative traders. Yet, it hypocritically calls Gandhi's detention "political vendetta."
The BJP has stooped to a new low. Many people had some sympathy for it because it opposed the Emergency. By celebrating the Sanjay cult, it has forfeited that sympathy.
Varun has only made explicit the virulent anti-Muslim bias of Sanjay's authoritarianism. The revulsion this has caused could impact the election.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.