In his foreword to Mr LK Advani's autobiography, My Country My Life, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee has observed that during the course of his long and eventful political life, Mr Advani has, at times, been misunderstood, and as a result "become a victim of the dichotomy between image and reality". Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr Jaswant Singh, another leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party at the formal launch of this book on March 19 when he said that "Advaniji is the most misread, most misrepresented politician" in the country.

Anyone who reads My Country My Life will realise the obvious chasm between reality and image in respect of its protagonist. Whatever be the shortcomings of this book, it must be said that Mr Advani has achieved substantial success in bridging this gap. But how does some one in an India's public life get a society steeped in illiteracy and poverty to read a 986-page tome and re-evaluate him?

Meanwhile, we need to ask the question, who creates this dichotomy between image and reality of political leaders like Mr Advani and why? Because Mr Advani is not the first victim of such image distortion. Nor will he be the last. This chasm between reality and image is the result of a pseudo-secular and indeed a pseudo-democratic environment that has been manufactured and sustained by members of a school of thought that owes its allegiance to the Nehru-Gandhi family. This school, which has been active since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, has, with mischievous intent and consistency, promoted false gods and tarnished the image of the real heroes of India

Among the early victims of this fraudulent enterprise were Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and BR Ambedkar, but the list of illustrious Indians who have fallen prey to this propaganda machine is pretty huge. It includes persons like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad, C Rajagopalachari and Syama Prasad Mookerjee, apart from Congress presidents like Acharya Kripalani and Purushottam Das Tandon. During the Indira Gandhi era, every effort was made to besmirch the image of Sarvodaya leader Jayaprakash Narayan, S Nijalingappa, who was president of the Congress during the 1969 split, and a host of other leaders who were morally and intellectually way above Mrs Indira Gandhi. It has been a systematic effort to distort the reality and to raise questions about their commitment to fundamentals like democracy (Netaji Bose, Jayaprakash Narayan), egalitarianism (Rajagopalachari) or the secular order (Rajendra Prasad and Syama Prasad Mookerjee). In respect of some others, attempts were made to destroy their image by caricaturing them as weird characters (Morarji practices urine therapy).

So, it should surprise nobody when this school brands Mr Advani, the man who was thrown in jail by a fascist Congress that wrecked the Constitution and destroyed the independence of Parliament, the judiciary and the media during the infamous Emergency of 1975-77, as being anti-Constitution. The Congress, of course, is a party of democratic angels! Again, the perpetrators of all those heinous crimes against humanity and democracy during the Emergency including forcible sterilisation of Muslims, are supposedly "secular" people, but Mr Advani is a Hindu communalist! Further, the man who suffered incarceration for 19 months to defend our basic democratic rights and our Constitution and who took the first opportunity that came his way (as Information and Broadcasting Minister in 1977) to undo the fascist laws passed by the Congress to gag Parliament and the media, is a fascist, but those who conducted themselves like the Nazis and raised loathsome slogans like Indira is India and India is Indira' are democrats!

Take the case of Patel and Ambedkar, contemporaries of Nehru, who made a critical contribution to the idea of India. At the time of independence, there were 564 princely states which had the option to join India or Pakistan. Nehru asked Patel to handle the responsibility of integrating 563 of these states into the Indian Union. The task of integrating the remaining State -- Kashmir -- he kept to himself. While Patel completed his task within a remarkably short span of time, Nehru made a mess of Kashmir. He not only complained to the United Nations and internationalised the issue, but also took the fateful and unpardonable decision to prohibit the Indian Army from throwing out the Pakistani intruders who had occupied one-third of Jammu & Kashmir. One shudders to think what political map, generations of post-independence Indians would be drawing in school but for the determination and patriotic zeal of Patel.

Yet, this pseudo-secular enterprise promoted by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has sought to sully the image of Patel while vesting the very average Nehru (who later subjected India to an even greater national humiliation during that hopelessly one-sided 'war' with China) with heroic virtues. This very enterprise has similarly downgraded the phenomenal socio-political reform carried out by Ambedkar through the instrumentality of the Constitution. The majesty of his ideas and his grand scheme for the establishment of political and social democracy in India are best explained in his summing-up remarks at the final reading of the Constitution in the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. This is a speech which would have made an Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson proud.

Therefore, if 60 years after independence, we sense a deep and abiding commitment to India's unity and integrity across the length and breadth of the country, we owe a debt of gratitude to Patel. Similarly, if one senses social and political cohesion across the land and a desire, despite our diversity, to resolve differences through democratic means, we owe a debt of gratitude to Ambedkar. He spelled out the grand scheme for democracy and social cohesion in that immortal speech in the Constituent Assembly, which would certainly rank as one of the greatest speeches delivered by a national leader. Nehru's 'Tryst with destiny', in comparison, would sound very pedestrian indeed. Yet, thanks to this pseudo-intellectual enterprise, our children have never been properly introduced to Ambedkar's work and philosophy which have ensured democracy and national unity.

In recent years, this pseudo-intellectual enterprise has successfully distorted the image of leaders like Mr Advani, who have been active participants in the democratic process for over six decades. Seeds of doubt have been sown in the minds of citizens about Mr Advani's commitment to core constitutional values. Though Mrs Gandhi turned India's democracy into a dictatorship and presided over an authentic fascist regime for 19 months, the pseudo-secular enterprise has unfortunately succeeded in painting the victims of her regime as "fascists". The arrival of My Country My Life on book stands is, therefore, an important development. Hopefully, this book will encourage citizens, who have been fed distorted images of Mr Advani, to gravitate towards the truth -- at least in respect of this contemporary public figure.