Although it was widely acknowledged that the BJP had small stakes in the recent state elections, the overall results are cause for concern. The party has fallen victim to a derailed leadership, an infidelity to core values, and flawed decision-making processes. It is already evident that the stocktaking exercise with the RSS top brass will dodge this painful truth; hence it bears emphasizing that the present leadership has failed. It is time to identify new leaders and give them charge.
True, BJP had little prospects of coming to power in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu or Pondicherry. But it had a rising vote share in all states, which is why the Prime Minister campaigned there with his ministerial colleagues. The BJP used its vote (wisely) to defeat the Left in Kerala and teach the Trinamool Congress a lesson in West Bengal. However, in Assam, the beleaguered BJP-AGP combine had a good fighting chance if the central leadership had not lost its nerves. Now an illegal immigrant-friendly regime has taken charge for the next five years, for which the nation will pay a heavy price.
Most commentators have argued that the BJP was poised to make a quantum jump in Assam and emerge as an alternative to the AGP; hence, it was a mistake to join hands with the discredited Mr. P.K. Mahanta on election eve. I did not share this view as I felt that a three-way division of votes would not bring the BJP to power, while the clubbing of BJP-AGP votes could at least consolidate the anti-infiltration sentiment there.
The security situation in Assam has deteriorated sharply in the past few years as the continuing ISI-backed infiltration has drastically altered the demographic profile. Sadly, the Mahanta government, which promised to identify and deport the undesirable aliens, followed a policy of masterly inaction. Nevertheless, there was no reason why the BJP-AGP should not have made the expulsion of aliens the key election issue, especially in the wake of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s virtual assurance that her party would continue the ‘open door’ policy.
A strong espousal of ethnic Assamese sentiment would have gone far in assuring local and national opinion that the BJP meant business on fencing the Bangladesh border and reversing the flow of migrants. What BJP did instead was unconscionable – Prime Minister Vajpayee mooted the proposal to give work permits to the unwelcome guests. Predictably, he failed to win the minority vote and disillusioned the ethnic Assamese. The work permit fiasco would have reminded the voter of the BJP’s shameful kid glove treatment of Sheikh Hasina in the wake of the horrendous treatment meted out to BSF personnel not far from the Assam border.
This must also be one of the reasons why BJP stood last in the Shahjehanpur parliamentary bye-election in Uttar Pradesh (slated for polls next year and crucial to the survival of the NDA government). It is a safe bet that BJP will lose its vote share everywhere on account of its pusillanimous approach towards fundamental issues of national interest, particularly law and order. In UP, where ISI-sponsored madrasas openly serve as militants’ dens, the regime has withdrawn the proposed legislation to curb their mushrooming growth and ruled out action against the blatantly anti-national SIMI.
Despite the disasters from Kandahar to Kargil, to the daily death toll in Kashmir, and the grim fact that ISI agents can strike at will in the capital (Red Fort, North Block, Sena Bhavan), the BJP regime continues the policy of drift in the vain hope of drafting the minority vote. Since the RSS also shares the BJP desire to entice the minority community at any cost, we must conclude that the Sangh Parivar as a whole has exhausted its ideological vigour. Simply put, it has run out of the intellectual energy and physical stamina needed to consolidate its vote on a nationalist platform based on the country’s civilizational genius.
Those who doubt this diagnosis should spell out the leadership and ideological constructs with which BJP will face the next elections. The Prime Minister has said he will not fight another election. Even if persuaded to contest, he will be hard put to find a safe constituency, as Lucknow was formidable even at the height of the ‘Vajpayee wave.’ Home Minister L.K. Advani is the BJP-RSS favourite in the event of a vacancy at the top, but fate has been unkind. Gujarat’s apocalyptic earthquake, Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel’s lethargic response to relief work and brazenness in protecting the ‘builder lobby’ believed responsible for most deaths, have virtually deprived him of a constituency.
On the wider national platform, Mr. Advani’s failure to deliver on the law and order front is glaringly apparent in ISI’s daring depredations, the infiltration in border states, especially Jammu & Kashmir, and the poor state of intelligence gathering. Worse, his equivocation before the Liberhans Commission, not to mention the ludicrous stand of RSS chief, K.S. Sudarshan, is seen as disowning the Ayodhya movement which catapulted the party to power. As this contrasts sharply with the testimony of his ministerial colleague, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, the Parivar should at least have coordinated its stance before the commission.
The sad truth is that the BJP is in the throes of a leadership and identity crisis. Mr. Bangaru Laxman was young and dynamic, but his stress on minorities rather than Dalits had doomed his tenure to failure, even if the Tehelka tapes had not happened. Mr. Jana Krishnamurthy hardly translates into electoral appeal. By espousing the discredited Nehruvian secularism at a time of such intense danger to the very existence of the Hindu civilization, the BJP has lost its legitimizing principle. Psychologically, it lives on borrowed time, even though there is no perceptible threat to the government. Hence, it would be an error for BJP to become complacent.
The emerging alignment of forces at national and international level makes it inevitable that India finally define herself – a question Nehru evaded at independence – in terms that the dominant western civilization can understand and empathize with. Anyone with an iota of sense would be able to see that only the ancient civilizational genius can give the nation its defining identity and ethos. This consciousness, therefore, is bound to grow at grassroots level, compelling political parties to take note of it.
As of now, the Bahujan Samaj Party is best placed to ride the crest of a rising Hindu consciousness, as it is not trapped under dead ideological baggage. It has already shown flexibility in shedding its exclusivist, anti-upper caste, Dalit image by distributing tickets to all castes to secure wider acceptability. Yet it’s growth is hindered by the perception of being a Dalit party. The espousal of a powerful, pervasive cultural-civilizational symbol such as the Ram Temple could pulverize caste barriers and give it the leadership of the Hindu community. Only such a grassroots revolution can end the stalemate between upper castes and scheduled castes, failing which justice and equality for the latter will remain a pipe dream. It would be in the BSP’s best interests to discover the power of the majority community, as it is the only party that would not be limited by caste conclaves. As I see it, therefore, a re-alignment of forces between the BSP and enterprising elements of the BJP could be a way out of the current impasse…
The Pioneer, 22 May 2001