BJP must Focus on Development, not Hindutva

As a party in search of a strategy, the Bharatiya Janata Party need not resemble a political pendulum. The party president, Mr. L K Advani’s speech at the national executive was strong stuff — the clearest enunciation of ‘Hindu values’ by a BJP leader in a long time — but it is a swing away from the leadership’s statement at the recent NDA meeting, which concluded with its allies deciding to stick together and conceding that Ayodhya was an important issue for all of them.

Mr. Advani will argue he has said nothing substantively different in Ranchi. He will point to his four questions as proof that he has merely repeated what he and the party have known for a long time. To be fair to him, at least one question is worth debating. Mr. Advani asked why the state seemingly feels intimidated when minority religious personages come under the police scanner; his example was a central apology to a Muslim seminary in Uttar Pradesh that was raided by the Intelligence Bureau for suspected collusion with the ISI.

This example is obviously linked to what the BJP sees as harsh treatment of the Kanchi Sankaracharya by the Tamil Nadu police and the lack of any political/administrative anguish following it. But the point is not so much why the Centre or the state did not get scared after Jayendra Saraswati’s incarceration. It has been explained by the Hindu community’s maturity and the religion’s stress on private, sub–culture rituals — but why does the establishment need to soft–pedal alleged criminality when minority religious institutions are involved? This is not secularism by any means. And every time this kind of discrimination is practiced, it is seen that those who advocate a hardened Hindu reaction are strengthened.

Mr. Advani, it would seem, is hoping for a reaction hard enough for cadres and soft enough for allies. That may be difficult. Mr. Advani perhaps spoke from the point of view of allies like Mr. George Fernandes and Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, just a little too much about Hindu ethos, sentiments and interests. Those who link the party’s current woes to the vicissitudes of electoral politics and recent intra–party tensions may be missing the wood for the trees. The malaise could be deeper, touching basic ideological issues.

The party has well thought out positions on most of these issues and this has been articulated time and again by all the top leaders of the BJP including Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr. Advani since the BJP’s inception 24 years ago. For example, the party’s leadership has time and again committed itself to a democratic and secular framework. This line has been reiterated by Mr. Vajpayee’s successors including Mr. Advani, who is seen as a hawk by the party’s opponents. In his very first address to the plenary session of the party in New Delhi in May 1986, Mr. Advani declared that theocracy was alien to India’s political history.

The BJP has positioned itself as a conservative right wing party like the Christian Democratic Union in Germany and the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, both of which work within constitutional parameters in these countries. The BJP is the Hindu democratic party in India, which works within the constitutional scheme and which sees no contradiction in the promotion of Hindu–ness and the democratic, secular order. However, the party has failed to get the message across to its cadres and to the people at large. While there is clarity at the top, it dissipates into utter confusion as it trickles down the party hierarchy.

Obviously, the issue is not between secularism and communalism, as the Congress would have us believe. Nor is it Hinduism versus Islam. It is the establishment of a truly democratic and secular state in which every citizen feels empowered. As a nation, we stand committed to this idea but we are yet to reach that goal because the conflict, that is essentially between pseudo–secularism and secularism, has not been resolved. The central theme for the BJP, which is a national party and which is the countervailing political force, will perforce have to be the transformation of India from a pseudo–secular rashtra to a secular rashtra.

Similarly, the party is on a strong wicket when it comes to strengthening democratic values. In fact, over the last 24 years, the BJP can claim greater commitment to core constitutional values than the Congress. Several of its leaders including Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani were jailed during the Emergency by Indira Gandhi and many of those in its second rung today earned their political spurs while in jail or by organizing resistance to Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship.

The party, therefore, has a string of leaders with a deep and abiding commitment to the Constitution. Contrast this with the record of the Congress. This party revolves around the Nehru–Gandhi family, many members of which have made repeated assaults on the Constitution. Indira Gandhi was the worst culprit because she introduced constitutional amendments that destroyed such core concepts as a citizen’s right to life, liberty and equality before law. She also wrecked press freedom and judicial independence. Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded her, also attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to gag the press through an outrageous law titled the Defamation bill.

Fortunately for India and Indian democracy, the Janata Party came to power in 1977 and undertook a massive constitutional repair job and restored the document to its original shape. Among those who played a key role were Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani. Yet, has this ever registered in the public mind? Why is the party unable to leverage this advantage?

Finally, a word about poverty alleviation and values in public life. Does the BJP have any concern for the poor? Has anyone heard an impassioned address by any leader of the party, including Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani, on the issue of poverty alleviation? Has there been a single occasion when a BJP leader has convincingly articulated the party’s concern for these hapless citizens?

The BJP set out to be a party with a difference, but it succumbed to politics of exigencies soon after it came to power. That is why the middle class, which the BJP had assiduously cultivated, remained lukewarm to its appeal last May. The poor in any case found no reason to vote for it. The result was the defeat of the party and the NDA coalition at the hustings. The BJP’s declining fortunes is attributed to the prevailing confusion about brand BJP. “What does it stand for?” or “Whom does it care for?”