|
Political Diary
New Delhi, 13 June 2009
BJP In Doldrums
PARTY JISKI SUBAH NAHIN?
By Poonam I Kaushish
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty
together again. This nursery rhyme reflects the state of the BJP today. The
tragedy of it all is that it has none but itself to blame!
Worse, it continues to wallow in self-deception. Raising a
moot point: Is the BJP defeated by defeat? Or will it be able to put itself
together again? Given that its fall since its defeat in Mandate 2004 has been
sharp and rapid. In the ever-changing political kaleidoscope, power is
ephemeral, here today, gone tomorrow.
To strike a death knell of the Saffron Party and right its
obituary is the easiest thing a political analyst can do. It would be stating
the obvious that the BJP has been aware of the rot piling up in its backyard.
Yet ostrich-like it has refused to see the writing on the wall --- the end of
the road unless it undertakes honest introspection for its defeat and a course
correction.
But to do that it first has to come to terms with its
defeat, admit its failures, realize that it experiencing a brand crisis and a
severe leadership deficit. Aggravated by its inability to connect with the
masses and vitriolic Hindutva rhetoric, a la Varun Gandhi’s and stubbornly
holding on to its yesteryear old-belief’s instead of projecting itself as a
“current party”.
Sadly, the Central leadership is reticent about conducting a
post-mortem, address the accountability issue and own up responsibility for the
Party’s humiliating defeat. Instead, as it licks the wounds, the BJP has been
wracked by vicious factional feuding that threatens to embroil the Party into a
full-blown civil war. Encapsulated succinctly by senior leader Jaswant Singh,
“Obviously the Party failed to learn any lessons from the 2004 general election
debacle. Why was no action taken on the internal report on the causes for
defeat in the Rajasthan Assembly polls in 2008? Shouldn't there be a
co-relation between performance and reward.”
In fact, since its shock defeat in 2004, the Party has
increasingly looked an agglomerate of factions whose composition keeps altering
according to the interests of ambitious individuals who make for the so-called
central leadership. The situation has worsened as Advani — the only one after A
B Vajpayee to command respect across most of the factions — fades out. The
authority of RSS as the ultimate arbiter has declined with the consequence that
fights continue indefinitely, reducing the party to a maelstrom of competing
aspirations which can fuse for a common end only to drift apart.
Exposing as never before the turmoil within. Of a party in
complete disarray. Directionless, rudderless, disillusioned and surprising
arrogance. A party of bad losers, who still have to reconcile themselves to
their defeat. Of Ram Bhaktas waiting for divine intervention!. Making matters worse,
the confusion at the top has percolated down to the rank and file. In most
States, the Party’s organizational abilities are in doldrums. As the UP Lok
Sabha results show, it came at the bottom of the heap after the Congress.
Moreover, as the BJP stumbles from crisis to crisis, the
intra-party problems continue to multiply---ideological, factional and
organisational. The problem is aggravated as the Party is no longer a cohesive
extension of the RSS, governed by small-group dynamics. It is a vague, formless mass
movement motivated by divergent expectations of change. Those initiated in Parivar ‘sanskar’ draw a sharp distinction
between themselves and those who have been lured by the privileges of power.
Part of the BJP’s quandary is its fallacy of what it stands
for. What is the core of the Party? Is it Hindutva? That begs another question,
what is Hindutva? If it is adhering to a Hindu way of life then all Hindus do
so, where is the issue? Or does the BJP have another definition of the Hindu
way of life? No one knows. Not the leaders, nor its cadres. Compounding by the
RSS demanding that the BJP adhere to its old Hindutva roots. (Sic). In fact,
according to Nagpur
the causes for the BJP downfall was only one, that it gave up its Hindutva
ideology and embraced all and sundry.
Today the Hindutva brigade’s stands at the crossroads. Its
inability to morph into a Party of the centre-right means it needs to now
decide on which way to go. Clearly, there is a limit to how far one can flog
Hindutva issues for the Party. Towards that end, there is need for ideological
distillation of thought. It needs clarity on what Hindutva means.
Besides in 21st century India when real
issues like terrorism, unemployment, price rise, worry the electorate, who has
time for Hindutva? Neither has the electorate, taken kindly to the BJP oft
raising the bogies of ‘nation in danger’ a la Mumbai terror attacks and
corruption. Instead it has rejected the Party’s habitual reliance on using
terror attacks to whip up sentiments. What to speak of its MPs embroiled in
corruption scandals.
The BJP’s biggest challenge today is to recognize and accept
pluralist India’s
aversion for both Right and Left extremes. It needs to ponder very seriously
why its traditional support base, the educated and urban middle class went
against it and rework its ideology and strategy to get it back on board.
Remember, the pink chaddi campaign
against the Ram Sena led to the urban youth turning its back on the Party.
As Advani walks into the sunset, the Gen Next leaders need
to re-package Brand BJP as a modern and constructive mukhota which would face future electoral challenges on a positive
plank. But before that, the Party needs to set its house in order. Put in place
a hierarchy to end the in-fighting between its ambitious Gen Next leaders.
For starters, it needs to immediately get rid of President
Rajnath Singh who is widely viewed as being behind the intra-party politics.
(Remember the fracas with Arun Jaitely over power-broker Suddhanshu Mittal.)
Also, he has surrounded himself with a motley crowd of petty mofussil leaders instead of relying on
the selfless party cadres. All eyes will now be on the RSS. Will it be able to
show a new disha?
Clearly, difficult days lay ahead for the BJP as it faces
multi-dimensional problems. Much is at stake. Not only its credibility but also
its future at the national level with its present ideology. It needs to get its act together if it has to
retain its top slot as a national party. Not only has it to grapple with a loss
of seats but also vote share, even in States considered to be its strongholds.
To redeem itself now it needs to stop pussy-footing and undertake honest, self
critical introspection on issues relating to ideology, organisational health of
the Party, leadership at various levels and build the morale of its
disillusioned cadres.
All in all, it desperately needs a USP to market itself. The
Sangh Parivar needs to reinvent itself and recast its Hindutva moorings into a
modern right-of-centre internationally liberal-minded grouping to regain
credibility and behave as a responsible and effective Opposition Party. It has
to desist from taking short cuts for its survival and embark on a new reform
road with an inclusive agenda. This is going to be its agni pareeksha if it has to attain political moksha. --- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
|
Archives 
