The Hindu
August 03, 2004
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/08/03/stories/2004080305141100.htm
Opinion - News Analysis
The BJP and its middle course
By Neena Vyas
NEW DELHI, AUG. 2. Caught between the call of the Sangh Parivar and the threat of the National Democratic Alliance crumbling if it were to return to a "hard Hindutva" path, the Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have decided, for the moment, to take a middle course at its `chintan baithak' that concluded itsfour-day session in Goa today.
Summing up the discussions between the party's 30-odd top leaders in a "10-point conclusions" paper, the BJP said it would "focus on ideological orientation" even as it makes efforts to strengthen and expand its base while "continuing to work with its allies" in the NDA.
Twin commitments
There is hardly any doubt that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and a section of the party, led by the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, has been insisting that the future of the BJP lies in adopting Hindutva [even if under the different name of "nationalism"], as opposed to the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's "development" plank. For the moment, the party simply stated that nationalism and development will be its "twin commitments," inseparable from each other.
It appears that the veiled threat held out by the Janata Dal (United) that it would have to rethink its tie-up with the BJP if the latter decided to embrace again the contentious issues it had put on the backburner for the last six years did have a salutary effect on the `chintan baithak.'
Hindutva by another name
While the word "Hindutva" was missing in the document, it appeared camouflaged as "integral humanism" [of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya] and "nationalism as an ideology." The document vowed to restore the "the primacy of ideology and idealism" at all levels in the party and work hard to ensure a smooth relationship between the party and the "nationalist organisations."
What emerged is a two-fold political strategy. One, to sharpen Hindutva and the other, to change the image of the BJP from that of a party of the urban rich and the upwardly mobile to that which has its feet firmly planted in poor and rural India. Under the first plan, the party would take up mass campaigns on several issues which would clearly serve to polarise society along communal lines — the document mentioned campaigns against reservations for Muslims [as announced by the Andhra Government but stayed by the courts], the alarming rise in "jehadi terrorism" and the "competitive pseudo-secularism" of the Congress and the Left. Curiously, the party also talked about winning over the minorities. Conscious that the Vajpayee Government had followed policies such as giving subsidies for Haj, the party is now planning to explain to its cadre "what is appeasement [of the minorities] and what is not."
'Voice of farmers'
Under the second point of its two-fold plan, it would campaign against the "anti-poor, anti-farmer, anti-worker and anti-rural" policies of the United Progressive Alliance Government. It would seem this has emerged from the results of the Lok Sabha elections and the perception that the Congress was effectively able to portray itself as the party of the "aam admi" (the common man), which cared for the poor farmer and the impoverished rural areas of the country. It also reflected the BJP's desire to expand its political base. It has talked about taking up issues such as "scarcity of water" and finding ways to make the BJP the authentic "voice of farmers."
Over the next three months, these issues will be discussed threadbare taking the "Tasks Ahead" paper, presented at the Mumbai national executive committee meeting, as the working paper and giving it a concrete shape.
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