The Praful Bidwai Column *
January 2, 2005
Hindutva Politics in Dire Crisis
The BJP’s dark jubilee
By Praful Bidwai
The Bharatiya Janata Party couldn’t have celebrated (it that’s the right
term) its silver jubilee under more sombre circumstances. Twenty months
ago, the party seemed headed to win another term at the Centre. Today,
it finds itself rudderless, bruised by scandals, confused, demoralised,
scorned or spurned by allies, and without a strategy to overcome its
worst-ever ideological, political and organisational crisis. In Mumbai,
it couldn’t even conjure up a remotely convincing pretence of recovery
after the Sanjay Joshi sex-scandal broke out. Whether the sex-videotape
is genuine or not is immaterial. What matters is that it was filmed by
someone in the sangh parivar out to “sting” a supposedly celibate
pracharak.
2005 turned out an even worse year for the BJP than 2004, when it lost
power. It started with the collapse of its rag-tag coalition in Goa,
followed by a poorly-concealed spat between Messrs Atal Behari Vajpayee
and L.K. Advani. In June, Mr Advani opened a can of worms with his
praise for Mohammed Ali Jinnah, which invited the RSS’s wrath. Mr Advani
quit as BJP president, but the resignation wasn’t accepted. Since then,
he has functioned as a lame duck. Finally, in July, he was told by the
RSS’s Surat conclave to quit. Mr Advani secured a face-saver by getting
the RSS to let him continue till the end of December. Then, Ms Uma
Bharati dealt him yet another blow by staging a revolt, which led to her
expulsion.
The Bihar Assembly results came as a break for the BJP. But this was
quickly eclipsed by two “sting” operations exposing its MPs. These
showed the BJP in a particularly uncomplimentary light. When faced with
its MPs’ expulsion from Parliament, the BJP executed a shameful
about-turn. Mr Advani trivialised their grave misconduct as “stupidity”
and compared expulsion with “capital punishment”. The Janata Dal
(United) disassociated itself from the BJP on the vote—a slap in its
face and a blow to the NDA’s unity.
The BJP decided to play down the leadership succession issue until after
the Mumbai session ended. But this was not to be. The RSS-approved
choice of Mr Rajnath Singh as Mr Advani’s successor was leaked to the
media. Even while the party brass strenuously denied the choice, senior
leader Murli Manohar Joshi rushed to congratulate Mr Singh. Meanwhile,
Mr Singh’s “second-generation” rivals planted stories to discredit him
and suggest that Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu was still the favoured candidate.
The succession cloud hung heavy over the Mumbai session—taking the sheen
off the celebrations. Mr Vajpayee added to the confusion by naming Mr
Advani and Pramod Mahajan as Ram and Lakshman!
The BJP today is a pale shadow of itself. In expansion-and-consolidation
mode until early 2004, it’s now an ineffectual, incoherent national
opposition. It rules in just five states on its own (Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand)—all in Western and Central
India. It’s a subordinate ruling partner in three others (Bihar, Orissa
and Nagaland). Once boastful of “coalition dharma” and successful
alliances, the BJP can barely keep its partners together.
The sangh parivar is itself a divided house. As the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram and Swadeshi
Jagaran Manch push hardline Hindutva nationalism, the BJP’s dependence
on the RSS has increased. During its six years in national power, the
BJP leadership couldn’t muster the courage to give the party a moderate,
modernist identity, leave alone sever the umbilical cord with the RSS.
Now, it cannot dream of doing so. Indeed, it doesn’t have the stomach
even to distance itself full-throatedly from the RSS sarasanghachalak’s
obnoxious and bizarre pronouncements such as those on the dangers of
India’s “demographic invasion” by Muslims!
The BJP’s crisis is comprehensive and structural. Ideologically, it’s
trapped between orthodox, inward-looking, Hindutva, with its traditional
affinity with small-town traders and savarna (upper-caste) groups, on
the one hand, and the neoliberal, pro-globalisation orientation favoured
by Westward-looking industrial houses, on the other. Politically, it’s
divided between its distinct identity as an ethno-religious movement
centred on the Ram temple and minority “appeasement”, and electoral
compulsions which propel it into alliances with diverse groups which
don’t share its religious exclusivism. Organisationally, the BJP cannot
make a half-way smooth transition to second-generation leaders even as
its old veterans lose their authority.
In the past, the BJP could turn its chameleon-like character and
mutually contradictory agendas into an asset. It had something to offer
to the rabid ultra-nationalist, the Pakistan-hater, the
national-security hawk and the opponent of autonomy for Kashmir. At the
same time, it drew support from the worshipper of “pragmatism”, the
practitioner of “social engineering” (coalitions based on rising
subaltern groups), and the advocate of liberalisation. Today, those
attributes, including agenda diversity, have turned into a liability.
“Social Engineering” has collapsed. Ms Bharati’s expulsion, the Bihar
results—Mr Nitish Kumar, not the BJP, mobilised MBC (most backward
classes) votes—, and erosion of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance in
Maharashtra all signify that. The BJP’s ultra-nationalist appeal based
upon Islamophobia and hatred of Pakistan has taken a beating thanks to
the peace process, initiated largely under Western goading—especially
after Mr Advani’s characterisation of Jinnah as “secular”.
For a long time, the BJP took the moral high ground by counterposing
itself to Congress-style corruption and the bribery prevalent among many
regional and caste-based parties. The party lost the ground when in
power thanks to its involvement in countless scams, including Tehelka,
the Ketal Parekh stockmarket scandal, public sector privatisation, and
Enron. The cash-for-questions scandal has dealt the BJP’s “clean” image
a death blow.
The BJP’s ascendancy from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s was founded on
three factors, which reinforced one another. First, the long-term
decline of the Congress owing to its compromise with communal
tendencies, and gravitation towards market-led growth. This, coupled
with the Left’s stagnation, especially after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, shifted the political spectrum to the Right. Second, the BJP-VHP
launched a successful mobilisation around the Ayodhya issue, which drew
in lakhs. The BJP’s influence even percolated down to the Adivasi belt.
For the first time, it was able to break out of its narrow savarna
Hindu-Hindi confines. And third, its “social engineering” strategy, of
combining “Mandal” with “Kamandal”, helped it draw and consolidate OBC
support in the Hindi belt. This was a remarkable achievement.
None of these factors operates today. The Congress has revived itself.
The Left has expanded. Parties with a regional profile or a subaltern
base have grown. And the centre of gravity of Indian politics has
shifted Leftwards. The Ayodhya issue has lost its appeal and been
displaced by social justice agendas.
It’s in these circumstances that the BJP is making an awkward, stumbling
transition to a new political era. Not only has it shown no capacity,
unlike, say, the CPI(M), to ask its old leadership to make way for a
young dynamic person of vision and commitment like Mr Prakash Karat. It
has allowed the RSS to dictate terms to it. The man it has anointed is a
narrow-minded provincial politician without a national vision or
profile. Make no mistake, Mr Rajnath Singh is a Thakur leader from Uttar
Pradesh, who isn’t even remotely acquainted with the India that’s
outside the Hindi belt.
In the past too, the BJP had presidents who were undistinguished,
mediocre men like Kushabhao Thakre, Jana Krishnamoorthy or Venkaiah
Naidu. But they weren’t called upon to pull the party up by the
bootstraps. The Vajpayee-Advani duo still enjoyed authority and were
energetic enough to formulate/implement nuts-and-bolts strategy and
tactics. The party was riding high. That’s no longer the case. Mr
Rajnath Singh won’t even get the support of his ambitious
second-generation colleagues. His experience, age, competence or ability
doesn’t command respect.
Mr Singh’s political acumen is limited to tod-phod-ki-rajneeti, or
splitting other parties to stitch together (temporary) legislative
support. He did this in Uttar Pradesh through aggressive Rajput
politicos until he was checkmated by Ms Mayawati. She threw Rajput
goonda Raja Bhaiya into jail. The Rajputs felt let down by the BJP and
switched over to the Samajwadi Party. Mr Singh has an unsavoury
reputation for preferring strong-arm tactics and associating himself
with local bahubalis. For the past month, he has tried to capitalise on
the killing of BJP mafioso and MLA Krishnanand Rai, by another mafia
group associated with Mukthar Ansari. This is a thinly disguised attempt
to communalise the issue by inciting anti-Muslim violence. Mercifully,
the “Nyay Yatra” hasn’t had much success.
Mr Singh has a much lower popularity rating than many other BJP
second-generation leaders. A mid-year survey, with a sample size of
15,000, covering 136 Lok Sabha seats, commissioned by the party
leadership, and conducted by market-research agency C-Voter, found that
Mr Singh (like Mr Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu) has a rating of under
10 percent, compared to Mr Pramod Mahajan’s 20 percent, and a high 40
percent for Ms Sushma Swaraj. He enjoys little public recognition
outside UP. The BJP leadership is probably making a huge mistake in
promoting him. But then, it doesn’t have many choices which are
acceptable to the RSS. One can only pity the BJP.—end—
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