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Opinion
BJP, A Party Lost in the Political Woods
by Amulya Ganguli
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) problems relate to both
leadership and ideology - the two crucial aspects of any organization -
the chances of its recovery do not appear too bright at the moment.
In the matter of leadership, the party has got bogged down in the most
familiar of political quagmires: the reluctance of aging and
uncharismatic people at the helm to make way for Generation Next.
But the twist in the tale is that there are elements in the party and
among the younger set - or the Young Jerks, as they are called by their
critics - who do not want the transition process to be set in motion as
yet in case it sparks an ugly succession battle.
As a result, the country saw the curious spectacle of 82-year-old L.K.
Advani not being allowed to step down from the post of opposition leader
in the Lok Sabha despite his expressing a wish to do so after the
party's electoral reverses.
That he may not have been too eager to relinquish his office is another
matter. The fact is that his offer to resign was turned down. However,
it was taken for granted at the time that Advani would give up his post
after a decent interval during which time the party might be able to
decide on his replacement.
It did not take long, however, to show that not everyone in the BJP was
thinking on these lines, for Advani, on his own, announced that he would
stay on as opposition leader till 2014.
Nothing showed the BJP's leadership problems in clearer light than this
strange decision of a politician to hold on to his office till he is 87
in a country where over 60 percent of the population is below the age of
35.
Since his opposite number in the Congress in 2014 is likely to be Rahul
Gandhi, who will then be 42 years old, it is easy to see the incongruity
of the situation and how it can prove embarrassing for the BJP.
But there does not seem to be any way out for the party for two reasons.
One is that the BJP has always been a two-man party with Atal Bihari
Vajpayee as the unchallenged numero uno with Advani following a
long way behind. The latter has only reached the top now because of
Vajpayee's ill health. Had Vajpayee been as fit as Advani is at present,
there is no doubt who would have been at the helm.
But that only begs the question, for the fact remains that there is
virtually no one else besides these two. The party chief, Rajnath Singh,
for instance, has only acquired his present position because the head of
the Hindutva brigade, the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), forced Advani to give up the president's post after his praise of
Mohammed Ali Jinnah during a visit to Pakistan in 2005.
That event might have rung down the curtains on Advani's political life
but for the realization by the RSS that there was no one of sufficient
stature in the BJP to provide leadership. Rajnath Singh's
unprepossessing personality hinders his effectiveness in so crucial a
position. As long as the BJP was hoping for success, he was able to
function without much difficulty. But the party's defeat in two
successive general elections has exposed his inadequacies.
His unsteady hands on the rudder have not only set off an internal
turmoil with several influential members questioning his decisions, but
his nervousness has made him act without much forethought, as in
expelling Jaswant Singh for writing a book on Jinnah. Having taken such
an extreme step where the party should have been more patient, Rajnath
Singh has had to swallow the insult of being called Humpty Dumpty
and Alice in Blunderland by Arun Shourie without taking any
immediate disciplinary action.
Seeing his and the party's helplessness, Jaswant Singh, who now doesn't
have much to fear, has stepped up the ante by comparing the BJP with the
Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist hate group in the United States.
What all this contretemps suggest is that the party is unlikely to get
back on its feet in the near future - if at all. The outlook for it is
bleak because, first, there will be even bigger tremors if the reins are
grabbed by, say, Narendra Modi, who is unacceptable to the BJP's
partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), or Murli Manohar
Joshi, who is as dour and unimpressive as Rajnath Singh, or Venkaiah
Naidu, who is not taken seriously by anyone inside or outside the party,
or the smart-alecky Arun Jaitley, or the shrill Sushma Swaraj, who had
threatened to shave her head if Sonia Gandhi became prime minister.
Secondly, it isn't only that the BJP has no worthwhile leaders, its
ideology, too, is under a strain - as, indeed, it has been ever since it
failed to keep the promise of building the Ram temple in Ayodhya even
when it was in power at the centre.
Now, its meaning has been questioned by Jaswant Singh, who sought
clarifications on the concept of Hindutva before his expulsion, and also
by the BJP's Muslim members who have been unnerved by Varun Gandhi's
virulent anti-Muslim rhetoric.
There is also a belief among the moderate sections in the BJP that
Hindutva has lost its appeal. It was not the first choice as an ideology
any way during early in its life when the party preferred the vague
concept of Gandhian socialism. The BJP turned to Hindutva only in 1989
after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) raised the question of
"liberating" Ram's putative birthplace in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid
stood.
But two decades later, the issue no longer pays political dividends in a
secular India as it did in the 1990s. And yet, the BJP has to continue
to pay lip service to it not only because it will look foolish if it
formally dumped Hindutva but also because the RSS will not let it do so
since it still believes in ushering in a "homogeneous Hindu nation", in
the words of its chief, Mohan Bhagwat.
With neither an inspirational leadership nor a potent ideology, the BJP
appears to be lost in the political woods.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at
aganguli@mail.com)
IANS | August
29,
2009
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