There is no denying that the knives are out in the BJP and the Sangh Parivar, and fire fighting by Parivar veterans will not put the genie back in the bottle. VHP supremo Ashok Singhal fired the first salvo in response to Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Manali musings that the Gujarat violence of 2002 was responsible for his defeat. Aggrieved that the former prime minister should casually disconnect the riots from the previous massacre of Hindu pilgrims at Godhra, Mr. Singhal squarely blamed Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani for the rout, and asserted that it was time they made way for a younger leadership.
Despite RSS attempts at damage control, the second salvo from Mr. Prafull Goradia, former Rajya Sabha member and former editor of BJP Today, makes it clear that the issue has been joined. Indeed, it would be a brain dead party that permits its leaders to execute personal agendas for six long years, take the parliamentary tally from 183 to 138, and then accept the blame for loss of office! Mr. Goradia’s open letter to Mr. Vajpayee reflects the anguish of cadres who felt betrayed throughout the BJP’s term in office, and holds the latter solely responsible for the rout.
It is undeniable that the BJP Government functioned with callous disrespect for the issues and cadres who brought them to power. The party owed much of its electoral magnetism to the oratory and personal credibility of leaders like Acharya Dharmendra, Dr. Praveenbhai Togadia, Mr. Surendra Jain, and even the doughty Sadhvi Ritambhara. Struck off the party’s list of speakers for Election 2004, they were hardly obliged to send their despondent admirers to the polling booths. Media reports have already exposed the public response to Mr. Advani’s pre-poll yatra in the absence of endorsement from so-called Hindutva firebrands; it was thus simply inevitable that history would unfold as it eventually did.
Even if we accept the view that the Government had limitations on the matter of Ayodhya, few Indians have been able to digest Mr. Vajpayee’s decision to reward Pakistani aggression in Kargil with peace talks; to humiliate the Indian Army by keeping it on full alert at the border for a whole year after the attack on Parliament, when it had become clear that the Government had buckled to American pressure not to attack Pakistan; and to ignore the genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh as well as the growing illicit immigration from that country. The Centre remained somnolent even when the Marxist chief minister of West Bengal expressed concern at mushrooming madrassas in border districts.
Within the country, BJP leaders behaved like nouveau riche entrants to an elite club. Barring the prime minister, top leaders made a beeline for every Page Three event, avidly supporting attempts by newspaper barons to promote a “celebrity culture” among an otherwise serious reading public. Dazzled by the bright lights and lulled into a false sense of belonging by their new “secular” friends, top leaders would freeze with misery or open hostility on encountering old Hindutva faces. Not one of the I&B ministers wished to call pro-BJP analysts to current affairs programmes on Doordarshan or All India Radio; the question of commissioning programmes by non-secular journalists did not, naturally, arise.
Some of the more adroit leaders managed a comfortable, if slightly schizophrenic, existence. Cavorting in the main with the secular crowd, they would occasionally apportion driblets of their time to causes dear to Parivar veterans. Unfortunately, some of the Parivar organizations felt unduly flattered at being invited to ministerial bungalows, and compromised on issues where greater commitment could yield higher dividends.
What is worse is the BJP’s amazing insensitivity on issues demanding swift and decisive intervention. Falling public investment in agriculture created a nation-wide crisis in the farm sector, of which the farmers’ suicides in some southern States was an expression. Far from providing succour, the Central leadership did not even ask the State units for a report, leave alone take up the matter with the concerned chief ministers. As many state units are headed by men with godfathers in Delhi and little grassroots support, the national leadership cannot evade culpability in this regard.
But by far the most shocking cause of defeat was political somnolence and an inexcusable under-estimation of the opponent. The BJP believed Ms. Sonia Gandhi was content to remain Leader of the Opposition for eternity, as this gave her cabinet status and physical security for herself and her family. They fought an airy campaign from the air, and the rest is history. The tragedy is that few lessons have been learnt even retrospectively, the Manali musings clearly reflecting a desire to treat the party as a pocket borough. More rumblings are simply inevitable…
The Pioneer, 20 June 2004