Opposition party adds to its disarray
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India's main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is
in a state of utter disarray. Three months after its defeat in general
elections, the party seems to be gripped by a crisis of identity, leadership
and ideology. What is more, the party's increasing treatment of dissent as
indiscipline has raised serious questions over its democratic credentials.
A party with an illiberal outlook, the Hindu right-wing BJP was known to be
democratic in its inner-party functioning. That appears to have changed with
the party cracking down on anybody who dares to differ with its thinking. Never
in its 29-year history has the party seemed as divided and directionless as it
does today.
Last week, one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP, Jaswant
Singh, was summarily expelled from the party for espousing a view that
dissented from the party's ideology. In the process, the BJP has refurbished
its image as an intellectually intolerant party.
Jaswant, who has been with the BJP since its founding and served as finance,
external affairs and defense minister in BJP-led central governments between
1998 and 2004, is the author of the book Jinnah: Partition, India, Independence.
The book, which was released early last week, goes against conventional
thinking in India on the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 according to
which Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, is the villain - the man
principally responsible for the division of India.
In his book, Jaswant wrote that "Jinnah did not so much win Pakistan as the
Congress leaders [Jawaharlal] Nehru and [Vallabhbhai] Patel finally conceded
Pakistan to Jinnah, with the British acting as an ever helpful midwife." In
essence, the book not only apportions blame for partition to persons other than
Jinnah, but also it casts in a negative light two national heroes of the Indian
freedom movement - Nehru, premier from 1947 to 1964, and Patel. The BJP reacted
swiftly. It expelled Jaswant from the party. And the book has been banned in
the BJP-ruled state of Gujarat.
What got the BJP's goat was that Jaswant has taken a soft view on Jinnah in his
book and has lamented his "demonization" in India. Besides, his casting of
Patel in a negative light has annoyed BJP hardliners. Patel, independent
India's first home minister, was a Congress man. But his tough line and
right-wing positions on issues have earned him a place among the BJP's pantheon
of national leaders.
Over the decades Patel has been appropriated by the Sangh Parivar (the family
of organizations of which the BJP is a part) as an icon of Hindutva, an
exclusivist ideology that equates being Indian with Hinduism.
This is not the first time that praising Jinnah has landed a BJP member in
trouble. In 2005, the BJP's then president, Lal Krishna Advani, described
Jinnah as a secular leader while on a visit to the Jinnah Mausoleum in
Pakistan. His statement kicked up a furious row in India, earning him the wrath
of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a fraternal organization of the BJP
that provides it with ideological direction. Advani quickly backtracked.
The furor over Jaswant's book broke out even as BJP leaders were trooping up to
the Himalayan town of Shimla for their annual Chintan Baithak (introspection
session). This was an important session, the first since the party's defeat in
general elections in May this year. The meeting was an opportunity for the
party to introspect over its performance in elections three months ago and
chart its program of action for the future. Instead, it drowned itself in
preoccupation with Jaswant's take on events that go back over 60 years.
In the process, little time was spent on drawing lessons from the electoral
defeat or on holding its top leaders responsible for the debacle.
Party president Rajnath Singh's innings at the helm of the organization have
been lackluster and disastrous. His greatest strength is that he has the
support of the RSS, crucial for the survival of a BJP leader. He has encouraged
groupism within the party to consolidate his own position. The BJP's leader in
the lower house of parliament is the 81-year-old Advani, a former deputy prime
minister, who led the party's disastrous election campaign. Both Advani and
Rajnath have been loathe to take responsibility for the election debacle and
prefer to cling to their posts despite calls for them to step down from within
and outside the party.
The party is riven with conflict. Not a day goes by without senior members
shooting off angry letters demanding the fixing of accountability for the
party's decline or giving tell-all interviews about the state of affairs in the
party. Party seniors who have been critical of Rajnath's leadership say that
they are unable to raise questions even in closed meetings as it is frowned
upon. Any expression of dissent has prompted a heavy-handed response. Senior
leaders Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie were not invited to the recent Chintan
Baithak for asking uncomfortable questions earlier.
It is said that Jaswant's summary expulsion is aimed at sending out a clear
message that dissent will not be tolerated.
As worrying as the decline of inner-party democracy in the BJP is its
continuing espousal of Hindutva. There was no question of a rethink on the
matter, Rajnath said at the Chintan Baithak, reiterating the party's
commitment to Hindutva. One would have thought that the party would have
distanced itself from Hindutva to revive its electoral appeal. After all,
Hindutva does not strike a chord with large sections of the population. But
this logic seems to be clear to all but the BJP itself.
Calls for younger leaders to take over the reins of the BJP have been growing
from many in the BJP as well as the RSS. But the BJP's old guard is reluctant
to step aside. Besides, bitter infighting among the party's Generation Next,
all in their 50s, has undermined their credibility and capacity to inspire as
well.
While a generational shift might energize the BJP and help it look younger in
appearance and in a position to take on the Congress' "youth brigade", a
facelift and an image makeover alone will not do. What the party needs more
urgently is an ideological makeover and that it is reluctant to do, as evident
from its reiteration of commitment to Hindutva.
The BJP's preoccupation with events and issues that go back decades (like
partition) and sometimes even centuries (building a temple at the site of a
16th-century mosque) make little sense to most people in this country. As Coomi
Kapoor observes in an article in the Indian Express, "For most of today's
generation a discussion on partition is an academic exercise which cannot
really arouse strong passions. It is only the RSS and a section of the BJP
leadership, stuck in a time warp, which feels the need to keep reverting back
to the issue of Jinnah, Nehru, Sardar Patel and partition and apportioning
blame."
The BJP's preoccupation with the past makes it completely out of tune with the
times.
Some senior BJP leaders like Shourie have called on the RSS to step in and
rebuild the BJP. This is a recipe for disaster. The BJP's problems are not just
about indiscipline or poor leadership but about its narrow, medieval thinking
as well. The RSS cannot resolve the BJP's problems when it is the cause of its
problems.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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