BJP jumps poll planks, reverts to Hindutva

An indication of the shift in the BJP’s tactics came from RSS ideologue K Sudershan who, in a recent interview to the Sangh organ, Panchjanya, warned the party not to lose sight of its Hindutva identity. "If Hindutva is forgotten, what is the point of the BJP being in politics?" K Sudershan declared. However, the Hindutva of 1998 is not quite the same as the Hindutva of 1991 when the BJP first put the slogan to good use. In the 1991 polls, the cutting edge of Hindutva was the Ram Mandir agitation and its underlying anti-Muslim thrust.

This time, Hindutva, being as elastic as the BJP chooses to make it, is aimedat neutralising the all important Sonia Gandhi factor by using it as a creed to fight a "foreign conspiracy". The battle, as the party manifesto states, is between nationalism and the "foreign hand".

The anti-Muslim underpinning associated with the concept has been replaced by anti-Christian undertones. A commonly held perception in the Sangh Parivar is that Sonia’s rallies are being enthusiastically received because she is concentrating on tribal Christian areas.

The decision to raise the Hindutva flag comes after a careful assessment of Sonia’s high-voltage campaign and her talking points. Initially, the BJP seized on the Bofors scandal. However, the effort petered out soon after former Prime Minister V P Singh, who won the 1989 elections on this issue alone, took the sting out of the BJP’s attack by jumping to Sonia Gandhi’s defence.

Ultimately, saffron strategists have chosen to concentrate their attack on what they perceive is her Achilles Heel — her foreign antecedents.

The BJP’s politicalcampaign is being buttressed by ground level propaganda by affiliated organisations of the RSS. According to party insiders, the women’s wing of the Bajrang Dal, the Durga Vahini, is at the forefront of the quiet war waged by the Sangh on behalf of the BJP.

The use of the Durga Vahini in such a big way this time comes after a careful evaluation of Sonia’s rallies "revealed" that the biggest response to her emotional appeal was from women seen weeping unabashedly through her speeches.

Fearing a dent in the BJP’s women voter base on which the BJP swept to a formidable position in the 1991 elections, Durga Vahini volunteers have been asked to target those areas visited by Sonia Gandhi and launch a door-to-door campaign.

In addition, the RSS has pressed into service its impressive array of affiliates such as the Adhivakta Sangh (a lawyers’ forum), the Chikitsak Maha Sangh (a doctors’ forum), the Kisan Morcha and others for mass contact programmes. "We are being made to work harder than in 1996," confesseda volunteer.

Clearly, for both the BJP and the RSS, Sonia’s plunge into the political arena has been a big blow. Until her announcement that she would campaign for the Congress, the BJP was coasting along smoothly, confident of an easy victory in the face of a near total collapse by its rivals. It could present itself as another Congress till the Congress showed signs of reviving under the Sonia effect.

Now it has been forced to reposition itself and in recent days, BJP leaders have been increasingly distancing themselves from the Congress model they seemed to have adopted. The assiduous wooing of Muslims has lessened. A common minimum programme for the BJP-led alliance before the elections was flatly rejected. Hindutva has to remain the BJP’s USP, as Sudershan pointed out, if only to retain its hard core support base.

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