Perhaps this disappointment was written into the Mumbai script. Anniversary bashes usually don’t afford the space for rigorous soul searching. It was only to be expected, then, that in its Rajat Jayanti congregation the BJP would sound like the hard knocks of the past year had not disturbed its complacency and self-congratulation, and certainly propelled no serious rethink. And, also as if the biggest problem on the BJP’s plate was the Congress. From Mumbai in the last few days have wafted in soundbites that suggest a party stunningly innocent of the urgency to own up to the challenges within — from the need to recover its centre in its relationship with an RSS that has freshly tasted blood after L.K. Advani’s exit as party president, or indeed the need to retrieve a sense of coherence and direction from the recent tangle of sleaze, conspiracies and scams. From Mumbai, instead, we have heard how the Congress is to blame for all ills. We have also heard the BJP disown its own legacy in government.It was easy to sympathise with Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mumbai. The former prime minister quite understandably had to take recourse to his patented whimsy when confronted with a party resolution that went back on the two policy achievements that most distinguished his primeministership. The resolution criticised the UPA for pressing ahead with the peace process with Pakistan; it also lashed out at New Delhi’s supposed capitulation to the US. What can I say about foreign policy, reacted the former PM. The language of foreign affairs is difficult, he said.At least some of the BJP’s blind concentration in Mumbai on the Congress-UPA-Left can be explained by the BJP’s role as the main party of the Opposition. Some of it comes from a party trying desperately to rouse its sagging troops. But mostly, the Mumbai fireworks speak of a dull evasion. The BJP needs to look itself in the face. For a party that seeks to come to power again at the Centre in a changing India, the familiar comforts of the RSS embrace or an older agenda may no longer be an option.
