Some answers

Both the Congress and the BJP have, however, proved to be huge disappointments when faced with the Batla House shootout and the Pragya Thakur episode 8212; the two events that, in a throwback to the late 8217;80s, have left the intelligentsia and the citizenry alike polarised.

One reason is that the two parties have almost forgotten how to ask questions. Old-timers in the Congress lament how the Congress Working Committee CWC meetings, until Indira Gandhi8217;s time, often witnessed impassioned debates and fiery exchanges, something that has all but disappeared today. The BJP8217;s problems on this account, owing to its umbilical roots, are too well-known to be repeated.

Some interesting work, though not adequately reported, is under way. While the CWC meetings may have been reduced to being of near-notional value, some of the panels in the All India Congress Committee, particularly those with Rahul Gandhi as one of the members, often report robust debates. 8220;Dynasty and inner-party democracy8221; has been an oft-repeated theme in the Amethi MP8217;s speeches, and if the present experiment of organisational elections in the Congress8217;s youth wings succeeds, it8217;ll mark a quantum leap for the political system. Though not one of the best political communicators around, the Congress general secretary8217;s comments on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, too, largely follow the pattern of the party8217;s renewal and redemption.

The BJP, too, had been witnessing something interesting. Consider the spate of arrests in the wake of the Malegaon blasts, for instance. One thing that brought the self-styled 8220;shankaracharya8221; Dayanand Pandey to former BJP MP B.L. Sharma 8220;Prem8221; and the Abhinav Bharat was their professed belief in an 8220;Akhand Bharat8221;, an undivided subcontinent that negates the idea of Pakistan. A sizable section of the brotherhood in saffron has till date not been able to reconcile itself to the Partition, a reason why the RSS retains a pre-1947 map it calls it a 8220;geo-cultural map8221;.

That8217;s the context for former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee8217;s visit to Minar-e-Pakistan and L.K. Advani8217;s words on Jinnah. They were two significant gestures on BJP8217;s part to assuage Pakistan 8220;you cannot choose your neighbour,8221; were Vajpayee8217;s eloquent words .

Advani8217;s interventions in the last few years have largely followed this pattern. In one of his finest speeches on higher education he made a strong case for regional Indian languages, in addition to English 8212; which he said had, with the advent of globalisation, 8220;become as much a language of Indians as it is a language of Britishers or Americans.8221; This was in sharp contrast to the party8217;s once-famous particularistic slogan of 8220;Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan8221;.

The BJP, however, bungled big-time when faced with the litmus test in form of Pragya Singh Thakur, as did the Congress earlier on the Batla House shootout. In allowing RSS/VHP concerns to shape the BJP response to the Malegaon blasts by questioning the bona fides of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad, the BJP quashed the questioning of its central dogma, allowing sectional interests and particularistic concerns to override ideals. This is not what would take India to its param vaibhav 8220;supreme glory8221; as Advani so often says in his speeches.

In its demands over investigating the Batla House shootout 8212; notwithstanding what it told the Election Commission, that 8220;it had not demanded a probe into the incident8221; 8212; the Congress allowed a clutch of leaders, driven purely by particularistic concerns, to do exactly the same.

Maybe, the two parties need ask questions more often. Maybe Rahul needs to share his St Stephen8217;s concerns with his party colleagues. Maybe the two parties need to engage each other more often.

suman.jhaexpressindia.com