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Journalism of Courage
Remaining relevant in times of tumultuous change is a challenge every political party has to grapple with, at some point or the other. The inaugural address of BJP8217;s new chief, Bangaru Laxman, at its National Council meet in Nagpur on Sunday, reflects just such an effort. In many ways, the speech marked a historic break with ideas and positions that the party had long come to regard as integral to its politics. While political analysts are bound to be kept busy deconstructing Laxmanspeak for quite some time to come, the immediate message his words sought to convey is direct and unambiguous: if the party wishes to grow it will have to expand its social base, and if it has to expand its social base it will have to reinvent itself.
The party cadre had not heard such plain speaking in a long while. Not only did Laxman confront some uncomfortable truths, like the plateauing of the party8217;s mass appeal over the last two general elections, he all but conceded that the three socially contentious issues that had brought the BJP into power at the Centre the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, the abrogation of Article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code were not in national interest. As he put it, placing these issues on the backburner was not done in a spirit of compromise in order to stay in power, but to promote the 8220;larger interests of the nation8221;. This complemented the other major theme of the BJP president8217;s address the need of the party to reach out to Muslims as a political constituency. Again, there was no attempt to duck realities and again the message was unequivocal: the party will find it exceedingly hard to expand its vote base if it was to keep 15 per cent of the electorate at bay.
The words used were those borrowed from Deendayal Upadhyaya, but held an emotional resonance all the same, 8220;Muslims are flesh of our flesh and the blood of our blood8221;.
This language of expansion through accommodation is bound to make the other constituents of the Sangh Parivar uncomfortable, if not positively angry. To that extent, Laxman8217;s observations, apart from reiterating his own stated preoccupation with expanding the party8217;s presence 8220;socially and geographically8221;, symbolise the triumph of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee school of consensual politics within the BJP. But they are also, at the same time, a reflection of the distinct unease at the possibility of losing the OBC vote because of the alienation of popular backward caste leaders like Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharati. It may be premature to speculate whether the new approach envisaged at Nagpur will actually change things. Certainly, this is not the first time that attempts have been made to bring Muslims within the fold.
Before the 1998 General Elections, for instance, when Vajpayee was being projected as India8217;s man of destiny with a liberal face, the BJP organised a Muslim youth conference and fielded six Muslim candidates, five more than it had done in 1996. Yet the exigencies of day-to-day politics had led to that frisson of excitement quickly dissipating itself. Today only a solitary Shahnawaz Hussain from Kishenganj, Bihar, holds up the saffron flag in the present dispensation.
