Waiting to dominate

There is very widespread support for those tests and practically universal opposition to the hypocritical condemnation from the US and others as well as China. Yet the mass mood is for the continuation of the Nehru line of foreign policy with even greater vigour now that India is a nuclear weapons state. The need isnot for the one-upmanship practised by the BJP leadership.

Doubts still persist whether the BJP will be able to make the ascent from a party of isolated opposition to becoming a party of coalitional government.In spite of all the tall talk about having ended the untouchable status of their party the BJP leadership has accomplished nothing of the kind. It was not the BJP that had been accepted by a number of parties.

The opposite happened. The BJP accepted the demands of a number of parties which had nothing in common between themselves and with the BJP. The latter has neither an alliance nor allies. It has not been able to stabilise, much less to cement together, the parties of the government. What has prevented breakdown is not any agreement on any programme. Damage control has been done by making concessions now to this partner and now to that. In this manner temporary containment of conflict has been achieved but the seeds of more bitter conflict in the near future have been sown.

The reason for theobstreperousness of Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee and others is the fear that the government in its present form is not likely to last long. Either the government will fall or the BJP will be able to dominate it to such an extent that they will be reduced to the status of its satellites.

They have, thus, a certain vested interest in allowing the government to continue but not stabilise. In the meantime, they plan to secure as many benefits for their states as possible. This they estimate would stand then in good stead when the elections come around again.

The fear of BJP domination and dictation once the government stabilises is not an unreal one. Even before this happened Sardar Buta Singh had a taste of the mailed fist or the jackboot. Why was it necessary to send Pramod Mahajan to him with a ten-minute quit notice and a threat? Vajpayee could have summoned him and performed the hatchet job with greater authority but more sensitivity.

What about the appointment of governors? Let alone the allies noteven the Prime Minister is said to have been consulted except right at the end and more as a matter of formal courtesy. L. K. Advani certainly has no qualms about dictatorial exercise of power. But this attitude is not conducive to collective functioning and much less to the consolidation of a coalition government.

Is such a combination of opportunism and authoritarianism a deviation from the ideology and programme of the BJP? It is not. The combination of opportunism and authoritarianism is exactly the ideology and programme of the BJP. This point has been overlooked due to ignorance or on purpose by most of the commentators who make out that the difficulties the BJP leadership faces is due to the ideology-based cadre character of the party.

These sad but sympathetic commentators bemoan the fact that such a value-oriented party has now become the clone of the Congress.

The reality, past and present, is an altogether different story. Kusha-bhau Thakre has emphatically declared that his party was born ofnationalism. He means, of course, the nationalism of the RSS. This body founded in 1925 had the unique distinction of never sending any of its members to jail in the battle against British rule.

On the contrary, it opposed the freedom movement led by the Congress on the ground that the latter8217;s objective was Swaraj and not Hindu Raj. In a way more important was the training given to its cadres who went on to become the leaders of the Jana Sangh and its descendant the BJP.

This training consisted and today also consists not in making those undergoing it into good and pious Hindus. It consists in making them rabid haters of liberalism, Islam and communism. It consists in making them votaries of a narrow, excluding and communalised Hinduism. Above all, it preaches the supremacy of power, all pervading and all consuming power. It is power to dictate, to bully and to impose one8217;s beliefs where persuasion fails.

So long as there is obedience to the leadership and assistance to its battle for power all else isallowed. Austerity and renunciation is recommended only for the select few who are to be the real guardians and controllers. For the rest living in the world and being as worldly as you can is the way of life prescribed. If this were not the case the RSS and the BJP could not have built its base among the smaller businessmen, the traders and the shopkeepers. In an ideological of spiritual sense it enables these people to live and to justify themselves to themselves.

A party based on these beliefs can only function in the way that the BJP has done since assuming the commanding position in the Central government. It accommodates in order later to be able to dominate and to, in the meantime, dictate whenever it can.

Its Ahmedabad resolution has characterised its government formation as quot;a transfer of powerquot; and not just a change of government. Yet it knows very well that not even the United Front government was so constrained by its lack of power. Hence its concentration on increasing and accumulating itsown power even at the cost of unjustifiable compromise and lack of governance.

The nation can suffer or, rather, wait till all power comes to the BJP. The BJP is simply living up to its own expectation.