A question I ask myself every time the Bharatiya Janata Party meets,as it did last week for one of its conventions,is when our main Opposition party is going to realise that Indians are looking for an alternative to the Congress Party. Not a poor facsimile. When Hindutva and nationalism seemed,momentarily,like an alternative,it propelled the BJP to power in Delhi. But,no sooner did Atal Bihari Vajpayee become prime minister than he and his ministers began carefully imitating Congress ways. Like Congress prime ministers he expected his ministers to line up at the airport every time he travelled abroad. Like Congress prime ministers,he dutifully trotted off on death anniversaries to lay flowers at those memorials on the Yamuna. What is more important is that like Congress prime ministers he did nothing to change the colonial system of governance we inherited from the British.
His ministers carried this process of imitation even further. There could have been a new Kashmir policy unburdened by Congress history. It did not come. There could have been a new education policy. It did not come. There could have been a serious attempt to give the average Indian halfway decent healthcare. It did not happen. There could have been some attempt to curb corruption in high places. It did not happen. There could have been a serious effort to change the direction of the Indian economy in a manner that would put the countrys prosperity at the centre and not poverty alleviation programmes. For poverty alleviation to remain the focus of economic development,it becomes necessary to keep poverty alive. This has been the Congress way.
Congress gets away with this denigration of real democratic processes only because,as the Gandhi familys faithful retainers never tire of telling us,the family is the adhesive that glues the party together. The BJP does not have a royal family that performs this role so below the layers of courtiers and knicker-wallahs there is a widening vacuum that distances our leading opposition party from voters. There can be no other reason why a government as fraught with serious problems as this one should manage to brazenly talk of achievements at its third birthday party.
The governments list of failures is long but none of these failures have been raised in Parliament in a single meaningful debate by the BJP. Mismanagement of the economy is the Sonia-Manmohan governments most obvious mistake. This has happened gradually over the past two years but not once have we heard the BJP point out the errors that have led to the economy slowing down dangerously. BJP leaders have chosen instead to focus on sensationalism and issues raised in Delhis TV studios.
If the Sonia-Manmohan government has ended up spending more than it can afford to,it has been mostly because of the povertarian policies imposed on the country by Sonia Gandhis National Advisory Council (NAC). This is an extra-constitutional body of unelected jhola-walas who should never have been allowed near policy making but not once have we heard the BJP demand a serious debate in Parliament on the role of the NAC. Not once have we heard a BJP chief minister raise his voice against the expensive and unworkable welfare programmes that have been forced upon the country by the NAC.
And,speaking of BJP chief ministers it needs to be pointed out that even here we see imitation of Congress practices with potentially dangerous consequences. Congress chief ministers are appointed by the high command in 10 Janpath because subservience is an essential component of the democratic feudalism that is the Congress Partys political ideology. The BJP high command in Delhi has so far stayed away from the risky practice of treating chief ministers as subservient but,of late,there are signs that it is faithfully following in Congress footsteps even here. If carried further,it will ensure that in 2014 the BJP fails once more to achieve its dream of getting another chance to rule India.
There is still time and still a chance for the BJP to rectify its ways. A first step should be to institute a system of inner party elections right from the panchayat level. A second but even more vital step should be for the BJPs top leaders to evolve a vision of India that is different to the Congress vision. It should be easy,surely,to evolve a better vision.
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