Opinion Incomplete makeover

The BJP was attractive to many critics of Congress-style secularism. But it had also managed,for a while,to project itself as something of an ideological alternative to the Congress. This rested on three claims: a slightly more right of centre economics,a more muscular foreign policy,and some vague hope that it was a party above the petty arithmetic of caste and regional parochialism. In the Indian context,the state will be an important actor,particularly for the poor. To that extent,the BJP had to change. But its economic thinking now projects a deeply confused hodgepodge of everything from Gandhi to socialism to big capital,combined with an inability to take a lead on economic issues. On foreign policy it looks equally confused,oscillating between vague sentimentalism and nay saying to everything.

It is often said that the BJP is beholden to the RSS. Ironically,on the most significant political issue,it has consistently gone against the old RSS lines. This is on the issue of quotas,a space where a genuine alternative is needed. Indeed,there was an old refrain from Lajpat Rai through the Jan Sangh,of making identity less,not more,relevant to politics. Whatever its political plausibility,it at least had an argumentative integrity to it. The BJP’s first big surge was an anti-Mandal wave. But it rapidly showed that on this issue it would neither follow the RSS,nor come up with imaginative alternatives of its own. And now quota politics will box the BJP. There is little doubt that reservations for Muslims will be an issue on the political agenda sooner or later. And it is hard to deny the legitimacy of the issue. On any criteria that reservations are handed out: backwardness,the likelihood that a community will be an object of discrimination,Muslims have a case. Who is to blame for this state of affairs is politically irrelevant. The women’s bill has strengthened the following argument. It is being said,with some rhetorical exaggeration,but a grain of truth as well,that the only significant community being deprived of quotas are Muslims. The BJP will run its usual line that it is against religion-based quotas. But having conceded everything on quotas,its stance will now appear to be anti-minority more than a principled rejection of identity politics. The BJP needed to assure Dalits and tribals that their special position in the arguments over quotas would not be challenged. But its timid vacating of a space of a politics beyond the petty arithmetic of quotas has left it nowhere to go.

The BJP has tried to reposition itself as a party open to new talent,putting out some new faces,getting rid of spokesmen who spoke like broken records. But its political team inspires too little governance confidence. It is not clear that even those most disenchanted with the Congress will run head over heels to trust the political judgment of a motley crew from Navjot Singh Sidhu to Varun Gandhi. When the BJP first arose,it had enough talent whose gravitas,commitment and sophistication were not in doubt,even if a lot of its politics was disagreeable. Most of that talent has been decimated in the party’s own infighting. The collection of chief ministers or ex-chief ministers,with odd exceptions,has been thoroughly compromised by their stints in power. And no one in its central leadership has yet made the transition to any statesman-like attributes. In short,the serious talent crunch remains.

As an opposition party,the BJP has another peculiar dilemma. It is not clear now whom it can attack. Even the most hardened critics of the Congress concede that the Gandhi family has conducted itself with enough personal dignity that attacks on it backfire. The Congress culture,as evidenced in the recent fracas over Bachchan,still succumbs to the temptation of pettiness,but in so far as the electorate is more comfortable with magnanimity than polarisation,the BJP cannot capitalise on advantage. It loses the personality wars hands down. The BJP has failed to corner the government on any single issue,whether it is inflation or security. It has nothing it wants to argue for; and nothing it can effectively argue against. Even a diminished Left is far more effective in staking out a position and letting it be the fulcrum of the debate than the BJP.

Finally,for the BJP to be a credible force,it will need to peak in all its current strongholds simultaneously. Its revival in UP now seems more difficult. And its traditional RSS cadres are weakening in social significance. An odd combination of hubris and complacency may yet make the Congress vulnerable. Gadkari seems well meaning. But he still does not have a team that can project credibility,and has not shown the slightest evidence that the BJP can overcome its deep-seated ideological confusions. The sole strategy seems to be to project the BJP as your homely next-door-neighbour guys. This act has two problems. It is not very convincing. And at times of crisis,parties require imagination and boldness,not the unthinking timidity that seems to characterise the party at the moment.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi

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