Opinion With Nitin Nabin as president, BJP is more millennial. Does it matter if its politics is still boomer?
Nabin is, for sure, a part of a slew of new leaders in the BJP. The question, however, is what do these new leaders bring to the table
Like the relatively unknown CMs of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and earlier Haryana, Nitin Nabin has been picked out of nowhere. Just for a moment, let’s look back from the current phase of BJP dominance and the elevation of Nitin Nabin, just 45 years old, to the post of party president. Across parties and movements, India has witnessed several “generational shifts”, each accompanied by a new politics. At times, these shifts have enriched the entrenched establishment within a party by forcing its politics to evolve. At times, it has led to a profound shift in the grammar of politics as a whole.
Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were once the “young guns” in the Congress party. Their rise was a major factor in how its opposition to British rule evolved from elite missives demanding relatively minor concessions for Indians as subjects of the British monarch to complete independence. It also shaped — along with Gandhi’s anti-modernity vision — the broad principles that marked the Congress’s and by extension the country’s unique socialist orientation. From the late 1950s through the ’60s and ’70s, with Ram Manohar Lohia, various shades of socialists, emerging communist leaders, figures in the Jana Sangh and through splits in the Congress, several other “young” leaders burst onto the national scene. But the reason why even his greatest detractors acknowledge that Lalu Prasad changed the social equations of power and politics in Bihar and beyond, but do not extend the same courtesy to Tejashwi Yadav, isn’t just “dynasty”. It’s also that the latter does not represent a rupture or a shift — just continuity.
The BJP has gone to great lengths to argue that, despite 18 per cent of its over 2,000 legislators being “dynasts” (as an Indian Express investigation (https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/one-nation-a-few-parivars-dynastic-politics-in-india-10321584/) showed), it is not a dynastic party. There is some merit to this argument. It is only in the BJP and the Marxist parties that successive generations of top leaders have not hailed from political families. The BJP can also justifiably claim that it rewards political talent if it is combined with ideological fealty — just look at the meteoric rise of Yogi Adityanath and Himanta Biswa Sarma, to say nothing of the Prime Minister. In fact, the BJP and its supporters have often argued that it is this room for growth that makes it “a party with a difference”. And that Nitin Nabin is the face of a carefully crafted “generational shift” that includes a slew of chief ministers, including Pushkar Singh Dhami, Rekha Gupta, and Mohan Charan Majhi, among others.
A question that is largely missing from this conversation is: What do the “young” leaders bring to the table? What difference will they make to the party “with a difference”?
The Modi-Shah BJP differs fundamentally from the Advani-Vajpayee variant in at least three ways. First, there is a concentration of power at the top, rather than a dyarchy. Both Advani and Vajpayee had their factions within the party, among allies and even vis-à-vis the broader electorate. The lack of a single, centralised and centralising figure led to a generation of “young” leaders coming to the fore, not least among them Narendra Modi. Today, power flows from the PM’s popularity, and loyalty — arguably, over talent — is the primary qualification. Second, the BJP today is among the most dominant and certainly the most dominating force in India’s recent political history. A “young” party president cannot really bring about change. Simply put, if it isn’t broken, why tinker with it? Earlier, skills like managing allies, the Opposition, businesses, and most importantly, the RSS, were needed. Now, having the favour of the high command is almost enough — as long as you’re not too objectionable to the Sangh. Finally, as a result of being a top-down organisation, the question of feedback becomes important. Can any party leader criticise the government? Can the president question, as Nitin Gadkari once did, people who were his “seniors”?
Like the relatively unknown CMs of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and earlier Haryana, Nitin Nabin has been picked out of nowhere. The signal his appointment — and that’s what it is, rather than an election — sends both within and outside the party is that the high command is supreme, and there is no other source now (including perhaps the RSS) that can countermand its wishes. Given their electoral success, the Modi-Shah duo are perhaps justified in wanting their way with regard to party and government posts. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t be clear-eyed about what its new president means for the BJP, despite the PR push.
Nabin is being touted as the “millennial” BJP president. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that he will be a decision maker in the party. An apparatchik, however capable, is not an ideologue. And the “boomers” in charge — like everyone who has enjoyed power before them — won’t let go. Nabin’s elevation, then, is not the renovation of a political edifice. It is, at best, a paint job on a sturdy building.
The writer is deputy associate editor, The Indian Express.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
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