Opinion Party to differences

This is not about Jinnah. It is about the state of the BJP...

August 20, 2009 02:42 AM IST First published on: Aug 20, 2009 at 02:42 AM IST

In expelling Jaswant Singh,the BJP is amplifying the strange madness that has overtaken the party. The expulsion will,doubtless,be justified on ideological grounds: Jaswant Singh allegedly praised Jinnah. But this ideological veneer can scarcely disguise the fact that this is a party that is now in deep crisis in so many different dimensions. First,and most mundanely,there is the sheer procedural impropriety of the party. In decision after decision,the party is not following any institutional norms of due process or fairness. There are double standards galore: the authority of the parliamentary party is used to justify the expulsion. Ironically at the very same moment the wishes of elected legislators are being roundly ignored in Rajasthan. You show me the face and I will pick the procedure, is the party norm. The party gives evidence of being governed by a small coterie that is increasingly arbitrary and dictatorial in its methods. No other phrase can describe Advanis handling of the party better than the colloquialism: he has simply lost it. It is pathetic to see such a towering figure reduced to nothing more than a small,helpless,arbitrary minion,not in control over the party he helped create. He cannot escape the blame for allowing things to come to such a pass.

Second,the decision is a fundamental reflection on the deep-seated insecurity of the BJPs second tier leadership. None of them has either the intellectual self-confidence or the political imagination to handle important issues with a sense of judgment. The BJPs problem is not just its ideological choices. It is that it does not have men and women in leadership positions with the slightest degree of credibility. It has the worst combination: constricted leaders like Rajnath Singh who can never engage in a broad argument over vision; and smart people like Arun Jaitley who are too politically insecure to show genuine leadership. Jaswant Singh may have a lot to answer for; but there is no doubt that on the whole his presence elevated the party. It is not the differences within the party that are debilitating; it is the littleness of the figures who now lead it.

But even more seriously,the party has become so obtuse that it cannot even begin to understand a complex historical argument. Jaswant Singhs book is a serious academic exercise,one long overdue. It is complicated,full of internal tensions. A serious political party should have space for that. In fact,the attraction of the BJP to many people was that it

empowered thinking that had long been sidelined by stifling Congress conformism and an over-weaning sense of infallibility. In its own way,the BJP was allowing space for long suppressed questions to be asked.

But even in crassly political terms the BJP is so blind it does not recognise what is an argument for its ideology and what is against it. Yes,Jaswant Singh has praised Jinnahs political skills and his determination. There is also no new revelation in the fact that Jinnah was secular in some sense of the term. Nor is there anything odd about asking whether

Jinnahs positions were political tactic or a deeply held ideological position. Nor for that matter is there anything wrong in raising a whole series of interesting counterfactuals. But the central elements of the book are not incompatible with BJP ideology. The book is an anguished lament on Indias territorial vivisection; and it is squarely BJP in that it is often more concerned with territorial integrity than bonds between people living on that territory. The books big villains are the Congress party and Jawaharlal Nehru,both of whom are indicted as being driven by a combination of dogmatism,attraction for power,excessive centralisation and deep historical misjudgment. Yes,Sardar Patel has been thrown into the mix. But it is hard to think of Patel as anything but a Congressman. How the BJP managed to claim him is a mystery. The book also poses the question whether Islam has the room for separating religion and society. And if it does not,what is the prospect for secularism. This is a very BJP-compatible line of inquiry. And it rather cleverly insinuates the thought that the difference between Jinnah and the Congress was not that one believed the two-nation theory and the other did not. It is that the Congress also did not have room for the thought that our rights and obligations should be independent of religious affiliations. And,at its most subtle,it suggests that denying the two-nation theory does not do away with the thorny problem of how we conceptualise the relationship between Hindus and Muslims. The Congress wishes this question away rather than solving it.

But the issue is not the book. In expelling Jaswant Singh the BJP has confirmed the fears of its worst critics: that the party is nothing but a party founded on endless resentment that makes it inherently insecure and anti-intellectual. Its nationalism is not the nationalism of a thinking party; it is a pinched-up nationalism that prefers caricature over complexity,conformism over thought. The party does not understand the first thing about its self-proclaimed heroes. Vajpayee once wrote,mujhe itni oonchaie kabhi mat dena,gairon ko gale na lago sakon,itni rukhai kabhi mat dena. It is a measure of how much the BJP has fallen that it can now not even embrace its own. The real greatness of Sardar Patel was that he could live with difference. Despite deep philosophical differences the personal and political bond between him and Nehru remained very strong. Even their mistakes and differences were not petty. But the BJP does the amazing feat of demonstrating that even its virtues have the odour of small-mindedness.

At their best,Jaswant Singhs arguments could have been a useful aid to think through the ideological ferment the party necessarily needs to go through. But if the BJP did not like the argument they could have killed it by polite condescension or benign neglect. Certainly,the expulsion sends a signal that old RSS-type one-point agendas still dominate the party. Certainly it will make the party less attractive for anyone who cares to think. Perhaps it is no accident that other leaders who gave some sign of thought,Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie,are also being marginalised. But it would be dignifying the party too much to say that this expulsion is part of some process of genuine churning. At the moment the party seems in a state of self-destructive delirium.

The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi

express@expressindia.com

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