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BJP must undergo major changes

The Bharatiya Janata Party's reputation lies in tatters. Its much-touted cadre discipline is at its lowest ebb, and the party is coming to grips with the fact that all its rhetoric is simply not sufficient to ensure residence in high office. Perhaps the most important lesson for the BJP is that governance means ensuring the satisfaction of the common man.

BJP leaders deluded themselves into believing that the nuclear tests, and the euphoria that followed, had earned them sufficient goodwill to sweep the next election. The images that come to mind after the blasts give reason for the delusion. Thousand of people took to the streets and cheered the blasts, burst firecrackers, and spoke of India as the next superpower. There can be no doubt that for the BJP, who were in command of the country's politics for the first time (if we forget their alliance in 1977 and the 13-day fiasco in 1996) it must have been heady stuff.

But winning wars and an election are very different. The nuclear tests euphoria had evaporated by the time the assembly election came around, destroyed by a variety of issues of far greater concern to the common men and women who toil for their daily chapati. The party was slow in reacting. The excuse that J Jayalalitha's antics distracted them is ridiculous: was everybody busy soothing her?

The fact is that the BJP did not know what to do. This was proven in Rajasthan, where the BJP was routed earlier in the general election in March 1998. Despite the results and the time available to rectify the situation, nothing credible was done. The Congress, on the other hand, took charge and saved Madhya Pradesh after the defeat in March 1998. Delhi, of course, was simply gifted to the Congress on a platter.

It has been remarked that the journey is often better than reaching the destination. For decades, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the BJP (and its earlier avatar the Bharatiya Jan Sangh) have been striving for office. In those years, Vajpayee earned encomiums galore as "the PM in waiting" and several Best Parliamentarian awards. The BJP was seen as a party with a difference with disciplined leaders and cadre. Yet, on reaching their destination, life has been very different. Power corrupts, and the BJP has proven no exception. Worse, it failed to realise the difference between being in the Opposition and in power.

How else can you explain the horrendously shocking phenomenon of galloping prices a few weeks before the election? Even a college-level politician knows that before an election, you must keep the electorate happy. It was almost as though the BJP had a death wish. No other party would have allowed such a situation to arise before a poll.

In an earlier article I had mentioned that for the BJP to truly become an alternative to the Congress and give India its much-needed two-party system, the party must abandon its lunatic fringe like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal.

Today, this is even more imperative, because every idiotic act or statement from the VHP and company reflects negatively on the BJP. The best example is the Jhabua nuns rape case. Law and order is a state subject. So, if anyone should be held responsible for the rape of the nuns, it is the Congress government in the state. Yet, one shocking statement from a VHP official and the whole onus fell on the BJP.

It was the BJP which was on the defensive and the party's image was further sullied. It happened because the VHP is seen as having the blessing of the BJP.

It is also because the BJP was seen as doing nothing vis-à-vis these crimes. In today's age of communication and television, not only one must act or react, but be seen as acting or reacting. Ditto for the price rise case in Delhi where the government was seen as doing nothing, only fuelling rumours that the BJP was hand in glove with the traders who were hoarding the commodities. After the election was over, the prime minister announced that the Essential Commodities Act will be tightened. Why could he not have done that in October?

Moreover, the BJP will have to widen its base. Even as I write, there are reports of pressure being exerted on the BJP from its affiliates (the RSS) to revert back to its pro-Hindutva agenda. It will be disastrous (like the Shiv Sena reverting to its goonda days in the hope of winning support). The late 1990s are not the late 1980s. Temple-mosque disputes excite no one but diehard VHP followers. But if the BJP goes extreme, there is no way it can widen its base, because the more extreme the posture, the less the support.

The BJP must ponder why it was unable to attract any segment from the supporters of the now-defunct United Front who drifted en masse to the Congress. Was it because its ideology is so exclusive, suiting hundreds rather than millions?

The BJP simply can win elections only on issues that matter to the masses. These include poverty and price control that hits the common man daily, not temples and bombs that may give a momentary thrill but changes little in your life. In 1998, the BJP did not win because it promised a Ram temple: it won because the electorate was disgusted, rightfully so, with the United Front and the Congress. And now in power, the BJP can no longer depend on this anti-incumbency factor. It must deliver. But before doing that, it will have to undergo major changes within. Whether that will happen or not, only time will tell.

Amberish K Diwanji