For want of an ideology

Amulya Ganguli

First Published : 08 Sep 2009 11:55:00 PM IST

Last Updated : 08 Sep 2009 01:00:39 AM IST

The BJP’s woes will surprise only those who were fooled by its claims about being a nationalist party waging a valiant battle against the Muslim-appeasing and, therefore, basically unpatriotic Congress. Its rhetoric throughout the 1990s was aimed at fomenting Hindu sentiments via a wrathful condemnation of the long years of subjugation by Muslim and British invaders and the Congress’ post-Independence espousal of secularism, which downgraded religions, particularly Hinduism.

There is little doubt that the Congress’ own follies, viz, its corrupt image, as exemplified by the Bofors scam, and mindless submission to Muslim fundamentalism, as in the overturning of the Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case, helped the BJP grow. But the fact remains that even when the BJP was on an upswing, the party was preparing the ground for its own future tribulations by basing its politics on hate for a targeted community, and its historical perceptions on myths.

The two were interlinked. Animosity towards Muslims, and subsequently Christians as well, could not be aroused without presenting a distorted picture of Indian history. As a result, its portrayal of the past delineated an endless confrontation between Hindus and Muslims, which included the desecration of countless temples. As a party that had set out to undo these historical wrongs, it focused on the legend of Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya where the Mughal emperor Babur built a mosque after supposedly destroying an existing temple. Seeing an opportunity to emerge out of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s shadow, L K Advani set out, therefore, on a rath yatra in 1990 with the avowed objective of ‘removing’ the mosque, reverentially, as some of the BJP members used to say, no doubt tongue in cheek.

Realising the mistakes early on

What the party did not realise in those heady days of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was that by whipping up passions on the basis of unverifiable tales, it was setting a dangerous precedent by making the targeting of the places of worship of non-Hindus a part of its political campaign. From the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 to the burning of churches in Kandhamal in 2008, the BJP set a fateful trend, which has led to its present-day miseries. However, the BJP did sense its mistakes early enough. Its 1996 decision to shelve the key points on its pro-Hindu agenda — building the Ayodhya temple, scrapping Article 370 and introducing a uniform civil code. But the damage had already been done since the party’s virulent anti-minority outlook paved the way for its fall even as it was in power between 1998 and 2004.

The reasons why it has stumbled are, first, the Indian electorate’s wariness of a party that promises constant strife. Secondly, its pro-Hindu philosophy, outlined in the concept of Hindutva or cultural nationalism (‘one nation, one people, one culture’) has not only become an albatross round its neck, but also a factor in internecine wrangling between ambitious leaders. The situation has been further complicated by the RSS looking on from outside to ensure that there is no deviation from Hindutva.

Jaswant Singh was the first to question the relevance of this world-view even when he was a member of the party. But there were others, too, notably the two token Muslims — Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain — who wanted to know which variant of Hindutva was acceptable to the party when they referred to its Pilibhit ‘version’.  

It is worth noting in this context that Hindutva was not the BJP’s first choice as an ideology. Instead, the party subscribed to the vacuous concept of Gandhian socialism when it was formed under Atal Behari Vajpayee’s presidency in 1980. It was only after the party’s crushing defeat in ’84 when it was reduced to two seats in the Lok Sabha that the realisation dawned that it needed something more muscular to enhance its appeal. Hence, the recourse to Hindutva.

But as this cynical exercise in ideology-hopping shows, even the party’s Hinduism is suspect. This may well be the reason why sections within it have ceased to be the kind of ardent supporters of the faith as before. Vajpayee was the first to highlight his moderation and privately described the aggressive proponents of Hinduism like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as ‘pagal’, if the then Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee is to be believed. Now Advani also adopts the same soft approach by arguing that Hindutva is an inclusive idea. However, such confusion shows that a party built on religious fables and violent denigration of targeted communities can hardly be credible.

The myth falls apart

Only a charismatic leader could have carried on such a pseudo-religious campaign for any length of time. For a while, the BJP believed that Narendra Modi was such a person. Not only had he overturned conventional wisdom by winning an election in Gujarat on the basis of communal antipathy, something that the BJP wanted to do on a nationwide scale, but he also subsequently became a darling of the corporate sector. But this myth, too, could not be sustained. First, Vajpayee publicly ascribed the BJP’s defeat in 2004 to the Gujarat riots and, secondly, the party’s allies in the NDA let it be known that Modi wasn’t their favourite since he would scare away their Muslim and Christian supporters.

The BJP’s problems stem, therefore, from a dearth of leadership and bankruptcy of ideology. To start with the first, Vajpayee is unwell, Advani lacks adequate appeal, Modi alienates the NDA and Murli Manohar Joshi is too dour to win a popularity contest. On top of this, the party’s basic dogma is fraying at the edges, partly because it has become a plaything with party president Rajnath Singh emphasising its hawkishness, evidently to please the RSS, and Advani stressing its gentler, kinder aspects to underline his own imitation of Vajpayee. All this while, those in the rungs below them like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu and others have avoided clarifying where they stand in order to leave their options open.

But these are only symptoms. The malady is the BJP’s communalism, which goes back to its Jan Sangh past and its servitude to the RSS. Since this poisonous mentality goes against the very grain of Hinduism’s eclecticism and India’s pluralism, it is difficult for a fascistic party to survive except on the fringes of politics. It is not without reason that the Jan Sangh remained on the margins of the political scene for 40 years till the late 1980s when the Congress’s decline, accentuated by splits, enabled the saffronites to find a place in mainstream politics.

The RSS-Jan Sangh was also helped to gain respectability by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1977 and by V P Singh in 1989 while the Left, too, was a part of these two Janata conglomerates. But the game is now up. As the saying goes, one can fool some people some of the time but not all the people all the time.

(The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator)