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BJP Tears Itself Apart
But
Plumps For Hindutva's Hatred Agenda Again
Mansukh Kaur
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Calls to the BJP's top brass to shun this hatred-spewing ways of
Hindutva, shift away from the RSS and find focus elsewhere than
on divisive issues at one stage seemed to be forcing the party
to look inwards. But Hindutva Zindabad was the final cry.
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 Defeat does
little for obduracy. Or perhaps it does. Makes one more obdurate.
At least, that's
what it has done to the Hindutva inspired, Hindutva spouting
ultra-nationalist right wing Bhartiya Janata Party.
The BJP lost
roundly in
India's general
elections, its second defeat in a row, and an almost humiliating one
this time. It was almost sensing itself as being within grabbing
distance of power but the election results showed that people
rejected its anti-minority anti-Muslim radical rabid stance. They
some how did not approve of an agenda of demolishing mosques and
raising grand temples; they did not like the talk of enacting black
laws and they rejected the Hindutva chat of Advani-Modi.
Where reason had
failed, electoral defeat seemed to have succeeded. There were some
voices from within the BJP that said the party should re-think its
ties with the parent organisation RSS, that fonthead of all hatred
and partisan agenda in
India.
Masquerading as a social organisation, the RSS is a major propeller
of the entrenched brahamanical levers of power and plays the entire
game astutely in such a way that keeps dominant castes in control,
and the right wing in forefront.
 Calls to the
BJP's top brass to shun this hatred-spewing ways of Hindutva, shift
away from the RSS and find focus elsewhere than on divisive issues
at one stage seemed to be forcing the party to look inwards. Leaked
letters from senior leaders to other senior leaders made media
headlines, resignations dominated breaking news and talk TV and a
two-day brainstorming meeting in
Delhi remained
much in the front pages but finally the outcome dashed all hopes of
saner elements.
Hindutva
Zindabad was the final cry.
On Saturday,
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh told his party’s
national executive, its first after the election debacle, that his
“party remained wedded to Hindutva”. Advani said the same thing.
Both tried some spin on it. Rajnath sought to equate it with 'Bharatiyata'
and Advani with 'cultural nationalism' and the entrenched
leadership either ignored, downplayed or poohpoohed all those who
had wanted change and open discussion.
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As for the RSS, the BJP leadership was rather loud and clear.
The grand daddy of Hindutva is going to guide the party in
future too. “If someone advises us to sever ourselves from our
very roots and remain attached only to the stem, they are
themselves confused,” Rajnath Singh said, implying that the BJP
could not be expected to sever its umbilical chords with the RSS. |
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Varun Gandhi may
have been happy but men like Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh and
Yashwant Sinha felt snubbed. 'Nothing will change' seemed to be the
real output, and Rajnath in fact reiterated the party’s commitment
to issues such as abrogation of Article 370 (something all civil
society forums rather advoctae), Ayodhya (temples in the forefront
rather than equal opportunity debate) and Uniform Civil Code (a pet
subject of Hindutva brigade).
The BJP had
opposed something that the rest of the world hailed -- the Sachar
Committee recommendations on reservation for Muslims -- but Rajnath
said, “We have no regrets on raising issues such as reservation on
religious lines and Sachar Committee recommendations."
As for the RSS,
he was rather loud and clear. The grand daddy of Hindutva is going
to guide the party in future too. “If someone advises us to sever
ourselves from our very roots and remain attached only to the stem,
they are themselves confused,” he said, implying that the BJP could
not be expected to sever its umbilical chords with the RSS.
Advani invoked
former RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras’s concept of change in the
organisation.
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BJP now
officially dumps the 'nationalist party' tag, rather goes in for
'Right Wing party' as a self-description phrase. Often, the
spirit lies in the details. Its resolution equated Hinutva with
Hinduism with Rashtriyata. Clearly, as far as BJP is concerned,
India
is only for Hindus, as defined by the BJP. Those who do not
follow the RSS' hatred agenda are not even Hindus perhaps. Not,
at least, for the BJP. |
“It is said that
the Sangh is changing and that it has to change further. It is a
sign of their evolution. That which doesn’t change is not living, it
is dead,” Advani said, quoting Deoras’s 1980 Vijayadashami speech
and, in the process, also sending a subtle message to assembled
delegates.
While Rajnath
tried to broadbase Hindutva, he also referred to the BJP as a
“right-wing entity” (as opposed to the preferred ‘nationalist party’
tag). “The politics of the so-called right-wing as described by
today’s political analysts had a definitive space not only in the
politics but also the history of
India.
This space never got vacant though its context kept on changing,”
said Rajnath, adding that the Congress was a right-wing party for
the British and so was Tilak for the British in 1905, when he
demanded total freedom.
While some
senior leaders, including Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh, mounted a
not-so-indirect attack on General Secretary and chief election
strategist Arun Jaitley, Rajnath said he would take responsibility
for the party’s defeat in the election.
“We can’t hold
one person accountable for the failure. The BJP believes in
collective success and collective failure... I am taking the
responsibility,” he said.
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 Muslim
voices left out in the cold
Two Muslim
voices within the BJP, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Hussain,
who had lodged strong protests against Varun Gandhi's attack on
Muslims and the party's failure to distance itself completely
from the Pilibit MP, as well as the "communal" campaign of B L
Sharma Prem for the Delhi North-East seat, seemed to have been
finally lost and merely got some lip service from Advani.
On a day
when the genuineness of Varun's hate speech was proved by
forensic tests, Naqvi demanded that the party needed to spell
out its stance on the Pilibhit brand of Hindutva. "The
deliberations represented a repudiation of the Pilibhit brand of
Hindutva," said one of the participants, referring to Varun's
"anti-Muslim" diatribe.
The tone of
the discussion, which saw Muslim leaders of the party Naqvi and
Hussain taking on Maneka Gandhi for her stout defence of her son
Varun, was set by leaders from states. Advani tried to paper
over the serious issue with some politically correct verbiage,
saying Hindutva should not be interpreted as championing the
cause of only one religion, and quoted former RSS chief, late
Balasaheb Deoras, to say that BJP did not support the concept of
a theocratic state.
But there
was no talk of any action against Varun Gandhi or B L Sharma
Prem. |
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While Shourie
and Jaswant Singh—who had earlier written to Rajnath—reiterated
their demand for accountability in the running of the party. Shourie
also referred to the “tendency of the media to meddle in the affairs
of the BJP”, which was later strongly backed by Aonla MP Maneka
Gandhi, who accused a senior party leader of “planting stories
against his rivals in the media”. Shourie pointed to the “media’s
role in the BJP’s internal affairs” when he referred to a “group of
six journalists”.
Shourie said
that the “decision-making structure in the BJP had become too
centralised, with candidate selection, logistics, and even something
as mundane as badges were being distributed from the Centre.” Making
an oblique attack at the absence of Jaitley, the BJP ideologue said
that integrity of “some senior leaders, who had earlier served in
high government offices, was now being openly questioned.”
Jaswant took off
from where Shourie left and claimed that it was being insinuated
that he had taken up the accountability issue only because he had to
give up the room that he had been allotted as Leader of Opposition
in Rajya Sabha. A peeved Jaswant declared that the “he would not
contest any election or accept any party post henceforth”.
Emphasising the
BJP’s RSS roots, Advani said the BJP’s Hindutva “was in accordance
with the 1995 Supreme Court view that described it ‘a way of life’”.
By the way, this is one judgement that has come in for much
criticism in the legal domain.
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Rath Man Is
Back On Yatra Spree
Immediately
after the defeat of the BJP and shocked by his shattered dream
of becoming Prime Minister, L K Advani was quick to offer to
quit politics. But the love of power has held him back, and how!
Now, not only has he turned down requests of BJP leaders Jaswant
Singh and Arun Shourie to fix accountability for the Lok Sabha
election debacle, but is planning to put himself at the centre
stage once again, planning a yatra all over India. Advani’s
latest yatra plan, coming almost 20 years after his Ram Rath
Yatra and the subsequent yatras is apparently aimed at
rejuvenating the party. Advani quoted RSS ideologue Balasaheb
Deoras, who had decried the use of the word Hindu as if it
denoted something narrow and communal. “It is our firm belief
that words like Hindu and Bharatiya, Hindu Rashtra and Bharatiya
Rashtra are synonymous,” he stated. |
At one stage
Rajnath Singh’s described the BJP as a “right-wing entity” and later
both Advani and the party’s political resolution chose to call the
BJP a “nationalist organisation”.
There was some
confusion on ideological issues elsewhere, too. Members from the
South expressed surprise at the political resolution seemingly
equating ‘Hindutva’ with ‘Hinduism’ (“Hinduism or Hindutva is not to
be understood or construed narrowly...” read a sentence in the
resolution). Tamil Nadu leader L Ganesan wanted the
“Hinduism-Hindutva” distinction to be made clearer.
The resolution
said: “Theocracy or any form of bigotry is alien to our ethos.
Hindutva is a profound concept which is the real inspiration for a
resurgent
India with which
the BJP is proud to be associated. We need to draw inspiration from
our profound civilisational, cultural and spiritual heritage,
address the issues of the present with transparent commitment and
good governance, and lay the foundation of a very strong and
resurgent future.”
It added,
“giving equal treatment to all regardless of their personal faith is
integral to Hindutva”.
24
June 2009
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