You cannot rebuild the BJP organization sitting in a five star hotel in Goa
You cannot rebuild the BJP organization sitting in a five star hotel in Goa
The BJP leaders have turned brain dead. They look and sound stupider than Sonia. Vajpayee has demolished the BJP and all his attempts to project a secular image of himself have come to a big zero. What worse, because of him a legitimate Hindutva cause has got a bad name.The BJP organization is in doldrums. Vajpayee, in his penchant to appease the NDA allies by going out of his way, has rendered the state units of the BJP in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Karnataka ineffective and irrelevant. Even the senior BJP leadership is not taken very seriously in these states. There is a definite reason for it. The senior leadership has been working as an insulated coterie which does not appreciate the vagaries of grassroots politics. It has to offer no direction for the growth of the BJP organization in these states. Had Vajpayee been a shrewd politician, he would have used the strength of local BJP units to keep the allies under check. He sidelined the local BJP leaders and exposed himself to blatant political blackmail. Suppose elections happen soon, the 'almost dead' state units of the BJP will have no bargaining power to have a respectable deal with allies like TDP and Trinamool. It is quite possible that the allies would not like to be seen in company of the BJP. What happened in West Bengal? Mamata ditched the BJP as she found it useless in electoral terms.
The senile PM was so busy defending his personal image that he did not care for what was happening to his organization. In fact, the organization was told to do the bidding of the PM. This led to another serious problem. The BJP does not have grass roots strategy to wage a struggle now. The BJP worker is completely disenchanted with his 'five star' leaders. He is used to respecting, admiring, and following the leaders who are strong in character, selfless and self effacing. In contrast the BJP leadership of today is rank selfish and self centered. Many among them are also corrupt. This is the real reason behind growing indiscipline within the party. The BJP workers can see that everyone is fending for himself in the party and they too don't care any more. Many among them seek ways of making money while the BJP governments last.
Other Sangh Parivar organizations too have lost their credibility while defending a third rate government. Vajpayee has contributed greatly to their crisis of confidence. He sidelined and belittled them in policy formulation process. He also criticized them from time to time in order to bolster his secular image. Why is it that the ABVP fails to win student union elections in its strongholds? The VHP has also become a joke after what was done to its Ayodhya campaign. BMS is somehow trying to retain its hold over the working class by opposing the policies of this government, standing shoulder to shoulder with the leftists. For Vajpayee, becoming the PM was an end in itself. All the hard work and sacrifices of ordinary BJP workers through the long years after the country's independence has come to nothing. An opportunity to change the politics of this country has been misquandered in just few years of the Vajpayee government.
The grand idea of Cultural Nationalism lies in ruins
This is the worst that could happen to the BJP. The sole emphasis on saving the Vajpayee government and a few of the remaining state governments has sidelined the grand idea of Cultural Nationalism. It is increasingly getting translated into a strategy of communal polarization for electoral gains. The BJP leadership may blame the secularists for forcing it to stoop so low, nonetheless it is a huge failure in strategic terms.
The idea of Cultural Nationalism was supposed to achieve the following objectives: -
1. To emphasize the cultural unity of the country in spite of its diversities
2. To generate nationalistic fervor to galvanize the potential energies of our people for greater societal good
3. To bring back the glory of Bharat Mata and make India stand in the forefront of the march of the nationsThe BJP leadership has faltered badly on all these fronts. It could not communicate these ideas to the masses. In fact, it completely lost sight of these objectives while saving the PM's ass. We have never had a PM as uninspiring as Vajpayee. The party could neither serve the people nor its own interests. Those who believed truly in cultural nationalism continue being called communalists. They are treated as sacrificial goats. Their cause is sacrificed to prop up a bad and lackluster government and now their necks will be on the anvil to be butchered. Sonia's call to the Congress chief ministers to clamp down on communalism clearly hints at a blood bath. She is definite that her governments should be seen to be dealing with Sangh Parivar ruthlessly. It is going to be very tough for Sangh workers to carry on their programs in the Congress ruled states.
The contrast between the Congress Chief Minister's meet and Goa conclave of the BJP was very clear. Sonia was meeting her CMs to discuss the issues of governance and working out a strategy to nip the Hindutva agenda in the bud. She was talking about the programs that can benefit people and help the Congress ward off the ghosts of anti incumbency in the parliamentary elections. It was a focussed affair.
The BJP meet was about saving the government and somehow offering some sops to the middle class. The whole five star extravaganza focussed on Modi. No serious discussion took place about various issues facing the party. Ultimately a handful of people chalked out some knee jerk strategy and made all kind of announcements. The secular PM started talking about growing Islamic militancy across the globe suddenly. He continues to harp on the theme. It may help the party in some ways provided Vajpayee does not take a U turn. However, mark these words, he will do exactly this after a while. Why would he? Because he is not a man of convictions. He is a prisoner of his image.
The most ludicrous thing about the BJP organization and government is the attempt of the BJP leaders to blame the Congress for their failures. What does Vajpayee achieve by doing so? It is his old mindset of anti Congressism that prompts him to indulge in such meaningless talk. He is completely out of touch with modern day politics of straight and plain talking. He rakes up irrelevant issues in his public meetings and people keep wondering as to what is he trying to communicate. He rarely talks about the policies and programs of his government. He has yet to share with us his vision of a great nation. He talks more about the Congress and what this party is doing to the BJP than what the BJP is doing to itself and the nation.
The top leaders of the BJP behave like Ostrich
These idiots blame everyone else but themselves for their inept handling of the problems. In the Goa meet Advani mentioned indiscipline as one of the problems. Most of the BJP MLAs in Karnataka either defected from the party or were involved in cross voting. What else could they do? They had to do something. They were not given any program to fight the Congress in the state. Not a single BJP leader can match the stature of the Congress CM of the state. The leaders like Anant Kumar are having a ball in Delhi. None wants to dirty his Kurta Pyjama in the dust and grime of the state politics, sitting in the opposition. Everyone who is somebody in the BJP is seen in Delhi. State leaders prefer having their confabulations in the country's capital. For every small affair they rush to Delhi. Why won't there be indiscipline in the party? Why should anyone work hard when those who have hardly worked for the party hog the limelight and partake of the loot. Top leaders prefer the company of the suave, sophisticated, rich and beautiful. They don't even want to hear honest criticism of the party leadership and the government.
Moreover, they have their imaginary pet theories on 'why the party is failing'. They keep imposing them on the grass root workers. They expect the flummoxed workers to defend their ineptness and convey the good points of government's program to the masses. What are these good points? Reduction in interest rates on small savings! Increased price of cooking gas! Job cuts! More tax burden! No Ram temple! More killings at the hands of militants! No social security! Increased terror and strife! Cheating the investors by government owned mutual funds! Corruption of the party president!
How can you salvage the situation without acknowledging the reality?
You simply cannot. The reality is that every problem of the party was created by its top leadership. Even the Modi issue has gotten out of hand because of the confusion created by Vajpayee and Advani by their various pronouncements. They never stood by Modi. They always tried to distance themselves from the happenings in Gujarat. Vajpayee's exhortations to Modi to abide by the 'Rajdharm' and his poetry of despair was a thoughtless, and foolish image building exercise. This encouraged the Congress, the TDP, and other NDA allies to clamor for Modi's head to bolster their own image among Muslims as their true friends. The confusion got so confounded that the survival of the central government became an issue.
The country is back to square one. Every effort of this government will now be concentrated on playing the numbers game in the Parliament. Look at the way Vajpayee is contemplating on handing over the UP throne to Mayavati in exchange of BSP's support to his government in the parliament! Kanshiram shamelessly talks about 'you give me UP, I will save your prime ministership'. Vajpayee does not even cringe at this kind of cheap bargaining over the PM's chair. It is horrible. How can this be acceptable? Offering sexual favors to get defense contracts should also be an acceptable thing then.
The workers of the BJP in UP know it very well that an unprincipled BJP-BSP alliance will destroy the remaining hold of the party on the people. However, they have to keep mum. If they speak, they will become untouchables. The BJP, unlike the Congress, has no policy of re-instating its leaders who were once forced to live in wilderness. If you have fallen out of Vajpayee's favor, you cannot stay in the party for very long. You will be humiliated and finally chased out.
Sonia and her party have no right to condemn Modi
Whatever is happening in Gujarat is nothing compared with what happened in Delhi and elsewhere in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi went for elections without delay to cash in on the anti Sikh mood of the people. A commercial airlines pilot, whose wife wanted him to migrate to Italy, was anointed by Congress lackeys as the new king over the dead bodies of thousands of Sikhs and his own mother. None even mentioned about dangers to secularism at that time. None branded the Congress as communal. The nation witnessed the worst example of the politics of martyrdom in its history. A dead Indira proved to be a greater asset for a withering Congress party and Rajiv won the elections with more than two third majority. As far as the history of riots in recent times is concerned, Mumbai riots were bloodier.
It is increasingly getting obvious to everyone that death of Hindus is a matter of no consequence to the Secularists. Their only concern is the Muslim vote bank. As they compete among themselves they get more and more blatant about it. It harms their cause. Today if anyone talks about saving the secular fabric of India, you can be sure that he or she is after Muslim votes. Even Vajpayee has the same motive when he talks about secularism. We hardly hear anyone talk about saving the secular fabric of India when Hindus or other electorally insignificant minorities are at the receiving end. Selective secularism of this kind takes a bizarre turn when it comes to the issue of illegal aliens. If these aliens are Hindus, they can be extradited without any problem. As soon as they are found to be Muslims, the secularists raise a stink over their extradition.
These stupidities will lead us nowhere. We have to somehow delink the politics of vote banks from the secular or communal issue. This is the only way out. The responsibility to do so lies with the secularists. They have to redeem themselves to regain their credibility. They should do it if they truly believe in their holy cause.
