A Prescription for the BJP's Revival

good advice...

Hindutva is embarrassed by Hinduness. A new generation of confident Indians has started to move beyond its logic of fear and hate. Will the BJP be able to seize this moment for creative reinvention?


http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=Ne270609cover story.asp

The BJP may be short-sighted in analysing its defeat, but its electoral defeat does point to a defeat for Hindutva itself. At the core of the Hindutva project is a war between Hinduism and Hindutva that is around 150 years old. It began in the middle of the 19th century, when the ideas of Hindutva began to take shape with the Hindu reform movements. These movements were modern and borrowed much from the imperial West. And the new Hinduism that emerged out of these reforms can be considered a colonial product. That is why Gandhi was convinced that all these reform movements, in the long run, would do more harm than good to Hinduism. In this sense, the recent defeat of Hindutva today is also a defeat of the colonizing West in India because the Hindutva project was a gift of the colonial West to Indian consciousness. That does not mean that the globalising West has lost its clout.

Reformers were trying to produce tamed versions of religion able to sustain pan-Indian nationalism
Today, both the detractors and defenders of Hindutva are confused about what it stands for. This truth may be unpalatable to many, but Hindutva grew in an atmosphere of admiration of the European nation-state, nationality and nationalism and our attempt to have an indigenous forms of all three. When Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the one who formalized Hindutva by writing a Bible for it, insisted that Hindus must not read the Vedas and Upanishads but read science and technology and western political theory, this is what he had in mind. He was looking for a way to transform a chaotic, diverse, anarchic society into an organized, masculine, western-style nation-state, something akin to Bismarck’s Germany.

dost yar i got several haddis to pick..

1. jan sangh was never right wing..swatantra party was.
2. main reason jan sangh was disciplined was because its cadre were on deputation from the RSS. RSS with its porgram of "sangathan" bred these disciplined sevaks. you take out RSS from jan sangh, and you get janata party (which is bjp + jdu, bsp etc).
3. why would bjp abandon 3 points? which voted would it gain if it drops 3 points (ram, 370, UCC)? which votes would it lose? imo electoral math is simply unclear. what prolly you mean is it should de-emphasize e.g. ram and UCC? will it get muslim votes in the short term? you got to make that case first before dishing advice.

Dost sahib:

India’s unity is in its diversity. Regional parties bring a powerful ability to allow interests of others to be included and executed at national level. This is diversity playing its role and evolving through power sharing (or devolution) within Indian framework. This is new from new India. It was neither there nor permitted under Nehru, Indira or even Rajiv. This is from a new generation. Clearly Congress / UPA have done a better job in melding itself into new framework which today’s India, a young India, has created.

I am for two-party democracy and hence an alternative to UPA is crucial at the national level.

BJP fails to recognize its value. It failed to create new leadership in new mold. Its hindutva is redundant. There was a fascination with it for some time, but it cannot deliver value to all. Sticking to it, is like Jinnah sticking to the name called Muslim League and trying to convince dalits and others in post independent Pakistan or during the independence movement to support it. Hindutva with BJP is emotional, just as Muslim in Muslim League was emotional and not viable second alternative other than demand for a separate country. ML succeeded in a separate country. If that is not BJP’s goal, then it has to first learn a completely different way to make it inclusive.

There is a fundamental change that is needed, so that right of center party can evolve. There is a need for right of center party. Republican Party is lost in the U.S. to find a message that attracts younger generation. Their “less government”, “all American” etc. messages are not sufficient. BJP suffers from similar ailments.

It must diagnose, discuss and acknowledge the disease first, before it can search for treatment. All BJP leadership senior to young has come from a single hindutva mold. There was never clean up. Congress on the other hand had seen several clean up.

Who is going to do this clean up in BJP? Certainly not, Advani, Vajpayee to Rajnath Singh to Jaswant Singh, Shourie or Jaitly. BJP’s problem is not with the soil, but with the seed. It has to get new seed (new ideas, new messages, new plans etc.) before it can address soil (organization, leadership etc.). Leaders and organizations will emerge.

Jang:

You are very correct that Swantrata Party was the first right of center party. Its top leadership Rajgopalachari, Minoo Masani etc. were not driven by creating and marketing a narrow identity of hindutva or similar. BJP geneology and Muslim League geneology were, and BJP has been.

pmishra2#2:

"A new generation of confident Indians has started to move beyond its logic of fear and hate. "

...and so should the bjp.

I do not think that there is a rigid, fully accepted definition of hindutva. I am suggesting that the concept should be updated with a view to embracing the green agenda which will appeal to environmentalists.

jang#3:

1. Both Swatantra and Jan Sangh were right wing or at least viewed as such. Swantantra was viewed as a secular party of the landlords and capitalists while Jan Sangh was considered a communal party of the bania traders - one of the big bourgeois and the other of petty bourgeois.

2. I don't think that the relationship of the RSS with the BJP has changed much from the Jan Sangh days; even JS had outsiders in it, with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee himself from outside. Even now, the RSS sends its pracharaks on deputation to the BJP. The only difference may be that the RSS is not finding many new recruits and most of its members are with one foot in the grave as the local expression goes.

3. By dropping the three issues, the BJP will not lose any votes because they simply are not getting them any votes any more. Nobody believes in them, including the BJP which dumps them at the first opportunity in every electoral alliance. It may not get them any Muslim votes, at least initially, but it may get some of the secular hindu votes who do not like those three issues. More importantly, it will reduce the Muslim hostility to it to the extent that they may vote for the non-bjp candidate they most like instead of their current "anybody but bjp" strategy.

Dost,
I have often heard that Indians vote their caste rather than cast their votes. How did the caste preferences affect the outcome of the last election? Did they help Congress or hurt BJP? Which is more important for parties---appealing to Muslims or appealing to caste loyalty? How can BJP appeal across different castes to win future elections?
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

anil#4:

"It has to get new seed (new ideas, new messages, new plans etc.)"

Yes, this is one of the messages I have tried to convey in this piece. The old ideas have been milked for all that they were worth.
The task before them, like any party which starts from the extreme and moves towards the centre, is to retain its original constituency while trying to attract newcomers to its fold. In case of the BJP, that original constituency is the hard-core hindu nationalists; they also constitute the bulk of its volunteer corps, which comes from the RSS. So, if the party has to keep its umbilical cord with the RSS, the parent body would have to modify its ideology too. Is it possible? That's the 64-rupee question whose answer I do not know.

Dost:

The danger of BJPs failure is that two party democracy will suffer a set back. Recently I had watched Jaswant Singh's interview and the message I got was that he was a tired horse, and no one is there. More like Jinnah and Muslim League situation.

Re: # 8

Riaz:

There is no doubt that in hindi belt votes banks are well entrenched. Without the support of Dalit and Muslim vote banks no party can win. Congress benefitted in the Parliament elections from these two vote banks. In the state assembly elections Mayawati had benefitted from these two vote banks and in her election strategy she had included upper caste hindus also. The congress and BJP wipe out was clear when she did it. In parliamentary elections, a lot of credit to win back Muslim and Dalit votes goes to Rahul, Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi. Varun Gandhi (BJP) lost out and portrayed themselves in hindutva corner.

Re: # 11
Anil, Thanks. Is there an alignment or pattern that repeats itself thru election cycles?

Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Those who blame BJP's debacle for it's shout against islam/terrorism, they are pure naive...It is not the slogan, which caused debacle...

a. BJP used to have strong OBC and Dalit base (the block of around 28%-30% vote), which used to favour BJP. They are no more part of BJP. Leaders like Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharati, Suraj Bhan have been sidelined and BJP is back into a Brahmin/Bania party....


b. BJP has failed to bring fresh faces in it's fold. Though most of the urban-educated voters strongly dislike Congress, BJP failed to project an able leader. Advani is no leader; shouting against PM or talking some sh** is no leadership...Pramod mahajan was far decent person, at least, while talking in press...

c. The middle level leaders are too much power hungry and never likes to go the people.

d. BJP had come to power, with an image that, a party with difference...
Somehow, Congress, with help of Tarun Tejpal, started a series of sting operations to prove that BJP is equaly corrupt, like that of Congress...That has at least shifted focus from Gandhi family, who used be treated as most corruot family in India. Laloo etc. also helped a lot in this regard...People, those, who are in their 20s, are not aware of misdeeds of Congress, special that of Gandhi family...


Where ever, BJP connected with it's core constituency, they are doing well ...
Yedurappa in Karnataka and Narendra Modi in Gujrat, both are OBC leaders and they have kept focus on OBC and tribal votes, with series of sops for girls in that section of society....
Without moslem vote, BJP can come to power...but then Congress has to play stupid...According to left parties, Congress played soft Hindutwa (sanctioning raids in mini-pakistans in Delhi /Mumbai etc...)....That has created an image that congress is not lenient against muslas/terrorists...

Couple of years back, during Gujart election, Sonia Gandhi raised the issue of Sohrabuddin. In spite of high level of dissidents within BJP, Congress failed to make any mark...Now, no more Sohrabuddin, no more Modi in Congress election campaign...

Terrorism/musla appeasement is still an election issue and people dislike that very much, accross India ( this is one issue, where a Gujju, a Tamil, an Oriya and a Kannadiga will agree...Such is strong detest for Islam in Indian middle class mind)....

Without strong regional leaders, BJP will fail....Others are periferal...

dm...
BJP is far closer to Indiustrialists ( Banias) than Brahmins...Why will they bother about Ganga etc?.
The list of criminals ( actual) in BJP list is very long...
Yeh, for the sake of short term gain, BJP lost it's share of opportunity....

There is a tendency to underestimate and stereotype Indian voting public calling them "Vote by casts" and "Vote banks" etc. The public constantly surprises everyone time and again.

While vote bank politics was the norm in the 70s & 80s, it is no longer the case everywhere. Otherwise you cannot explain what happened to the communists in WB, how BJP is ruling in Karnataka which is traditionally a congress stronghold, Or the rise of the regional parties.

It is important to acknowledge the reality that the Indian voting Public is a lot smarter & wiser than people think. They deserve respect.

Re: # 12

Riaz:

One pattern that is clear is that Vote Banks in Hindi belt, and regional parties in the south and elsewhere are here to stay. I do not see this development as bad but as a way to include and execute various local and regional interests at the national level. Otherwise India is too massive, U.P.'s electorate is probably as big as that of the U.S.

At the policy level I do not see any pattern yet, as Indian political parties do not have ideological differences, except probably the communists.

The weakness of this vote bank and regional parties is that criminals or suspects are able to muscle their way in if they can muster a vote bank, which is not difficult in rural constituencies in India.

Indian judiciary has not been able to act fast enough to keep the system clean. If and when this happen, the party system will get cleaned. It took only one person to clean India's election machinery. His name is T.N. Sheshan.

Some strong justice is needed. The problem is that by the time, a person becomes the justice he / she is only a couple of years from retirement. In my personal view this is a weakness and prevents judiciary to be effective. Being effective is more important for the judiciary, and longer tenures which outlasts the politicians who may select and appoint them are important. This is the only way to get an active judiciary which is independent long enough. In the U.S. a justice out lasts the president, senators etc. who elects him / her.