Hindu Divided Family

In a deeply introspective essay, LK Advani’s key aide says that if the BJP wants to win, it needs to rethink its approach to Muslims, Hindutva, the poor, the RSS, and itself

SUDHEENDRA KULKARNI
Political advisor, BJP

Lone Charioteer Advani came to the correct conclusions post-2004, but failed to implement them

FIRST THINGS first. Before I reflect on why the Bharatiya Janata Party lost the Lok Sabha elections and how it can revive itself, it must be said that the outcome of the polls is a resounding victory for India’s democracy. True, there are many glaring deficiencies in our democracy. But the people of India have shown once again to the world that it is they who decide the fate of governments, parties and leaders in this country, and also that their verdict is accepted by one and all in the polity. India is not like China, where its communist rulers fear that free elections with multiple choices before the people would destabilise their nation. Nor are we like Thailand, where warring parties recently laid siege to the airport and parliament building. We are not like many other countries in Asia and the world where the sanctity of elections is contested, where leaders are jailed or banished, and where the military replaces the independent judiciary and the election commission. Undoubtedly, the renewed recognition that India, inspite of its bewildering diversities and problems, is unshakable in its commitment to democracy has raised its prestige globally. Even as a person belonging to the defeated party, I feel proud of this triumph of India’s democracy.

Next. Congratulations to the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi and their party. They outsmarted the BJP in the electoral battle, which I believed along with many others outside my party, was ours to lose. The BJP snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. The Congress did the opposite.

A third prefatory point. In commenting on the causes that led to the BJP’s defeat, I cannot but say upfront that I too carry my share of responsibility. As one who was closely associated with the party’s election campaign, specifically the campaign of LK Advani, our prime ministerial candidate, I too committed mistakes. To be meaningful, productive and curative, collective introspection in the party must begin with each one individually. Collective responsibility is a laudable principle, but it can often become a mask for persons in key positions at the central and state levels to evade their individual responsibility. This has often happened in the BJP. The party must, therefore, conduct a rigorous and objective analysis of all the factors that led to its defeat, and this should be done with the participation of the largest possible number of party workers and supporters at various levels.

Beneath the pervasive disappointment, the mood in the party is indeed introspective. After all, this is the second consecutive defeat for the BJP in its bid for power at the Centre. In 2004, it had lost after heading the government of the National Democratic Alliance for six years. The verdict of the people, hence, clearly meant that they wanted change. In 2009, after five years of largely dismal performance by the government of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, the BJP could not convince the voters that they should vote in favour of change. Rather, the truth is that the people wanted change but were not convinced that the BJP or the BJP-led NDA assured the kind of change they wanted.

REASONS FOR THE BJP DEFEAT IN 2009

The BJP’s failure to convince the people on this score is rooted in a combination of structural, political, ideological, organizational and campaign-related reasons. The party’s longstanding structural weakness is that although it has succeeded in bi-polarising India’s politics at the Centre, its geographical presence in the country is much narrower than that of the Congress. It won only one seat in four big states that together account for 143 out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha — West Bengal (42), Andhra Pradesh (42), Tamil Nadu (39) and Kerala (20). The Congress’ tally: 60 seats. Unless the BJP overcomes this structural weakness by increasing its own political and electoral strength in these big states, it can never emerge as an equal and durable alternative to the Congress nationally.

The second reason was the failure of the BJP’s political strategy — in particular, its alliance strategy. A principal reason for the party’s success in forming the government, under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, in 1998 and 1999 was its ability to forge alliances, especially in three of the four afore-mentioned big states (Trinamool Congress in West Bengal; Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh; and first AIADMK and later DMK in Tamil Nadu). Its alliance with the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa (21 Lok Sabha seats) also proved to be extremely useful. In the aftermath of the 2004 defeat, many of our allies left the NDA. The main reason for their leaving was not that the NDA had been defeated, but their perception that the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002 was an important cause of the defeat and, hence, their conclusion that continuation of the alliance with the BJP would cost them Muslim votes. Between 2004 and 2009, the BJP did nothing to address this factor. As a result, it failed to win back a single ally in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, or win a single ally in Kerala. Moreover, almost on the eve of the 2009 elections, the BJP actually lost an important ally in Orissa due to inept alliance management.

It is true that, in the early months of 2009, the BJP forged three new alliances — with Asom Gana Parishad in Assam, Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal in UP, and Omprakash Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana. But these could not make up for the damage caused by the loss of our earlier alliances. In the absence of a cohesive and numerically strong alliance, the BJP could not assure the voters that it was in a position to form a stable government at the Centre. Hence, by default, the voters not only chose the Congress over the BJP but also gave it increased parliamentary strength to quench their own thirst for stability.

CONFUSION ABOUT HINDUTVA

Why did the BJP invite this weakness upon itself? The reason has to do with the widespread ideological confusion within the party over what the BJP’s advocacy of Hindutva actually means. The confusion has persisted for a long time, but it intensified after the defeat of the BJP/NDA in 2004. There was a strong view within a section of the party — and a much stronger and almost unanimous view within the larger Sangh Parivar — that the Vajpayee’s government was defeated because the BJP had “abandoned Hindutva”. The argument went like this: “In its bid to form the NDA government, the BJP kept aside its core ideological commitments on the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the abrogation of Article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code. The Hindu voters, who had enabled the BJP to emerge as a strong force in Indian politics in the late 1980s and 1990s, felt let down by this. In 2004, the BJP again kept the Hindutva issues in cold storage and made development its main plank. This further disillusioned the Hindu voters. Their indifference led to the party’s defeat in 2004.” In the aftermath of the setback in 2009, many angry voices have again blamed the party leadership, Advani in particular, for the same reason — “You lost because you abandoned Hindutva.”

It’s a deeply flawed view. It errs in believing that the BJP’s Hindu base is synonymous with the totality of Hindu voters. The fact is, Hindus never vote as a block for any particular party. There is only a small section of Hindus who have voted as Hindus for what they perceived as a pro-Hindu party — the Jana Sangh in the past and the BJP in later years. Their number increased dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to the Ayodhya movement, which, for about ten years, caught the imagination of a large section of the Hindu society. However, the BJP’s rising strength in the late 1990s was also on account of another important factor, which had nothing “Hindu” about it: the people’s desire to give the BJP also an opportunity to govern the country. This desire was further whetted by Vajpayee’s pan-Indian popularity, as was evident from the appeal of the slogan “Sabko dekha baari baari, Ab ki baari Atal Behari”.

If the BJP’s electoral success in 1998 and 1999 was due to factors beyond what are narrowly seen as “Hindutva” issues, subsequent events have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the party’s Hindu base is small even within Hindu society, not to speak of the electorate as a whole. This small Hindu base on its own can never bring the party to power at the Centre. Between 2004 and 2009, some people were toying with the idea of constructing a ‘Hindu Agenda’, and creating a large enough ‘Hindu Vote-Bank’ around it. Even the idea of establishing a new Hindu political organization, as a counter to the BJP, was being talked about. In the aftermath of the BJP’s defeat in the 2009 parliamentary elections, these ideas may get a new lease of life. They are doomed to fail.

At a broader level, it is high time the BJP seriously debated and decided what it means by ‘Hindutva’, and also what formulations of ‘Hindutva’ are not acceptable to it. True, the BJP must remain an ideology-driven party. But without clarity on what the BJP’s ideology is, the party cannot win the support of more Hindus, let alone the support of Muslims and Christians. Understood as ‘Cultural Nationalism’ in an inclusive, integrative and noncommunal sense, Hindutva indeed defines the organizing and sustaining principle of the Indian Nation. However, just as the noble principle of secularism can be perverted and practiced for politically expedient reasons — the selfstyled ‘secular’ parties have indeed done it to isolate the BJP — Hindutva is also vulnerable to narrow interpretations and bigoted practice. My own understanding of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s ‘Integral Humanism’, which the BJP accepts as its guiding philosophy, convinces me that it completely rejects narrow, exclusivist and communal interpretations of India’s national identity.

FAILURE TO OVERCOME THE PARTY’S LIMITED SOCIAL BASE

Post-2004, many leaders in the BJP, Advani in particular, had come to the correct conclusion that the party faced twin tasks: (a) to nurse its core ideological/social constituency (which had felt let down for various reasons, including the valid reason of a lack of sufficient dialogue and coordination between the BJP leaders in the Vajpayee government and the leaders and activists of the Sangh Parivar at various levels); and (b) to expand the BJP’s appeal and support base beyond its core constituency, both on its own and by forging alliances. Sadly, between 2004 and 2009, the BJP leadership attended only to the first task and did very little to attend to the second. For example, even within the Hindu society, large sections (especially Dalits) have remained outside the influence of the BJP. No effort was made to endear the party to them.

As far as taking the BJP closer to the minorities (Muslims and Christians) is concerned, both confusion and indifference within the party are of Himalayan magnitude. The mentality of a large section of the party is so dogmatic that any idea of promoting the welfare and development of Indian Muslims, or of addressing their legitimate concerns, is quickly brushed aside as “appeasement”. In five long years after 2004, the BJP did not come up with a single worthwhile initiative which Muslims could welcome. Take the example of the Sachar Committee report. No doubt, the Congress party, guided by its votebank politics, tried to appease the Muslim community with some dangerous and thoroughly condemnable pronouncements — reservation for Muslims on religious grounds and the Prime Minister’s shocking statement that Muslims should have the first claim on the country’s budgetary resources. But was everything about the Sachar Committee report or its recommendations objectionable? After all, by highlighting widespread socio-economic backwardness within the Muslim community, the report laid bare the successive Congress governments’ own failures and betrayals towards a community that has been its most loyal supporter. Sadly, the BJP rejected the Sachar report completely and unreservedly. The party could have responded to its findings and recommendations in a more nuanced manner by presenting some alternative proposals for addressing poverty and backwardness among Muslims. It didn’t do so because, as I have mentioned earlier, the party’s collective mind is suffering from a prolonged confusion about how to deal with issues relating to Indian Muslims. Those leaders who want to think and act innovatively know that they are prone to be quickly accused of following a “Muslim- appeasement” policy. The BJP’s Minority Morcha is a non-operational body, whose voice is heard neither within the party nor within the Muslim community.

The entrenched thinking within the BJP is that “Muslims never vote for us and therefore there is no need to think or do anything for them.” The party gave tickets to only three Muslim candidates in the recent Lok Sabha elections. True, the party’s manifesto had some good points about minorities, but these could hardly change the image of the BJP as a party that does not care for Muslims. Purely in electoral terms, all this contributed to the BJP’s grievous self-disablement. Consider the following. The party has a near-zero presence in 143 Lok Sabha seats in four big states. On top of that, it practically writes off 15% of the electorate who are Muslims. In recent years, even Christians have turned against the BJP. Even within the Hindu society, the BJP’s support base is less than 25% nationally. Thus, both geographically and socially, the party’s electoral base is not strong enough to challenge the Congress. On top of all these, we had the Varun Gandhi episode in the middle of the election campaign, which, along with other factors, clearly led to the consolidation of Muslim votes in favour of the Congress in UP.

NEGATIVISM IN THE BJP’S CAMPAIGN

In hindsight, it is obvious that the BJP failed to utilize its five years in the opposition to construct and present a positive agenda that could catch the imagination of the people beyond its core support base. We harped too much on the UPA government’s failures, without convincing the people how we would perform better. The party rightly adopted ‘Good Governance, Development and Security’ as its plank for Elections 2009. However, none of these three ideals was intellectually fleshed out in terms of specific policies and programmatic initiatives, nor made the basis of a sustained mass campaign. The people, who were hardly enthused by the performance of the UPA government, were keen on knowing if the BJP had superior ideas on tackling the problems of price rise, unemployment, economic downturn, plight of farmers, etc. The middle class wanted to know if the BJP had better plans to address the shortage of housing, water and power, the problem of transportation, and the rising costs of education and healthcare. India’s young men and women were waiting to see if the BJP was capable of making them dream big and if it could connect to their own rising aspirations.

Advani did speak of the Ladli Laxami Yojana for the education of the girl child, his infrastructure vision and his vision for ‘IT as an instrument for transforming Bharat’. But all this did not cohere into a sharply focused superior agenda of governance and development. On the issue of security, which was a BJP’s strong point, we fumbled on many occasions. Even the Congress party’s completely baseless criticism on the Kandahar episode put the BJP on the backfoot. On the whole, we did not dictate the agenda for Elections 2009. As a result, the media as well as a large number of uncommitted voters concluded that this was an ‘issue-less’ election.

LEADERSHIP IN DISARRAY

My last point in the analysis of the 2009 elections concerns the state of the BJP organization. Never in the history of the Jana Sangh or the BJP was the party enfeebled by so much disarray at the top. The disorder at the Centre and also in several states (examples: Rajasthan, UP and Delhi) demoralised the disunited party workers down the line, with disastrous results. Although Advani was projected as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, this took place after he had been dis-empowered after the Mohammad Ali Jinnah episode. The cropping up of Narendra Modi’s name in the middle of the campaign did not help at all. To the people of India, the contrast was obvious: there is unified command in the Congress party, but not in the BJP.

Look at the irony. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul made an essentially weak Prime Minister like Dr Manmohan Singh look strong by backing him solidly. In contrast, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar made a strong leader like Advani, whose contribution to the growth of the party is enormous, look weak, helpless and not fully in command. Saddened by this, many dedicated party workers bemoaned, “Atalji succeeded in becoming Prime Minister because he had Advaniji working for him faithfully and determinedly. Unfortunately this time, there was no Advaniji working similarly for Advaniji.” Of course, it is also true that Advani himself failed to assert his leadership at crucial points before and during the campaign.

ROAD AHEAD

Where does the BJP go from here? The answer depends on how honest and widespread the introspection about the past and the future is within the BJP, and how thorough the corrective action in the near future will be. For this to happen, the party should encourage free debate, based on constructive criticism and self-criticism. But let it be understood both by the BJP’s supporters and adversaries the outcome of Elections 2009 is by no means a catastrophe for the party. True, our strength in the Lok Sabha came down from 182 in 1999 to 138 in 2004, and has further come down to 116 in 2009. But in defeat we should not lose a sense of balance and perspective. After all, in 1998, the Congress was reduced to a tally of only 110 in the Lok Sabha. Yet, six years later it bounced back. So can the BJP. Today the BJP is not only the main opposition party in the 15th Lok Sabha but, in some ways, the sole opposition party because the Left parties have been completely marginalized. What this means is that, whereas there is need for honest introspection, there is no need for despair at all.

This is not to belittle the fact that difficult days are ahead for the BJP, at least in the short term. The Congress seems to be on the revival path in UP and Bihar. The support for the BJP is declining in its two strongholds — Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. In Rajasthan and Delhi, the BJP has again scored self-goals. In Karnataka, in spite of the good showing in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its government face many problems that demand immediate attention. As far as leadership is concerned, the party needs to address the challenges in the post-Advani era, while recognizing that it needs the guiding hand of karmayogi Advani — who embodies the best of the BJP — for as long as he can be active in public life. His message of ‘Good Governance, Development and Security’ has relevance for the BJP in the future too. However, the party has to infuse positive and inspiring content into this message, and the content has to become more visible in states where the BJP is in power. One of the most important learnings from the NDA government, as well as from the governments of Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh and Nitish Kumar, is that inclusive development should become as important an element of the ideology for a Nation First party like the BJP as, for example, Hindutva.

Here is a sensitive question that the BJP cannot shirk. Issues relating to the right relationship between the BJP and the RSS also need to be candidly debated for mutual good. The RSS is indeed a nationalist organization, and there are many valid reasons why India needs a non-communal pro- Hindu organization committed to the ideal of Hindu unity and renaissance. However, just as the BJP needs introspection, the RSS needs it no less. Its leaders must ask themselves, and answer the question honestly and earnestly, “Why is the acceptability of the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad limited in Hindu society itself?” No less important is the challenge of re-orienting the party’s thinking and action on issues relating to the suffering of the poor and the downtrodden, and the severe regional and social imbalances in India’s development.

The BJP can indeed bounce back. But it can do so only if it first renews and empowers itself comprehensively — in its ideology, its geographical-social spread, its own political strength, its mass activity, its alliance-building, its cadre-based organizational network, and its leadership.

Kulkarni was a key aide to former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and
a member of the BJP’s Election Strategy Group, 2009

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