Hindutva after India’s election

To everyone’s surprise, India’s elections ended with the rightist Hindu nationalist BJP alliance being thrown out and replaced by the left-leaning CongressParty alliance. Of course, no sooner did the BJP — which ran on a platform of taking credit for India’s high-tech revolution — go down than the usual suspects from the antiglobalisation movement declared this was a grass-roots rejection of India’s globalisation strategy. India voted for effective globalisation by Thomas L Friedman argued that they got it exactly wrong. What Indian voters were saying was not: “Stop the globalisation train, we want to get off.” It was, “Slow down the globalisation train, and build me a better step-stool, because I want to get on.”

Whatever the reason the BJP led Indian government marked the first Hindu based party to have ever ruled Hindu dominated India since its independence. This Hindu power was a source of pride for Hindus within India as well as Hindus outside India. The BJP after all introduced the Indian version of Indian Arrival Day, Dual Citizenship for Diaspora Indians, and begun a real outreach to Indians outside Indian soil. The unexpected defeat of the BJP was disappointing to say the least about Hindus globally. Given however what appears to be shaky Indian government led by the Congress Party of India, it is of interest to Hindus globally to understand what the BJP is currently doing to regain political office in India. If anyone had understood what went wrong with the BJP in the recent Lok Sabha polls, it was the BJP leader L K Advani. He was frank in admitting that the “India shining” slogan and the campaign focus on development and governance did not help the party. He was not only candid in admitting the mistakes but also confident about re building the party. If Advani follows the Soros route probably he may go for some corrections. Kalyani Shankar’s “Tough task ahead for BJP to lift its sagging morale” (Free Press Journal, June 5, 2004).

Advani has always been seen as the person who built up the BJP, through his rath yatra, through his hard line Hindutva and through his sheer hard work. Within the party Advani has primacy. The post-election scenario has made it clear that Advani is in the driving seat and taking up the challenge. Advani showed his fighting spirit in his first press conference after the defeat. Advani pointed out that while his party should be concerned about the defeat it was not as bad as 1984 when the BJP won just two seats and Rajiv Gandhi won a massive mandate after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. He also pointed out that the BJP has got just seven seats less than the Congress, which is claiming a mandate for itself. Advani expressed confidence that his party would come back which must be seen as a pep talk to his party workers. There are three immediate areas where the BJP has to concentrate for revival. One is to set its own house in order. The second is to keep the NDA intact and the third is to play the role of an effective opposition.

The first task before the BJP leadership is to lift the sagging morale of the party. This is going to be a major task. It will take a lot of effort to persuade the party workers to work hard. Since there is no government, all the top leaders will be adjusted in the party and they have to be given specific tasks. Secondly, there is not much time left for rebuilding the party. The BJP cannot afford to sit back because elections are due in Bihar and Maharashtra soon. In both the states the BJP has high stakes along with its allies. Thirdly, there is a view within the Sangh Parivar that the elections were lost because the BJP had moved away from Hindutva and also due to internal quarrels. The VHP is openly critical of the BJP while the RSS has also made comments that the internal quarrels were one of the reasons for the debacle. Gujarat is a classic example of groupism and internal sabotage and the demand to remove Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is significant. So there is urgency in putting its house in order. The basic problem before the party would now be to decide on its identity whether it should go back to Hindutva and Ram mandir.

Advani has already indicated that commitment to Hindutva is always there. In the absence of any other theme like the “India shining” the strategists have to think of new slogans. BJP had tried to take the Congress space by becoming centrist but this had failed. At best, BJP could show different faces to different constituencies as it has always done, by speaking in different voices. It is also important to note that the BJP has lost in Ayodhya, Benares and Mathura constituencies. On the allies front, the BJP has to ensure that the NDA remained in tact. It came to power on the strength of allies and it lost because of the poor performance of allies, particularly in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The party has come to grips with the situation and has made Advani the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha while Vajpayee remains a ceremonial chairman of the parliamentary party of both the houses.

It will be Advani who will play an active role in the opposition. Since most of the major parties are either in government or supporting government, the BJP does not have too many partners even for floor coordination. In any case there were only nine allies with the BJP in 2004 as compared to the 24 partners in 1999. The BJP may train its guns on Sonia Gandhi and criticise her remote control over the government. Since Sonia has cleverly removed the foreigner issue from the BJP agenda, not much can be done about it. The other aspect it can concentrate on is on the security and the foreign policy. The new budget will give ample opportunity to attack the treasury benches.