Will old bones revitalize BJP?

The old warhorse is back. Rattled by the demoralizing defeat in the UP elections it did not trust the younger leadership to guide its fortunes through the crucial days ahead. This was important as the countdown for the Lok Sabha elections is perceived to be already on. In the process cold water has been poured on the bold and the young who thought that they were better suited to lead the BJP. It is also presumed by the BJP stalwarts that the octogenarian leader would remain in the pink of health.

by REPORTER@DAYAFTERINDIA.COM

The RSS backing for Lal Krishna Advani as Bharatiya Janata Party’s next Prime Ministerial candidate ensures that he will undertake the

difficult task of reviving the party’s fortunes with a hardcore Hindutva agenda. The BJP has remained in a state of demoralization after its defeat in the last parliamentary election, and later, at the hands of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh that virtually broke its back. Ever since it has been looking for alternative strategies, new leaders and catchy slogans to turn around its fortunes. It did not trust the younger leadership, but opted for the old trusted Hindutva warhorse in order to take the party back on the sectarian path.

His nomination by the tired, old leadership has poured water on the ambitions of the younger leaders who too were in the running, thinking that they would be better suited to mobilize the youth in support of the party. That not having happened, the musclemen of the Bajrang Dal and the RSS will henceforth be in the forefront when it comes to aggressively appealing to the sentiments of the majority community. Mr. Advani will be 82 when the next Lok Sabha elections are due in 2009, and the presumption being that he will continue to remain in good physical condition.

Having spent six decades of his life in the Hindutva outfits, starting as an RSS pracherak, Mr. Advani has proved to be a great survivor, having survived bad times and bad leaders and himself becoming party chief more than twice. Of course, he suffered the humiliation of having been forced by the RSS to resign as BJP president, but survived through sheer perseverance and his unfailing commitment to Hindutva.The setback to the health of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee made him see the opportunity and he re-established his credentials vis-à-vis the RSS and secured its backing for the shadow prime minister’s post.

It cannot be said that the old guard and the younger leadership have accepted the situation ungrudgingly, but considering the state of the party and its lack of focus, they were left with no choice. Narendra Modi, who has shown unmistakable signs of arrogance of power and intolerance of criticism from within the ranks and outside, also needed to be cut to size and his personality cult and larger-than-life projection had to be curbed. The old-time Advani baiters in the party were forced to come round and nominate him to the coveted post, which does not automatically help him realize his cherished ambition. The national Democratic Alliance having almost disintegrated, with some of its components having opted for third front (which does not look like taking off) it too has been left with no choice other than to reconciled to the BJP decision on Mr. Vajpayee’s successor.

As an old party survivor, Mr. Advani known for his crafty networking is a man of strong likes and dislikes and can even be ruthless while dealing with opponents. But he will not be a free man; his old party colleagues, as will as, BJP President Rajnath Singh will keep a close watch on him and ensure that he does not turn authoritarian in his ways. Me. Advani has hustled the party into nominating him on the plea that mid-term elections were only months away and the party could not go to the polls with a sick and immobile Vajpayee leading it. The party having yet to recover from the trauma of its last defeat now sees hope in turning again to the Hindutva, unmindful of the fact that in spite of six years of BJP’s rule the promised Ram temple at Ayodhya was never built and the miracle may again not happen even if the BJP were to return to power at the Centre. Then, how do they expect the ignorant and gullible Indian masses to trust them yet another time?

Much water has flown down the Ganga in the past eight years and leaders like Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and others have demonstrated that even the upper caste Hindus can no longer be opiated with religious slogans which do not either feed, or clothe or shelter them. Of course, the extremist fringe will always shout religious slogans to justify its existence and provide the audience for Mr. Advani’s religious discourses, apart from attacks on the UPA government and its leaders. Phrases, such as, “appeasement” of the minority community and “minorityism” practiced by the UPA have lost their tang. But, he has given clear indication that he will most probably resume the BJP’s journey, which began with the Ram Rath yatra from an amorphous right-of-centre platform of Hindutva, targeting not only the minority community, but also the nation-wide secular and liberal constituency that had kept the BJP at bay for close to four decades after independence.

Mr. Advani has ensured that the party goes into an election mode. The BJP has initiated a massive exercise, aided by five research agencies,to identy candidates for 350 important Lok Sabha seats, as well as, for local assemblies separately. From the beginning of the New Year, it plans to organize dozens of rallies in different parts of the country to mobilize voters for elections. It is not counting on its traditional strongholds in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest number of MPs to Lok Sabha. It now hopes that Bahujan Samaj Party can play spoilsport for the Congress like it did in Maharashtra in 2004. If the BSP manages to take away around seven percent of the vote in the Hindi heartland, that would put the party in stronger position vis-à-vis the Congress. In the South, if the TDP and AIADMK are pulled back from the third front, the BJP could well be back in the reckoning.

In the last Assembly elections the TDP and AIADMK both had to pay a heavy price for associating with the BJP during the NDA rule, as angry minorities voted massively against Chandrababu Naidu and Jayalalitha who could not explain their getting embroiled with extremist religious forces and dissension made them eat the humble pie. The BJP is now confronted with a new type of social engineering and the old strategy of drawing on the religious extremists and arousing strong sectarian feelings will no longer work. Herein lies the biggest challenge for Advani, who is not known to look beyond a narrow horizon. Experience in Karnataka has shown that even opportunists like H. D. Deve Gowda and his JD (S) are not prepared to let the BJP open its account in power in any southern state. The BJP is thus forced to restrict itself to the Hindi heartland where it is confronted with an array of forces that have made its advance, if not survival, difficult, if not impossible.

Mr. Advani has to put a disorganized party together as its leader have been talking in different voices, groupism has reached a crescendo, there is no clear focus and attacking the UPA and its leadership personally is an unrewarding hobby. The double-faced approach to the Indo-US nuclear deal and the Utter failure of the NDA Government to make “India shine” stare the rank-and-file in the face. Mr. Rajnath Singh has failed to accomplish any of the assigned tasks, because nobody listens to him and the senior leaders have grown too big and arrogant for him to control, much less discipline. The leaders may manage to hog the limelight over the nuclear deal, but the people at large do not appreciate the rightist Hindutva party and left teaming together on an anti-American slogan. The lack of honesty is also confirmed by the fact that Mr. Vajpayee had sought such a deal from the US, but was refused. The Prime Minister put the facts on the table when the deal was being discussed in Parliament.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Advani will succeed in arresting the BJP’s drift. His past haunts him and he has to chalk a new course, based on a forward-looking ideology that does not try to take the people back to the middle ages. Across-the beard condemnation of the UPA and the Congress and its leadership will not win him any votes.

Some of the worst terrorist incidents occurred during the BJP regime – Parliament, Akshardham, Ayodhya, Kalucheck and the then External Affairs Minister personally escorting hardcore terrorists to Kandahar along with bagfuls of cash to secure the release of hostages. Advani was then the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as, Home Minister.

He also did not establish himself as a good administrator, though sycophants like Venkata Naidu rated him with Sardar Patel, the “iron man” and he was spoon fed by the intelligence agencies. “Ram rath yatra” may be a good road show, but it will not be a vote collector. Not all his party men, who have witnessed the Gujarat carnage, are convinced that raising the religious bogey again is good electoral strategy. The NDA partners, whoever is still left, do not believe in demonizing the minority community, nor do they see Hindutva as their lodestar.

The huge burden of his part and the NDA’s failings act as a drag on Mr. Advani. He has to imbibe a new thinking and formulate a now programmes, shorn of negativisms, based on more criticism of the Congress. It is a crucial time for BJP’s survival and Advani and his disenchanted and self-centered colleagues should not miss the opportunity to give the BJP a new face.