BY SWAPAN DASGUPTA

Friends in Need

BJP's self-righteousness comes in way of realpolitik.

The conduct of the BJP during the entire controversy over the Jain Commission report can charitably be described as importunate. It is understandable that the BJP was wary of becoming a party in a dispute that was peripheral to its political being, yet it was anxious not to be excluded from the photo frame altogether. Consequently, it evolved a curious me-too approach by floating a few wild rumours of a repetition of the Uttar Pradesh Congress split at the national level. We would not like, said BJP President L.K. Advani on November 6, to "miss out on an opportunity of forming the government at the Centre". "Why should we," he asked four days later, "oblige the Congress by closing this option?" Speaking in Bangalore on November 17, Advani even tried to put an ideological gloss on the strategy to woo Congressmen: "We are a principled party, but we do not lose sight of pragmatism ... We are trying to blend principled politics with realpolitik."

If the central message of Indian political behaviour is that ideology does not pay, Advani cannot be faulted. There are many in the BJP who have made a fetish of the party's post-Ayodhya "majestic isolation". True, the party grew spectacularly between 1989 and 1994, but then hit the glass ceiling. In May 1996, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee needed wider support to sustain a government, the BJP's stand-offishness became a liability. Under the two United Front (UF) governments, things haven't improved dramatically and it is gradually being recognised that the cocooned rigidity of the Sangh Parivar is a deterrent to forging wider links. Otherwise the crisis in the UF would have triggered a major realignment of anti-Congress forces around the BJP and accomplished the unfinished task of May 1996.

To be fair, Vajpayee has always recognised this inadequacy. The BJP he established in 1980 aimed at becoming a more wholesome version of the Janata Party. In the original prescription, the BJP was perceived as a variant of the Christian Democratic parties of western Europe. The rss would continue to be a factor. But it would constitute one of the many streams in the organisation. In no circumstances would it be the decisive and dominant influence. This strategy faltered after the debacle of 1984 and was totally jettisoned in the euphoria over Ayodhya. In November 1991, for example, when rss functionary Bhaurao Deoras hinted at the need for the Congress and BJP to bury the hatchet, he was sharply rebUFfed by all, including Advani. Today, the BJP president is endorsing the Deoras approach, but only in terms of realpolitik.

Therein lies the problem. Having made a virtue of its ideological distinctiveness, the BJP finds itself spluttering incoherently when forced to make alliances of expediency, like with the bsp first and then the breakaway Loktantrik Congress in Uttar Pradesh. It will be confronted with a similar problem if the DMK decides that Vajpayee is a more dependable ally at the Centre. The way out is not to retreat into a shell and echo the Leninist dictum of "better fewer but better". That defeats the entire purpose of being in politics. On the threshold of acquiring political power, the BJP has to refashion itself as an umbrella nationalist party. Hitherto Congress-isation has been a term of abuse. For the other party of Indian nationalism, it has to acquire aspirational connotations.

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