June 15, 1998

The BJP has to transcends its Hindi heartland myopia

Swapan Dasgupta

Since tantrums have come to play a decisive role in coalition politics, this week may well see Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TC) review its decision to "suspend" support to the BJP-led Government at the Centre. If things go smoothly, we may see the formal participation of the TC in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's ministry. That was the original idea until Delhi mishandled the offensive against Jyoti Basu and forced Mamata into emulating Jayalalitha. However, there are also indications that a powerful group is engaged in persuading Mamata to ditch the BJP and reforge her links with the Congress. If that campaign succeeds, the Vajpayee Government will get its first major jolt.

Conventional wisdom suggests that Mamata is one of the "human bombs" Vajpayee has to grudgingly live with. Certainly, some of the BJP leaders believe Mamata's mercurial ways make her an unreliable ally. This is an impression born out of wilful ignorance. The TC's seat adjustment with the BJP in the general elections and the panchayat polls may have been imperfect, but in no way does this undermine the fact that the TC-BJP combination is a natural alliance. Mamata broke away from the Congress earlier this year because she was rightly convinced that Sitaram Kesri had reached a tacit understanding with the Left Front (LF). This left her with two choices: to either go it alone or ally with the other uncompromising anti-Left force. She chose the latter, ignoring gratuitous warnings of losing the Muslim vote. Thus was born the first real alternative to the LF since a reinvigorated Congress took on the CPI(M) and the Naxalites between 1969 and 1972.

It is natural for the TC-BJP combine to have disoriented entrenched interests in West Bengal. For the past 20 years, a cosy relationship has evolved between the LF regime in the state and a Congress (or United Front) dispensation at the Centre. The LF was allowed to run amok while the Centre looked the other way. This tacit secular cohabitation led to the complete marginalisation of the state -- economically, politically and culturally. Bengal simply ceased to matter in India.

The election of the Vajpayee Government has broken this mould. For the first time in 21 years, the relationship between the Centre and the state Government is grounded in political competition. Mamata detected a chance -- a reason why she reposed so much hope in the panchayat polls. Unfortunately, the BJP hasn't cottoned on to this opportunity. It has swung between exaggerated notions of its own strength and a policy of complete indifference. Its Hindi heartland myopia has prevented it from grasping the cultural nuances of state politics. It sent Jaswant Singh to placate a sullen Jayalalitha; for Mamata there was only a second-rank leader from Bihar. The BJP may be a national party, but despite tracing its origins to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, it is still to become a Bengali party. Strange, because "cultural nationalism", as the BJP defines it, is embedded in the middle-class Bengali psyche.

Mamata has provided the bridge between the local and the national. But it is still a very ramshackle one. The TC is impulsive and prone to flaying its arms wildly because Bengal has no stake in the new dispensation. The BJP Government has done nothing to promote a sense of belonging. This suits the CPI(M) because its raison d'etre depends on keeping Bengal away from the mainstream. Now the BJP is playing the same game.

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