April 27, 1998

BJP is groping to make sense of governance and power.

Swapan Dasgupta

Outgoing BJP president L.K. Advani tells the national executive that "good governance in most spheres of national life becomes possible only when it is de-ideologised and de-politicised". One of the first decisions of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government is to push the globalising agenda by further liberalising imports. In a remarkable genuflection at the altar of political correctness, the Ministry of Welfare is renamed the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on Babasaheb Ambedkar's birth anniversary. What is happening to the BJP? Blessed with a handsome coming of age birthday gift -- power at the Centre -- is the party preparing for adulthood by transforming itself into what Advani calls the "New BJP"?

It is tempting to exaggerate the extent of the new sobriety and equally appealing to dismiss the whole thing as an elaborate hoax. Fortunately, nothing in politics is entirely black and white. When Advani sings praises of the politics of "aggregation" and Vajpayee insists that "the party has to run the Government in a spirit of consensus since this is a coalition", they are not necessarily repudiating the aggressive, "majestic isolation" phase that witnessed the BJP's electoral great leap forward. They are signalling the need for subtle shifts to cope with the exigencies of political power.

For the past decade or so, ever since the Shah Bano judgement and the Ayodhya dispute intruded into the nation's consciousness, the BJP was less a political party and more a mass movement. It was propelled partially by an attachment to what Advani described as the "ideological mascot" and substantially by an unstructured yearning for change. Contrary to what many believed, Hindutva was less an ideology grounded in certitudes and more a series of impulses, some eminently respectable, others less so. The BJP was always cadre-oriented and driven by the middle classes, but it was hardly an ideological outfit. It was a party in the making. Its link with the Sangh Parivar was not negotiable, but everything else was. That is why Vajpayee shied away from specifics during the election campaign and Advani hid behind abstract "good governance". And that is why the first month of the Vajpayee regime does not signal a departure from the past. Continuity is the hallmark of a party that was unprepared for power.

Today, in its bid to become the "natural party of governance", the BJP is groping to evolve a series of concrete policies and a philosophy of governance. Advani borrowed the term "New BJP" from British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "New Labour". But for Labour, the elaborate transition from the old to the new was effected when it was still in opposition. By contrast, the BJP has begun the arduous process of discarding "the issues of yesterday" and formulating its "agenda of tomorrow" after being thrown into the deep end. For a ruling party, this is a novel experience and basically implies that the BJP is up for grabs.

The BJP has sustained itself for long on the strength of corporate loyalty to a nebulous ideal. Now it will be confronted by hard and even awkward choices centred on managing power. For the first time, the BJP may actually have to define the scope of its conservatism and radicalism. If the party takes the exercise seriously, the churning process could be very exciting though not entirely painless. If not ideology, ideas can definitely enrich the battleground of politics.

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