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Back to basics

The change was only to be expected. In fact, soon after the debilitating defeat in this year’s parliamentary elections, there were insistent voices in the extended saffron family calling for a return to roots — Hindutva — and doing away with the pretence of Vajpayee brand of soft, inclusive Hindutva. But the BJP was too stunned by the poll defeat to act fast. That post poll inertia and listlessness apparently proved expensive for the party. The BJP paid a heavy price in last week’s Maharashtra polls. Hence, the realisation that the only way to survive and check the erosion of party support base is to bring back the old war horse, Advani, and go back to old-fashioned, original Hindutva.

Advani is rightly credited with devising the phenomenal growth of the party from a 2-member fringe group in Indian parliament into a mainstream popular party unseating the grand old Congress as the natural party of governance. It is debatable though how Advani achieved this goal. The long journey he undertook, ostensibly championing the cause of a Ram temple in place of 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, left a bloody trail of death and destruction across the country. How the BJP reaped a windfall in subsequent polls and eventually romped home to power is part of history.

But can Advani repeat the history? Can he arrest the rot that seems to have set in his party?

The no-nonsense hardliner — arguably the real face of the BJP — confronts formidable challenges ahead: organisational disarray, demoralilsed cadres, bitter infighting and most dangerous for a fundamentalist party — ideological drift.

It is absolutely vital for the BJP that Advani works up the old magic once again. Because if he fails, there’s no other leader who can succeed. Vajpayee, too old and ill, appears in no mood to lead the party. A resurgent and rejuvenated Congress does not make Advani’s task any easier. We only hope, a desperate BJP under Advani, does not return to the old rabble-rousing days of temple politics and Muslim-bashing majoritarianism.

The BJP would do well to focus on its role as a responsible opposition. That’s the only way forward. India, at last, is shining. Despite aberrations like Gujarat, there is complete peace so far as relations between Hindus and Muslims are concerned. The country has never witnessed such a long, glorious spell of communal harmony and peace. We hope the BJP under Advani helps India’s new leaders keep that peace.