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The decline and fall of the BJP
The reason the BJP is so helpless at managing its local leaders is that its central leaders have no power.
Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist. He is also a former editor of the Mumbai-based English newspaper Mid Day and the Gujarati paper Divya Bhaskar [email protected]
For those of us who dislike the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and what it stands for, this past week has been delightful. The party is crackling with individual rebellions against the source of its nastiness, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
True, these rebellions are not related to ideology, and all BJP leaders remain vaguely anti-Muslim in their orientation. But it is also true that for the warriors of the BJP, ambition is a more powerful motivator than ideology.
The shambles was revealed at the party’s national executive in Mumbai this week. It was supposed to be a focussed attack on Manmohan Singh’s government. The opposition and most of India’s media sees the government as incompetent and this was the time to analyse and skewer its performance. Alas, the media saw juicier stories within the BJP, where leader is publicly fighting leader and, more excitingly, the most powerful leaders are fighting the RSS. This fighting is communicated through ritual sulking, which is how Indian leaders show what is called “unhappiness”.
In Karnataka, the big leader Yeddyurappa is threatening to break the party. This is because the RSS has imposed a chief minister of the peasant Vokkaliga caste on a party whose voter is mainly from the ecumenical Lingayat caste, which stands solidly behind Yeddyurappa. He’s doing everything he can to get thrown out of the BJP and form a regional Lingayat party, but the BJP is too afraid to let him go.
In Rajasthan, the Rajputs have rallied behind Vasundhara Raje, from the princely state of Gwalior and married into the princely state of Dholpur. The RSS wants her to go away because she was chief minister in the last, lost, election. The RSS wants accountability and doesn’t accept that politics in India is not about that. She is held on by threatening to break the party and the RSS has backed off.
In Gujarat, Narendra Modi sulked till the BJP dismissed an RSS man put in place precisely to rile Modi. This man is Sanjay Joshi, who thinks, correctly, that Modi has dismantled the old RSS-BJP structure in Gujarat. Modi has replaced the men who built the BJP in Gujarat with men and women loyal to him personally. He has made the Patel leader Keshubhai irrelevant, and denied the undefeated, six-term MP from Surat Kashiram Rana a ticket.
The RSS was offended by this and empowered Joshi to set Modi right. Battle was joined at the organisational level. Soon after, newspapers were given a video CD of a man resembling Joshi bedding the daughter of a family friend. Joshi, like Modi, is an RSS pracharak (propagator) and supposed to be celibate. The Times of India reported that the CDs were actually handed out by the Gujarat police. Joshi went back to the RSS, but was returned to the BJP after the RSS man Nitin Gadkari was made the party’s national president. Last week, rediff.com reported that Modi threatened to resign along with the entire Gujarat group in the BJP’s national committee unless Joshi was sacked. This was done at the last moment, and Modi came to the Mumbai meet in triumph.
The reason the BJP is so helpless at managing its local leaders is that its central leaders have no power. LK Advani is a refugee from Sindh and contests from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, where he is at Modi’s mercy. The BJP leader in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, has no base and is an MP only because Modi gave him a nomination from Gujarat (Jaitley is not Gujarati). He is also at Modi’s mercy.
The BJP leader in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj is a Brahmin from Haryana, a small state dominated by Jats, where the BJP has never held power. Gadkari is not the BJP’s leader even in his home state of Maharashtra. Advani, who gave the party its identity with his awful and bloody Babri Masjid movement, considers himself prime minister-in-waiting. He resents the RSS’s imposition of Gadkari. He and the ambitious Sushma were absent from the party’s rally on May 25, because they were “unhappy”.
But these central leaders defer to state leaders like Raje, Yeddyurappa and Modi, who actually send MPs to parliament. This weakens the BJP and will fragment it into regional units in time.
In 2002, the RSS blocked Atal Behari Vajpayee from removing Modi as chief minister after the riots. It is today powerless to discipline him even though it wants to.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 27th, 2012.
Reader Comments (20)
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Voters who are simply against the BJP, but not for the Congress will have a tough time this election. Walking into a polling booth to vote negatively takes a lot of hatred with the current situation – price rise, corruption and so on. And Congress is no paragon of leadership right now either. Congress is for sure going to lose in Urban India. If you are betting on Rural India to save the day by keeping the BJP out, think again. Religious passions can be whipped up both ways. And if you dont know already, there are a lot many Hindus in India. So you can have all the wet dreams about the disintegration of the BJP, but I see NDA coming to power in the next election. Opposers will make peace with the result as they always do.
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Agreed that BJP dug its own grave but Congress( your favorite party) has quickly jumped into it. In spite of all the draw backs BJP is the only non congress party to have presence in more than one state. We should understand that there is a leadership deficit in all political parties in India may be because we the people of India have no expressed properly as to what we want from our political setup. If BJP is declining so is Congress (UP election results…) so are Left parties so are most regional parties. We need to understand that we are in a painful transformation phase where these kinds of mess happen. I must say this article is not balanced .Recommend
If you read news in the Indian press with the same degree of interest as you write for Pakistani press, you would know that the time has come to write about the decline and fall of UPA – not BJP.
Anyway arguments here will not achieve anything. The proof of pudding is in the eating. In the recent state elections, NDA fared much better than UPA. We will see what happens in 2014.
You think the fact that BJP has strong state leaders in touch with ground reality – compared to Congress where power flows from Gandhi family name and anyone can be apointed or removed as Chief minister in UPA state as NDA’s weakness and UPA’s strength. I would argue – at least from a national interest perspective that the exact opposite is true. Greater devolution of poer from center to state and state to Panchayats is highly desirable.
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If we compare the recent state elections, its UPA which lost it completely, and NDA/BJP did good. Lets see what happens in 2014 Lok Sabha election. Everyone knows sure BJP/NDA is going to come.Recommend
Aakar, Congress equates strength of COngress with strength of Congress President Sonia Gandhi – not so BJP. Gadkari’s weakening is not the same as weakening of BJP. A difference of opinion within a party is not a bad thing. Group think where everyone rubber stamps Gandhi family diktat is not a good thing.
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Indian Govt is based on number of supporting MPs and not on the column inches. If Modi hoggs the headlines one should remember that he never sent more than 15 MPs to the Parliament. Contrast this with support to UPA from UP whose leaders are barely in the news: Samajwadi Party 23 seats; Congress 21 seats and Bhahujan Samaj Party 20 seats. No NDA will not rule India in the foreseeable future.
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I am pretty sure Narendra Modi will be India’s next PM.
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We know nothing inspires as much glee within your heart as imagining the BJP is a spent force and your beloved Congress led by the worthy Mrs. Gandhi not to mention Rahul baba will rule India forever and forever amen. But Oh, how I’m waiting for 2014 with Mr. Modi sworn in as PM. Do make sure you’re on the tele then. I wouldn’t miss seeing your face for al lthe world :)
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utter rubbish. BJP is in better shape than before and will win next elections to deliver from that evil -corrupt Congress
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I am sure people in india are feed up with congress . They want change and sure only one man can bring bring Shri Mr Narendra Modi . He has changed the face of gujrat and will change the face of India. But the biggest problem remains co operation among top BJP leaders .If they can get their act together , there is no stopping .Jai Hind.
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i wont vote bjp neither to congress this time
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It’s going to be the third front this time. BJP wid Modi as PM Candidate will never get coalition support. BJP holds control in only a handful of states and with Modi at helm nobody from outside would be in a position to support them.
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I am not a BJP supporter – but any day I would prefer a Party with strong grass-roots regional leaders than a dynastic sycophancy like the Gandhi-run Congress
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Writer has touched the “RIGHT” chord , the main opposition to Congress is in disarray..may be more than ruling party. Congress led UPA is under all around attack from rightist and its sympathizers in media , including here on web…but its surprising that BJP has failed to even raise coherent opposing voice and given an alternative to UPA. BJP has failed to give a single solution…to “problems”,,. All the issues. even on corruption issue, BJP and its fountainhead organisation supported Anna movement from behind rather than coming in fore front . BJP themselves have no moral right to lecture on corruption when its own ex BJP party prez was prosecuted for taking bribe on camera..not to talk about corruption in mine deals in Karnataka, Goa..and other BJP ruled states. Its shocking that even after being in in existence since more than 3 decades, BJP cannot even think of coming to power on its own at Centre..which clearly shows lack of leadership , organisation skill and may be majority of Indians distant themselves from rightists and intolerant policies and agenda of the party. UPA may not be best option, but neither is BJP to rule India. Recommend
The ethos of India is love, unity, tolerance and heterodoxy. Any party including BJP and BSP whose foundation stones are laid on hatred and devicive politics will crumble today or tomorrow.
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I’m not sure how this article is relevant to Pakistani readers.
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We Pakistanis don’t care if BJP falls or not. Only difference is that India either has openly anti Pakistan (BJP) or double-faced anti Pakistan (Congress) parties.
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Forget BJP, remember what Rahul said about his Naani’s role in 1971!!!
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It’s a case of choosing the lesser evil between the two.
I will go with Congress who is much closer to the ‘Idea of India’ as @VINOD says;
love,tolerance and unity in diversity.
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sushma is not a “brahmin” but a bania;in any case,caste considerations have never weighed with RSS – RSS is a cultural org and has a muslim branch with muslims who completely buy into the hindutva positionsRecommend
Hindus are religious people. They have every thing against the brand of Hinduism being propagated by RSS and BJP combine. The huge majority of Hindus will never accept this narrow restricted brand that puts one human being against the other. Amratya Sen in his book The Argumentative Indian has said “India is an immensely diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly disparate convictions, widely divergent customs and veritable feast of viewpoints. Any attempt to talk about the culture of the country, must inescapably involve considerable selection substantially on the acceptance of heterodoxy and dialogue” The way present day RSS and BJP combine is trying to box the Hindu culture in restricted period of around 200 BC ignores the reality of Jain, Budhist, Sikh, Muslim and Christian contribution of last 2200 years. The present Hindu thinking is based on acceptance of hetrodxy as the foundatin stone. Basicly hindu accepts two things 1. There are many true ways to reach God and every religion teaches the same core value hence must be respected. 2.Budhists, Jains, Sikhs,Muslims and Christians are all as much part of our histroy and culture as the Hindus. Unless BJP realises this they will never be able to work for real India.
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