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India: Trouble in the
family?
By Sandeep Shenoy
It
is the classic case of a family that stuck together
during the bad times but cannot help but feud during the
good times. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party
in power in New Delhi and the political wing of the
Sangh Parivar (Hindu family), is increasingly finding
itself at odds with the more assertive constituents of
the family - the parent, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS), and the other affiliate organization, the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Forum.
Events during the past week in Gujarat state,
where the BJP controls the government, are the latest
manifestation of this feud. At the weekend numerous
members of the VHP were arrested when the police broke
up a march (yatra) organized in defiance of a
directive given by the Election Commission (EC). VHP
leaders, including general secretary Praveen Togadia and
Acharya Dharmendra, made critical remarks on both the
head of the EC, James Lyngdoh, and Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, among others. The irony, though, is
that the yatra's underlying purpose was to
bolster support for the BJP in the December state
elections by playing the ever-useful communal card.
With the shift of political fortunes from the
Congress party to the BJP since it came to power in New
Delhi in the late 1990s, under the leadership of
Vajpayee, both the RSS and the VHP have not only
benefited through greater influence over the
administration, but they are now keen to push their own
agenda on the BJP even further.
Diverging views
on important issues facing India, such as the
privatization of large government monopolies and labor
reform, are raising doubts about whether the reform
process can be carried forward, and whether India can
achieve its ambitious growth targets (8 percent GDP, for
instance). A recent episode involves the issue of the
privatization of the government-owned Petroleum
monopolies - the Bharat Petroleum and Hindusthan
Petroleum, which control immense assets in refining and
distribution in India.
The feud became a public
spectacle in October when K Sudarshan, the RSS supremo,
denounced the BJP government for following a Western
model and demanded the unseating of pro-privatization
proponents. This was followed almost immediately by a
retort by Vajpayee in various forums that the reform
process was irreversible.
Vajpayee's cabinet
then split between the pro-privatization camp led by the
premier himself and the anti-privatization camp, with
Petroleum Minister Ram Naik and Human Resource
Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi as the most
vocal opponents.
Although the debate is still
ongoing, the immediate effect has been nervousness among
investors, which lowered the stock price of the state
entities, and which may even affect foreign investment
inflows as institutions mull over the uncertainties in
India's reform program.
Although an offshoot of
the RSS and still largely labeled a Hindu nationalist
party, the BJP, under the leadership of Vajpayee, has
tried to project a more centrist and secular image.
Since the beginning of Vajpayee's tenure, the party has
gained grudging respect from friends and foes for its
acumen in domestic and foreign policy. This image has
been tampered by the anti-Muslim riots following the
Godhra incident in Gujarat, where the BJP high command
in New Delhi almost remained mute spectators to the
carnage.
The party has seen its fortunes soar as
an increasingly larger urban Hindu population saw it as
an antidote for corruption and minority appeasement
endemic to the Congress party's survival. During the
past decade, the BJP has grown out of the shadow of the
RSS and has asserted itself as a political entity with a
clear ability to manage and lead the country, albeit
through an acrimonious coalition of socialists and
regional entities involving more than 20 political
parties.
An important fact is that the RSS, the
influential parent and the most "nationalist" among the
three, is more or less an undemocratic
quasi-dictatorship. The chief of the RSS is selected by
the predecessor and remains the chief for life. Since
there are no institutions or think tanks within this
organization, its policies and posturings are driven
purely by the opinions of the chief. The present chief,
Sudarshan, has complicated matters in the privatization
debate by openly concording with the anti-privatization
camp within Vajpayee's cabinet.
The VHP, on the
other hand, is focused on building a Hindu temple on the
disputed site at Ayodhya. The VHP's modus
operandi is to organize yatras such as the
gaurav (pride) yatra and the rath
(chariot) yatras. Each one, though a political
headache for the BJP, does keep the communal pot boiling
enough to bring Hindu votes for the BJP.
Thus,
at this point of time, a split within the Hindu family
is unthinkable. The rank and file cadre of each of these
organizations are the disciplined and indoctrinated
cadets of the RSS who, on the one hand carry forward the
agenda of the VHP, while at the same time provide
dedicated volunteers to the BJP's election campaigns.
The higher ranks in the BJP are also mostly conservative
Hindu leaders who would not appreciate a rift with the
other constituents of their family.
It is also
the case that the BJP has achieved some of the major
goals of the Sangh Parivar - the first and foremost
being the nuclearization of India. While there is no
doubt that going nuclear had popular support among
Indians, it also fit well with RSS/VHP threat
perceptions skewed by their ideology. The RSS will also
ensure that its other goals, such as the so-called
"saffronization" of the classroom curriculum, will
continue as long as the BJP is in control of the
national government - national elections are not
scheduled until 2004.
Many political observers
consider the dramatic rise of the Hindutva forces as an
aberration in the past five decades since India's
independence. The minorities and powerful vote banks,
such as the Dalits, have extreme ideological differences
with the BJP because of its family affiliations, and
would rather partner with more secular national parties,
such as the Congress party. Congress president Sonia
Gandhi's move to bring her son Rahul into politics, as
has been reported in the media recently, may yet again
create a credible alternative to the BJP on India's
political scene.
If this happens in the near
future, the Sangh family may yet patch its differences
and present a more unified front to face the increasing
Congress threat.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
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