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BJP could yet rue dependence on
Vajpayee
By Ramtanu Maitra
On
February 6, Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam signed a
proclamation to bring about a premature end to India's
13th parliament and set the stage for early elections.
The Lok Sabha (House of the people) would have completed
its full five year-term in mid-October. That same day,
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officially kicked off
its election campaign with a large meeting of its
national developmental council, featuring chief
ministers of BJP-run states, aiming to project a unified
BJP leadership.
In fact, however, the BJP
leadership is a one-man band of Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee. As the leading Indian English-language
news daily, The Hindu, pointed out in an editorial, the
refrain in the BJP is that under Vajpayee, India has
come close to achieving its national dreams of glory and
prosperity, and voters would do themselves a favor by
seeing the party back to power so that the Indian
premier can continue his good work.
Indeed,
under Vajpayee, India has made significant strides,
particularly in foreign affairs. While economic gains,
too, are real and salutary, they are overstated. But the
party's decision to market itself as Vajpayee's
political instrument rather than the other way round
points to the BJP's fatal shortcoming: the party has
failed to institutionalize itself as a vital national
party, and this may ultimately prove to be it and
Vajpayee's undoing. There is no indication on the ground
that the party will actually improve its showing in the
polls, and the 14th Lok Sabha may be as fragmented as
its predecessor.
The 'feel good'
factors
This is the fourth time that the
government has dissolved the Lok Sabha to hold early
elections. As on two earlier occasions (1971 and 1984),
the government made the move to avail what it considered
an "opportune time". Like Mumbai movie ad-men, BJP
politicos have been trumpeting the "feel good" factor
and "India shining".
Three "favorable factors"
inspired the BJP to take the plunge. The first
factor was the recent electoral successes enjoyed by the
party. In November, the BJP won sweeping majorities in
the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh state assembly
elections, and wrested power in the state of
Chhattisgarh. In all three states, the BJP defeated the
incumbent Congress Party. The BJP, and Vajpayee in
particular, have come to believe that the unexpected
electoral successes are indications that a large section
of the electorate have moved out of the Congress Party
camp in support of the BJP. While this confidence is
laudable, it also shows the BJP leadership's uneasiness
at the prospect of waiting until October. This
restlessness is also an indicator of how fickle the
opinion of the Indian electorate is considered to be.
The second factor is the economy. Having
presided over low economic growth for almost four years
and meekly absorbed the stern rebuke of India's vast
rural sector, the entire National Democratic Alliance
(NDA - the multi-party coalition government of which the
BJP is the leader) went into high gear announcing and
highlighting the Indian economy's spurt of growth in the
past two quarters. India, Asia's third-largest economy,
achieved 9 percent growth in the second quarter
(July-September 2003), a significant jump from 7.4
percent in the first quarter (April-June 2003). It is
expected that overall growth for the current fiscal year
ending March 31 will be as high as 8.2 percent - a
little more than the Indian prime minister had called
for.
In addition to this rather unexpected good
news on the economic front, and the third factor
in the early-elections decision, is the Vajpayee
government's command performance in the foreign policy
field.
Foreign policy successes
There
is no doubt that the NDA's singular area of undisputed
success has been in directing the country's foreign
policy. Here Vajpayee's crowning achievement was the
highly successful visit to China last June.
Subsequently, both India and China have deployed
high-level special representatives to work out a
framework for talks to resolve the non-demarcated
Sino-Indian borders along the Himalayas. Almost 4,000
kilometers of border was left non-demarcated despite
some efforts by the British Raj during its occupation of
India (1857-1947). In 1962, following the souring of
relations between the two over the boundary, India and
China were involved in a military conflict.
During his recent (January 4-6) trip to
Pakistan, Vajpayee also met with success in achieving a
broad agreement with Pakistan President General Pervez
Musharraf. Both leaders have given indications of a
willingness to resolve the five-decade-old enmities and
start anew, and high-level talks are currently under way
in Islamabad. To break the ice, both sides seem
agreeable to address not only various economic and trade
issues, but also the vexatious issue of the state of
Jammu and Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan continue to
lay territorial claim to the state, and have fought two
wars over it. As late as 2002, India and Pakistan had
assembled close to a million soldiers armed to their
teeth, pointing their weapons at each other along the
borders.
Further, the Vajpayee government has
pushed regional cooperation to a new level of priority
and accomplishment, as a series of bilateral pacts and
the recent groundbreaking South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation meeting attest. The ground was
surely favorable. China, which has grown into a major
power under a new generation of leadership, is keen to
improve relations with India. China is powerful and no
longer suffers from the paranoia of the 1960s and 1970s.
It does not consider India a threat, and is not fearful
of India growing stronger economically and militarily.
Similarly, favorable ground conditions exist
vis-a-vis Pakistan. Pakistan is no longer the cocky
Pakistan of the Cold War days, loved as a trusted ally
by the free world. The country has been torn apart by
internal dissension and terrorism. Pakistan is
economically much weaker now, and almost completely
isolated internationally. On the other hand, India has
grown stronger economically and militarily, and the
Vajpayee-led government has provided political
stability. According to most Pakistani analysts, the
Pakistani establishment has come to realize that it is
no longer possible, politically and financially, to
sustain the country pursuing the old anti-India
policies. There are, of course, any number of irrational
elements within Pakistan who would still try to pull the
country back into the old unsustainable groove.
Nonetheless, as in the case of China, Vajpayee's
reputation as a rational and understanding individual
was a key factor in achieving what has been accomplished
so far.
While the ground conditions were
favorable for progress on the foreign policy front, it
must be said that the NDA made full use of the
opportunities. Much of the foreign policy success stems
from the fact that Vajpayee has emerged as a major world
figure and established a stature of his own.
Economic overstatements
In the
economic field, however, no such thoroughgoing success
has been achieved. Those who follow the Indian economy
know that the sudden spurt to the past two quarters'
growth rate was backed by the vast agricultural sector,
which enjoyed an exceptional monsoon. It is highly
unlikely that the next monsoon will be as good, and that
means the next fiscal year will not be able to show a
similar growth rate. The BJP knows this, and hence is
rushing in to hold the elections while beating the drum
of economic success.
Prior to the boost in the
agricultural sector due to good rains, most of India's
growth and employment centered on outsourcing of jobs by
foreign companies and the phenomenal success generally
of the information technology (IT) sector. Most, if not
all, of these jobs helped the educated urban population
and did little for the rural poor. The so-called
trickle-down effect, due to a higher level of
consumption by a larger segment of the population
associated with the IT-related outfits, has helped the
poor only minimally.
This is where the BJP will
face a serious problem. In the rural areas, people are
extremely unhappy because the NDA has not created jobs.
Jobs were created for the urban few, who have a voice in
India's elite-dominated media. Vajpayee, being what he
is, will not lie, or shout down dissension. But unlike
Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first premier, Vajpayee
is neither a visionary nor is he comfortable talking
about economics. He exudes confidence and inspires trust
generally, but he has little understanding of how to
create long-term employment.
Moreover, when it
comes to the two most fundamental and pressing economic
issues for India - inadequate infrastructure and anaemic
investment - the NDA government has not shown itself
adept. According to economist Prahlad Basu, India needs
an immediate investment of at least US$100 billion to
meet the current gap between supply and demand in the
areas of electrical power, telecom, roads and bridges.
If one adds to the list other infrastructural essentials
such as the modernization of railroads, education,
health-care and port development, the financial
requirement could be as high as $300 billion.
Except in building roads and highways, the
Vajpayee administration has done little in these areas.
Whether Vajpayee realizes it or not, the fact remains
that growth based on an overloaded, weak infrastructure
does not have much staying power. (One may usefully cite
the problems that China's rapid growth has caused
because of massive power shortages in that country.)
Closely related to the infrastructure weakness
is the low rate of investment in India. The poor growth
rate of industry for almost 12 years has created a
massive investment famine in the country, where the real
cost of capital still remains as high as 8 percent. The
plethora of local taxes, as well as the emerging threat
of competition from China (after the abolition of
quantitative restrictions of imports which took effect
from April 2001), further cloud the investment climate.
Faced with these problems, the NDA government
has taken refuge in promises and hopes of bringing in
more foreign direct investment (FDI) - an absurdly
inadequate response. In its World Investment Report,
2003, released globally recently, the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports
that FDI flows to India rose from $3.40 billion in 2001
to $3.44 billion in 2002, sustaining its position as the
largest recipient in South Asia. UNCTAD also states that
though India and China both received increased FDI
flows, their performance has been strikingly different.
In fact, China attracted seven times more FDI than India
in 2002, its share being 3.2 percent of GDP compared
with 1.1 percent for India.
A leadership
vacuum
Vajpayee notwithstanding, the BJP suffers
from a lack of leadership. Vajpayee's deputy, L K
Advani, is irrelevant in all matters concerning
economics or foreign policy. He neither exudes
confidence nor inspires trust. It is likely that he will
be in the backseat admiring and praising the prime
minister for the rest of his political career, which is
nearing its natural end.
Following right behind
these almost-80-year-old leaders are a handful from the
new crop who are in their 50s. Two individuals, BJP
general secretary Pramod Mahajan and minister Arun
Jaitley, stand out as highly competent political
leaders. There is no doubt that in the years to come
they, with likely assistance from two young chief
ministers, Uma Bharati and Vasundhara Raje, will take
over the mantle of leadership from Vajpayee. But the
huge age difference between the two generations of
leaders will make it difficult for the BJP to continue
to grow and become a national party in the near future.
On the electoral front, the situation for the
BJP is probably worse than it was in 1999 when the party
won 180-plus seats. The reason is the BJP's political
collapse in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) despite the
best efforts of Vajpayee, a native son. During the past
four years, the BJP has lost badly in UP. With the
emergence of the Samjwadi Party under the present chief
minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the refusal of the
Bahujan Samaj Party under its quixotic leader, Mayawati,
to roll over and die, both the BJP and the Congress
Party have become non-players. If the present trend does
not change, the BJP may not muster more than 15 of the
80 seats in UP. Congress may come in with five or six
seats. About 55 seats could be divvied up between the
Samjwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
This
is exactly where the BJP's "Vajpayee card" will be of
little use. The BJP is a northern India party with very
little to show in southern India. But the so-called
Hindu chauvinist party is expected to sweep the
Ganga-belt - also called derisively the "cow-belt" by
those secular Hindus who take pride in their secularism
- the three densely populated northern states that
command nearly one-third of the total parliamentary
seats. As things stand, however, the BJP may not get
more than 30-36 seats out of the 176 seats in the
Ganga-belt: 15 from UP, 15 to 20 from Bihar, and 0-1
from West Bengal. The other national party, the
so-called secular Congress Party, may with luck come in
with 10-15 seats.
Vajpayee, on February 6,
kicking off the campaign, asked people to give a
two-thirds majority to the BJP-led NDA to help it
"change India's fate". Where will the seats come from?
Projections are that there will be some from Gujarat,
some more in the states of Maharashtra and Rajasthan,
and as many as 30 in Madhya Pradesh. In the rest of
India, the BJP will not be able to secure more than nine
seats from any single state. Even with Vajpayee at the
helm, the BJP will be scrambling hard to get 150-160
parliamentary seats - a drop of about 20 seats from the
1999 elections.
It is arguable how many seats
the BJP would secure if Vajpayee was not projected as
the "man of the hour". It is likely that the number
would go down somewhat further, but it would have
provided an opportunity to the BJP leaders to project
what the party stands for and, in the process, figure
out what changes are needed to emerge as a national
party. Instead, the short-term interest of the BJP
operatives and the total collapse of the old
men-infested Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - once
the brain behind the BJP muscle - have combined to
create a situation where the party is pushed into the
background to make room for Vajpayee.
The
ostensible intellectual promoter of Hindu supremacy, the
RSS is now embattled. Its senior leader, Madan Dass
Devi, reportedly ordered the dismantling of the Overseas
Friends of the BJP - a major source of funds based in
the United States - in early February. The internal feud
that has made the RSS an organization of ridicule in
India has spread its tentacles to the US as well. If the
amnesia-ridden RSS is given its way, it would run the
coming election campaign promoting pseudo-intellectual
Hindu chauvinism.
The RSS leaders have serious
reservations about Vajpayee, but that is irrelevant in
the present context. Last June, one news daily reported
that RSS supremo K S Sudarshan suggested to BJP
president M Venkaiah Naidu that the BJP should be
focusing more on "ideology" and "principles" and less on
"individuals". He also told Naidu that any kind of
"personality cult" should be avoided because it diluted
the ideology, principles and programs of the BJP.
The problem with the BJP's overdependence on
Vajpayee has nothing to do with Vajpayee himself: rather
it shows the political bankruptcy of the party. What is
becoming increasingly evident is that the BJP is staring
at the same kind of political vacuum that was created by
the Congress Party when Nehru in the 1960s, and later
Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, were projected by
Congressmen as "the party". Those political failures of
the Congress Party came to haunt them later.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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