NEW DELHI - The ruling Congress party's virtual clean sweep of recent state
assembly polls in Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana, has consolidated
its position even further, while the trounced right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) - the country's largest opposition party - is left pondering its
relevance.
The BJP's drubbing, which comes close on the heels of its May general elections
debacle, has further splintered a party already fraught by fractiousness and a
leadership vacuum. The Hindu nationalist outfit has now become the stuff of
satire and ridicule, with the party's own leaders publicly expressing
disenchantment with the way things are heading.
Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the BJP's parent organization, the
Rashtriya Swayamevak Sangh or RSS, made his displeasure public by stating that
the party was in such bad shape that no less than "surgery" or "chemotherapy"
could help it.
Even though Bhagwat's statements - which he later denied - have miffed party
bosses, there's no denying that things are at a nadir for the BJP. However,
while the BJP's intra-party chaos jeopardizes its own existence, it also
threatens India's democratic polity as a demoralized BJP will grant the
Congress an open field on important debates in parliament, if it does not
already have one.
If Indian democracy is to remain robust, it is vital for a strong opposition
party to co-exist as the second pole of a multi-party system. Currently, apart
from the weakened BJP, no other party in the national political firmament
appears ready for a meaningful opposition role.
The "third front" was a chimera that vanished long ago, brought down by the
weight of its own cantankerousness. The left doesn't count anymore, while
regional parties like the Shiv Sena and the MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena)
embody the lunatic fringe with parochial interests. Parties such as the Janata
Dal (People's Party), the Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party) and the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP - Party of Society's Majority) have limited pan-India appeal
as they are piggybacking on an alliance of the marginalized, such as Dalits,
the Backward Classes, Scheduled Tribes and religious minorities.
The mantle therefore remains with the BJP to maintain the secular democratic
ethos. The BJP's greatest advantage - as compared to a smorgasbord of other
political parties - is that genealogically it was never entwined with the
Congress. It grew independently, out of an alternative nationalist organization
- the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (or National Volunteer Organization), an
outfit that provided training in martial arts and spiritual matters to enrich
the life of Hindus and to augment its cohesiveness. The party was formally
launched as a political outfit in April 1980 by erstwhile prime minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, and it welcomed RSS members into its fold.
With millions of disciplined and dedicated cadres, the BJP had the potential to
fill the political space of a vibrant opposition party. But it frittered away
that opportunity and gradually lost touch with the masses. Cadre-based parties
have to transcend ideology to absorb people from all sections of society to
become a mass-based party. The BJP failed to make that crucial connect.
Ironically, the Congress' projection as the party of the masses (or aam aadmi)
has been accompanied by a simultaneous downward spiral in the BJP's appeal as a
national alternative.
A decade ago, after winning an unambiguous national mandate for the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance, it seemed that a mature Indian democracy was at
last headed for a broad two-front system led by the Congress and BJP
respectively.
However, the BJP defeats in 2004 and 2009, followed by its disastrous showing
in the recent assembly polls, has completely altered that picture. Further, the
efforts of its parent party, the RSS, to resuscitate the BJP have also
backfired and further alienated it from the mainstream.
However, what is largely to blame for the BJP's disintegration is its
preoccupation with the past, rather than the future. It is obsessed with issues
that go back eons, like the partition of British India in 1947 and the building
of a Ram temple at the site of a 16th-century mosque; these issues are no
longer relevant to a nation that harbors ambitions to become a superpower.
Ideally, the Indian electorate would like political stability to co-exist with
a robust opposition that is also in a position to offer an alternative to
voters. But a disintegrated BJP has dashed such hopes.
For Gen Next, the explosive religious radicalism at the core of BJP's political
agenda is something to which it can't connect. Calls for younger leaders to
take over the reins of the BJP have been growing from many quarters. But the
BJP's old guard - prime ministerial aspirant Lal Krishna Advani and senior
leaders, such as Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Nadu - seem most reluctant to pave
the way for the next in line. What's worse, bitter infighting between the
party's younger leaders (Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ravi Prasad etc) all in
their 50s, has further diminished hopes for the party's revival.
While a generational shift might help infuse fresh life into the BJP - apart
from helping it neuter the appeal of the Congress general secretary Rahul
Gandhi's "fresh-faced youth brigade" - the party will need much more than a
simple image makeover to find its feet. It will require a complete ideological
overhaul by eschewing its divisive Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) agenda.
So is there any hope? Yes and no. Simply because although the BJP may be
comatose, it isn't quite dead. The Congress has also faltered on several counts
following its general election victory, notably over rising prises and a
failure to cope with erratic monsoons and floods.
Even lately, though the Congress regained all three states in the assembly
elections, its victory was far from resounding. In Haryana, the ruling Congress
chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, was expected to win by a comfortable
margin to make a majority government. Instead, Hooda needed the support of six
more members of the legislative assembly to cobble together even a simple
majority. With a drastically reduced majority (from 67 seats in 2005 to 40
now), the Congress can't rest easy in Haryana.
In Maharashtra, the Congress battled to form a government in partnership
with the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party. The NCP had stood its
ground to demand key portfolios from its alliance partner, exposing the
Congress' vulnerability and dependence on partners to form governments.
There's no denying that because of multifarious factors, like an enhanced
pluralism of India's multi-party system, the growing diversity of
interest-group representation and the maturation of civil society, there's a
widespread clamor for a strong opposition to keep India's democracy on an even
keel.
This demand has also led to the need for new and more democratic political
practices. The backward classes, the Dalits, the tribals and other marginalized
groups, too, are looking beyond the dynastic "Congress system".
The mushrooming number of non-governmental organizations, which are sensitizing
the citizenry about their civil rights, are making fresh demands on the
political system for an egalitarian and equitable redistribution of political
power and economic resources. Given these myriad pulls and pressures, what
India requires most now is a strong opposition.
Neeta Lal is a widely published writer/commentator who contributes to
many reputed national and international print and Internet publications.
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