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If the Bharatiya Janata Party feels it is the one political party in the
country at the moment that is respected for being principled and
standing by its ideology, then it must decide once and for all what its
ideology is.
It cannot one day be a saffron party that breaks down mosques and wants
to replace them with temples, and then overnight turn into an
organisation of sweet reasonableness.
It cannot one day declare war against all pseudo-secularists and tom-tom
its own brand of Hindutva-based politics, only to suddenly turn
holier-than-thou in its secular thinking.
It cannot switch from Swadeshi economics to free-market thinking and
back without reason. Not if it wants the electorate to take it
seriously.
The current news that the BJP would like to soften its saffron stand for
the time being makes a mockery of its whole raison desire. It lays the
party open to attacks of inconsistent ideology, of pandering to
expediency for electoral gains, of behaving, m fact, as other political
parties m India are wont to do.
The BJP is more than welcome to shed its saffron image, to break off
from the fundamentalist groups that control it. But it cannot appear to
do so for immediate gains, running back when its barometer of the
nation's mood changes its readings.
The BJP is equally welcome to keep its saffron image. Then it must do
so against all odds, sticking to its ideology in the belief that it is
the only ideology that makes sense.
The various parties that have preceded the BJP in this g have all
faltered in this one area - they were all unable to determine the exact
nature and degree of their saffronness. Perhaps the BJP can change that
weakness of the former right-wing Hindu political movements.
If the BJP finds itself politically isolated today, the fault only lies
within itself.
If the fears that it represents only 20 per cent of the vote of the
Indian electorate give it cause to fear for the future of its programme,
then it must review the programme fully and thoroughly.
Must it represent what the people really want or what the people who
think like it want, or what it thinks the people want?
There are enough lessons in the Hindu religion about great figures who
learnt through genuine soul-searching. The BJP might read some of them
for answers.
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