HVK Archives: Gowda faces difficult task
Gowda faces difficult task - Financial Express
G M Telang
()
3 June 1996
Title : Gowda faces difficult task
Author : G M Telang
Publication : Financial Express
Date : June 3, 1996
THE transformation of a mass movement into a political party
aspiring to achieve power through democratic means is always a
complex process. The Indian National Congress has had over 40
years experience of this and none of its stalwarts today can
claim that they have mastered the art of meeting all the demands
made on the party by popular pressures in a trice. The communist
parties, too, are still engaged in adjusting their sights - not
to speak of their habitual urge to make a show of popular support
by launching mass agitations on the slightest pretext - to the
exigencies of the battles of the ballot. The BJP is a relative
late-comer in this arena. Every hint of its shifts, therefore,
attracts particular attraction.
The first major change in the party's outlook was noted when Atal
Behari Vajpayee, gave public expression to his unhappiness over
the demolition of the Babri-Masjid in 1992. Only those who
suffered from a surfeit of self-righteousness could scoff this as
a stratagem, Since then Vajpayee has taken the opportunity many
times to stress that his party is committed to the equality of
all religions. In other ways, too, he has sought to allay the
fears of all those who have been dismayed by the propagation of
Hindutva from the BJP platform. And, now, the party has crossed
another milestone in its march forward with determination to win
wide acceptance as a truly national party no less qualified to
rule India than the Congress or any other credible contender.
This is the true significance of the omission from the
President's address to Parliament last week of three
controversial demands of the BJP, viz., abrogation of Article 370
which confers a special status on Jammu and Kashmir,
enforcement
of a uniform civil code and construction of a Ram Temple at
Ayodhya. "We understand", Vajpayee, as the Prime Minister, told
the Lok Sabha, "that when a consensus has to be evolved everyone
has to make some compromise or the other and the BJP is
prepared
for it." The party may not have removed its stand on these
matters altogether from its agenda. Yet, its very willingness
not to raise them in an important debate in Parliament must be
taken as a genuine recognition of the need for flexibility in
honouring a popular mandate. In this sense, Vajpayee has made a
concession to the politics of democracy.
Hindutva extremists may well nurse a grievance over this
approach. At the other extreme, the party's sworn enemies who
have had a vested interest in treating it as a political
untouchable may also denounce this as a trick to hoodwink them.
Both are blind to the forces for change at work. Both refuse to
come to terms with a new landscape born of the historical end of
dominance of the Congress as an umbrella organisation of Indian
nationalism. The overriding need now is for a new organisation
cutting across, to the maximum possible extent, the barriers of
class, Caste, religion and region and focussing on economic
development to strengthen the Indian state. Vajpayee is trying
hard to prepare the BJP to play this role. And if his two
speeches in Parliament during his 13-day tenure as the Prime
Minister, remain the BJP's guidelines, there is every likelihood
that many more voters will look upon it as the best guarantee
available of political stability than was the case in the May
polls. That his moderation and preference for consensus will
continue to be at the core of the BJP's policy is indicated by
the acceptance of his appeal to the Shiv Sena government in
Maharashtra to revive the Shri Krishna Commission which was
inquiring into the 1992-93 riots in Bombay and which it had
disbanded earlier. Vajpayee's interest in removing the
misgivings in the minds of many liberals about the import of
Hindutva is obvious. Whatever the definition of the concept, its
practitioners in government should not consider themselves free
to subvert the rule of law.
It is because the leaders of the party opposed to the BJP did not
care to bear in mind the changed perspective demoted by the
latest election result that they were reduced to resorting to
much pettifogging during the debate. Even the eminent
parliamentarian. Somnath Chatterjee, of the CPI(M), could not
resist this temptation. Accusing Vajpayee of a lust for power and
trying to make much of the fact that the BJP had secured only 20
per cent of the votes, opened these leaders to the charge of a
lack of sound arguments against Vajpayee's assertions. And
talking of the percentage of votes, it is time communist
stalwarts like Chatterjee asked themselves why it is that after
about 50 years of active participation in national politics,
their party is yet to exceed 10 per cent. The CPI(M) is a
cadrebased and well-knit organisation and is ably served by its
trade unions and youth fronts. Still it refuses to grow, a fact
which is cloaked by the CPI(M)-led Left Front's record in forming
the fifth successive government in West Bengal. The clear
implication is that the party may have reached a plateau as far
as its real influence is concerned. And this, despite its
campaign against the BJP's policies. Will it be illogical for
the BJP to cite the CPI(M)'s stagnation at a mere 10 per cent of
votes as a resounding rejection of its attacks on that party as a
communal monster?
With Vajpayee's first government having passed into history. the
country's interest now centres on the longevity of its successor.
It is easier to cobble a front as the nucleus of a new
government than to sustain it. The Janata Dal government formed
by V P Singh in 1989 with the BJP's support from outside was not
a coalition. Yet, the anti-Congress adhesive which had held its
luminaries together at the beginning did not take long to come
apart. Ego clashes proved its undoing sooner than most
pessimists had thought.
Apart from the constraints of a so-called common minimum
programme, this factor will put Deve Gowda's leadership to a
severe test. What he has to be wary about in particular is
clear, Will Mulayam Singh Who considers UP as his fief and Laloo
Prasad Yadav who is sensitive to anything that remotely may look
like a threat to his supremacy in Bihar, easily reconcile
themselves to the top job in New Delhi having eluded them? If
Deve Gowda, on the one hand, and the two Yadav stalwarts of north
India on the other, think alike on all aspects of governance and
act in unison, then the fragile-looking coalition can reasonably
hope to make a go of it. But this is a big if.
As far as implementing an accepted common programme is
concerned,
Jyoti Basu has tried to play down the difficulties ahead. He
cites the CPI(M) led Left Front's achievement in ruling West
Bengal smoothly for four terms. But this Front has been held
together by the common adherence to the Marxist theory more than
anything else.
Such a potent bond does not exist to lend credibility to the
hotch-potch that Deve Gowda finds himself leading. It is, no use
disregarding the lurking danger of instability.
The author is former Senior Editor,
Indian Express.
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