HVK Archives: What's special about the BJP?
What's special about the BJP? - The Economic Times
Arindam Sen Gupta
()
5 June 1996
Title : What's special about the BJP?
Author : Arindam Sen Gupta
Publication : The Economic Times
Date : June 5, 1996
The day after Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee resigned as prime minister,
R K Laxman drew a cartoon on the 'historic' event in The Times of
India. Mr Vajpayee sitting outside the PM's house, a bedding and
trunk by his side, a jhola and a flask near him, looking rather
grumpy. Although out, Mr Vajpayee is scarcely showing any sign
of moving - he has taken off his shoes, making it abundantly
clear that he is sitting in on protest. You could, if you
choose, take this as an expression of his indignation at the
denial of the 'people's mandate' by a 'motley' group of
'powerhungry' politicians who ganged-up to oust his government.
It's another matter that this 'mandate' which the BJP claims to
have won, and then 'illegitimately' denied, is 161 seats, plus 35
of its allies, making a total of 196 seats - a good 75 seats
short of a simple majority in Parliament. This apart, it has got
20 per cent of the popular vote, exactly the same as it had
garnered in the last election, and with the vote of its allies
this figure goes up to about 24 per cent. Either way, it is
nowhere close to a majority. You would have to stretch the point
a bit too much than is healthy for parliamentary democracy to
still insist that it is a mandate. But put that aside for the
moment.
Coming back to Laxman, there then is a grumpy Mr Vajpayee
squatting on the pavement outside the PM's door, and there is the
Common Man walking along the pavement wearing his
characteristic
quizzical expression, and with him that remarkably perspicacious
lady from Laxman's world, the Common Man's portly wife. And she
is saying: "Remarkable achievements! Restored Srikrishna Panel,
finalised Enron, endorsed liberalisation, became secular, rushed
troops to Assam, Kashmir polls carried out, kept quiet about
Article 370, Mandir ... all in ten days!"
The remark is obviously funny. But nothing in Laxman is
'funny,funny'; for, his cartoons invariably carry a pungent
political comment, too. The comment here is a factual
enumeration of what the BJP actually did in 10 days - how it
discovered suddenly the virtues of the Srikrishna commission
probing the Bombay riots, unceremoniously wound up by its ally,
the Shiv Sena, buried deep its swadeshi rhetoric, offered to
'freeze' contentious issues like Article 370 and Ayodhya - all
juxtaposed in a manner to highlight the BJP's studied effort
during those 13 days to repudiate all that it has stood for so
far. But put that aside as well for the moment.
Laxman's appraisal of Mr Vajpayee's brief tenure,- even while
discounting a cartoonist's yen to see the absurdities in an
otherwise 'normal' situation - runs contrary to the general
impression that the BJP leader relinquished office in a blaze of
glory. That while he has now positioned himself as the future
prime minister, his party - to use the words of another
satirist, Jug Surajya - has been "elevated to the pedestal of
patriotic martyrdom". this appraisal is largely based on Mr
Vajpayee's 'sterling' performance in Parliament - "gracious,
witty, heart-warming, confidence-inspiring". In mere 13 days,
he and his government apparently showed that it could build a new
nation.
Obviously, Laxman does not think so. His caricature does not
betray a shadow of remorse over the Vajpayee regime's ouster,
whereas the media at large - echoing presumably the sentiments of
the middle class - felt that darkness had descended at noon. Why
wasn't the BJP given a chance to run the government for a while?
It wouldn't have been, after all, any worse than the 'rag-tag
bunch of shabby and spiteful opportunists'? In any ease,
wouldn't it have been better for these 'secularists' to let a
minority BJP government rule Delhi than a majority one next time?
Couched in these questions is an unmistakable wish for a BJP
government and disappointment that the rules of parliamentary
democracy have undone its sarkar.
In other words, this is one subjective view of the formation and
the fall of the BJP government. And Laxman has another.
Consider it for a moment. How glorious really was the 13-day
rule of the BJP government? What did it really do apart from
what has been enumerated by Laxman? First there was Mr
Sikandar
Bakht refusing to join the government because he felt that he
deserved a better portfolio. For five full days he stayed away
from office and sulked, and then the BJP did what it has accused
all other parties of doing. It 'appeased' the minority leader
and gave him the external affairs ministry. And the worthy took
it, too, knowing full well that the government would last only a
week more.
Then there was Mr Ram Jethmalani who as law minister forgot he
had to be impartial, and on his second day in office, pronounced
Mr L K Advani innocent in the hawala case even as the court was
seized of the matter. He also assumed the role of a thanedar and
said he would arrest Mr Narasimha Rao. There was Ms
Sushma
Swaraj, too, who brought in a frightening dose of social
conservatism into the I&B ministry - she found Doordarshan lady
news readers exposing too much body, frowned at J&B women
staff
for wearing any other dress than saris, lashed out against the
corrupting influence of foreign media on Indian viewers and
Indian culture, and promised a'healthy' diet on DD.
On the economic front, it grabbed at these 13 days to clear the
Enron project, the very project it had accused of cost-padding,
and quietly allowed Enron to jack up the project cost by Rs 1,580
crore, and take the Dabhol bill back to the original amount. The
finance minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, got hyperactive as a
caretaker minister, and by his own admission, cleared as many as
3,000 files. He also ordered action against Reliance and East
West, two companies for which he has never had much love.
Meanwhile, even at the height of their glory, BJP factions were
at each other's throats in Gujarat, and a septugenerian
minister was stripped in public by the 'disciplined' RSS cadres.
Is this the government and party which will build a new India?
Still, it might be argued that any growing party, as the BJP
is, would have its quota of dissenters and odd balls. Too much
should not be made of their 'excesses', born as they are out of
enthusiasm, But then why take the moral high ground and accuse
the'motley'crowd of misbehaviour? Just because it does not have
a leader like the gracious Mr Vajpayee? Well, perhaps Mr
Vajpayee and his 'sterling' performance could also be viewed from
a different perspective.
Even before his 'historic' speech in Lok Sabha, Mr Vajpayee's
performance has been stunning. A man of 40 years experience in
the hurly-burly of Indian politics proclaimed himself a poet and
decided recite poems at every invitation. It did impart a soft
touch to the man - the sensitive leader-philosopher. Besides, he
was reasonable, too; his government would not scrap Article 370,
enact a uniform civil code, or build the Ram temple - all
electoral pledges of his party and the very issues which has
made the BJP 'distinctive'. In Parliament, Mr Vajpayee said none
of the contentious issues would be raised by his regime. Why?
Because it did not have a majority. So, without a majority he
wanted the BJP to rule as another version of the Congress, albeit
a more efficient one.
And that is precisely what appears to have appealed to the middle
class - the 'tempering influence' of Mr Vajpayee. But look at it
from a different perspective, is not Mr Vajpayee's radical
watering down of the BJP's essential beliefs an opportunistic
ploy for winning new friends, all for the sake of power? Never
mind how opportunistic the 'secularists' are, why was the party
with alleged integrity doing the same? Does not Mr Vajpayee's
'virtuoso performance' represent an act of political immorality
as well? The fact that he repudiated his past and all that his
party has stood for - and will stand for in the future, now that
it is unburdened of power?
So what is special about the BJP? That is, apart from its
Muslim-baiting that goes by the name of 'rare political
plainspeak'. It is special only because some people wish it to be
special. Otherwise, the 13-day wonder wouldn't be seen as a
promise of a new India.
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