HVK Archives: BJP in transition
BJP in transition - The Pioneer
Editorial
()
April 14, 1998
Title: BJP in transition
Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 14, 1998
The call by outgoing president LK Advani for a "new BJP" at the
party's national executive meet sends out significant signals on
three fronts-the relationship between the party and Government;
the party and it's "core" agenda; and the party and its allies.
On the first count, Mr Advani has done well to drive home that
the BJP is no longer the party-in-opposition, nor even the party-
on-the-make; it is now the party-in-Government. Therefore,
partymen will have to acknowledge the "responsibility" of
governance, that they can no longer afford the luxury of reckless
confrontationism. The architect of the party's transformation has
clearly enunciated that the JP must deliver on its promise of
good and stable governance if it is to consolidate its new-found
mainstream acceptability and seize the space fast being abdicated
by a "discredited, dissipated and dynastic Congress".
It is on the relationship of the party with the contentious
issues described variously as the party's "core" or "hidden"
agenda, that the self-conscious departure from the traditional
pieties of the past is especially notable. Calling for a party
"guided not by issues of yesterday but by the agenda of
tomorrow", Mr Advani has asked for a debate on Ayodhya, Article
370, and Uniform Civil Code. This new emphasis on a solution
through concerted dialogue can only be wholeheartedly welcomed in
as much as it discards the BJP's past ambiguity over the
construction of a temple at Ayodhya either through dialogue or
legislation. The significance of Mr Advani's crafting of the
metaphor of a "Rashtra Mandir", a nation where all denominations
can live together in peace, prosperity and security, instead of
the dogged insistence on a temple being built at the disputed
site in Ayodhya at the earliest, also cannot be lost on many. Mr
Advani's admission that a large area of governance has, little to
do with ideology and must only be informed by the principle of
national interest is further indication of ideological
intransigence making way for pragmatic tolerance. At the same
time, there is cause for a caveat to be inserted here. Even as
Mr Advani advocated a newer softer political line, the political
resolution argues that the mandate of 1998 gave the party "the
responsibility of setting right the grievous wrongs of the past".
This indicates an unfortunate mismatch for the resolution appears
to reflect a harking back to the exclusivist vocabulary of the
past.
On the third front, that of the party's relationship with allies,
the BJP shows positive signs of coming to terms with the
exigencies of coalition politics. Both Mr Advani and Mr Vajpayee
have emphasised that theirs is a Government with inbuilt
constraints, which enjoins upon the BJP the need to be sensitive
to the interests of regional allies. However, even as Mr Advani
called for better coalition chemistry, Mr Vajpayee urged partymen
to ready themselves for a day when the BJP could rule on its own.
This discrepancy , between its voices is, perhaps, a piquant
reflection of the party's dilemma as it struggles to cope with
the compulsions of cohabitational compromises and yet salvage an
individual and distinct Identity to insure against the all-
pervasive "Congress culture" that has a tendency to subsume all
ruling formations.
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