Dilemma for BJP

The two-party system is still a far cry in India. In fact, if one were to add up national and regional parties, the number comes to around 30. Still, three formations have come to emerge. There is the Bharatiya Janata Party, with 12 regional allies, Congress with six and the United Front retaining the 14-party alliance.

What it means is that no political party will get a clear majority in the next Lok Sabha because they have themselves limited the scope of winning 272 in a house of 543. They share seats with the parties with their allies. The BJP, which once said that it would go it alone, has realised that it has to have the support of other parties.

No doubt, the argument is that this time its purpose is to create a niche in the south and the other non-Hindi speaking states and to fight on its own in the elections that will follow the present one. Yet, it is an admission that it cannot come to power on its own. The coalition, which it ran down in the past, has come to be accepted as the future pattern.

This has naturally diluted the BJP's poll plank. It argues that the party has no other option in the political climate that prevails in the country. This is true. What it does not realise is that when it would want to return to its own agenda, the territory vacated by it might have been occupied by the fanatics. It would be increasingly under pressure to go back to its original stand. But the party is in no position to disturb the set up it has so labouriously built in the states, where it does not count.

The question it should ask itself is : Can it pursue the diluted programme without alienating its committed voters? So far the BJP has stood for a stridentHindutva, which has been spelled out in the terms of Hindu Rashtriya, the common civil code, the scrapping of Article 370, which gives a special status to Kashmir, and the building of Ram temple at the site where the Babri masjid stood before demolition. The removal of the mosques sharing the premises of temples at Mathura and Varanasi has been deferred for the time-being.

It is no more a secret that the parties with which the BJP has aligned itself are against such demands. Some of the allies have said so publicly. In fact, the very dilution has attracted the parties which were opposed to the BJP earlier. Its leader, Atal Behari Vajpyee, has said that the BJP will not pursue its own programme because it will have to accommodate the programmes of other parties. It is a good statement to cement relations with the allies but is it good enough for the BJP's traditional voters?

When the Jana Sangh, before it was rechristined as BJP, had a stand which was wishy-washy. Then it never crossed a double digit in the Lok Sabha. It was able to increase its tally to 90 in 1977 after Gandhian Jaiprakash Narayan made them it of the Janta Party, which swept the polls in the wake of Mrs Indira Gandhi's authoritarian rule. But then came a stage when the Jana Sangh members had to choose between the RSS, its mentor, and the Janata Party. They left the Janata Party and founded the BJP. LK Advani then announced that they would go it alone.

That was the time when they began to play the Hindu card. The new policy was focused on an appeal to Hindus in the name of religion and it articulated such causes as would foment religious sentiments, to the exclusion and discomfort of the Muslims and secular forces. There were pressures on the BJP to give up its Hindutva stand to expand its base.

But the BJP did not change. It reaped the dividends and, as a result, its number rose to 161 in the last Lok Sabha. The party became the single largest group in the House. It was evident that the stand of Hindu chauvinism won them seats. The voters, who have stood behind it, have a specific image of the party. Can it now turn its back to them and say that it has changed or diluted its policy because of certain considerations? The danger in such an eventuality is that those who have put faith in the BJP because of its Hindu face may feel betrayed and may even distance themselves from it.

It is difficult to believe that the BJP will do so, particularly when the RSS is the boss. Only the other day did I see Vajpayee in knickers, standing in salute before RSS Chief Raju Bhaya, published in a newspaper. The cat is out of the bag. How can the BJP which is an instrument of the RSS can make a departure from the basic philosophy of Hindu Rashtriya. It would tantamount to the tail wagging the body.

In fact, RSS ideologue Govindacharya let the cat out of the bag when he said an interview that it was "practical idealism". It meant the party has adopted a strategy for winning. He went on to explain: "It may also be termed as a tactical act of self-defence." What Govindacharya said was that the situation demanded the BJP to act in a particular way so that it could have alliance with different parties in different parts of India.

But 'practical idealism' is the not a phrase which the BJP supporters in rural areas will understand, presuming that the urbanites will. They have hitched their wagon to the BJP because it held out certain promises, the promises of Hidutva, common civil code, etc. They may not appreciate the point of strategy, which the BJP emphasises, to get a foothold in the south, Orissa or West Bengal. The diluted stand of the BJP may make fanatic bodies like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) more attractive. However, the only saving grace for the BJP is that the VHP is also an instrument of the RSS. It will see to it that VHP does not come in the way of the BJP.

In any case, Govindacharya's observations should be a warning to persons like George Fernandes and Ram Krishna Hegde, still parading as anti-communal in their approach. They say that the BJP has changed. If it is a strategy, then how? The RSS ideologue argues that it is 'practical' to pursue the line which the party has taken at present. To read anything more than that is foolish. Fernandes and Hegde are seasoned enough to know that.

By associating with parties which, till recently, had secular credentials, the BJP expects the percentage of votes (20.29 per cent as against 20.80 per cent by Congress) it polled in the last election to increase. People sitting on the fence or those who have weakened in their faith in secularism have already begun to feel that the BJP is after all not that communal when people like Fernandes, Hedge and MGK Menon, the renowned scientist, have joined hands with it.

The real danger that the BJP faces is that in an effort to win the non-BJP voters it may lose some of its support. Its appeal is on the basis of clothes ofHindutva it wears. By putting on some other clothes, it may be found acceptable but it may lose the people who have stood by it for years.

The fielding of LK Advani, so far saying 'no' to the Lok Sabha, is meant probably to sustain the hopes of hardliners that all that the BJP is doing is to get a majority. If, by a quirk of circumstances, it attains 272 seats in the Lok Sabha on its own symbol, Advani would be the prime minister. If the majority is through the allies, the soft Vajpayee would occupy the chair. And, in any case, Govindacharya has made it clear that Vajpayee is only a 'mask'.