For the first time since independence, a challenger to the Congress, both in organisational and ideological terms, has appeared in the shape of the Bharatiya Janata Party following the present poll. That, indeed, is the central significance of the 1991 election.
Regardless of whether one likes or abhors the BJP, its associates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and their Hindutva platform, with its immediate emphasis on the construction of a Ram temple on the Janambhoomi site in Ayodhya, one cannot possibly deny that other than the Congress, it is the first broadly all-India political party to arise in the country.
In view of its 28.8 per cent vote in Karnataka, 20.6 in Maharashtra, 55.4 in Gujarat and 0.5 in West Bengal, the BJP can no longer be said to be a Hindi-belt phenomenon. Its presence in Kerala and Tami| Nadu in the South is still nominal. But the Congress has been decimated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. And while the BJP’s overall vote in the country as a whole has risen to around 25 per cent from about 11 in 1989, the Congress has slumped to around 35 per cent.
Only on the surface can it be said that the Janata Party was also such a formation in 1977-79. For, in reality, it was nothing of the kind. The Janata Party was at best a loose conglomeration. It was not a party in any meaningful sense of the term.
Of course, the Congress (O), the Jana Sangh, the Lok Dal and Socialists of various hues had formally merged to form the party; in fact they had continued to function as separate units. The merger might possibly have congealed in course of time if leaders like Charan Singh, Madhu Limaye and the now generally forgotten Raj Narain had given it a chance. But they did not give it a chance. They finally brought about its disintegration in the summer of 1979.
In sheer contrast, the BJP is one coherent organisation firmly rooted in the 65-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The VHP and its offshoot, the Bajrang Dal, too belong to what the RSS leaders fondly call the Sangh family, though they do enjoy a measure of autonomy. Of course, not all BJP leaders have an RSS background. Especially lately, a number of non-RSS men and women have gained prominence in it. But those who do not, in the final analysis, abide by its discipline and ethos cannot survive in it. The BJP is the most disciplined mass party in the country. All in all, it is there to stay in its present form subject to changes that the compulsions of growth, responsibilities of office and electoral politics must inevitably bring about.
The BJP is obviously different from the Congress in that it has not enjoyed any worthwhile support among Muslims at any time. In the present election, Muslims have by and large not voted for the Congress either. But they can return to it. In any event, the Congress will continue its efforts to woo them which the BJP is unlikely to attempt. And that is a significant difference between them.
Again whether one approves or disapproves of the BJP’s approach, that difference is the essential point about it. It is, on its own frank and open statement, a Hindu party determined to establish a Hindu Rashtra in India. It does not exclude Muslims from its membership and leadership but only those Muslims who subscribe to the goal of a Hindu Rashtra are welcome to join it.
There is a lot of misunderstanding on the issue because the word ‘Hindu’ is interpreted in narrow Semitic and European terms as a religion and not in wide cultural-civilisational terms which provide for any number of faiths, creeds and sects under its umbrella. But I have dealt with that issue in these columns more than once and need not return to it.
It can be said in defence of the BJP that the Congress too did not succeed in winning over any significant section of Muslims before partition, though in the early twenties Gandhiji had gone to the length of heading so ridiculous a movement as the Khilafat for the “preservation” of the virtually defunct institution of caliphate which the Turks themselves detested and finally abolished. The argument would not be without substance altogether; for it is not inconceivable that a substantial section of Muslims would move over to the BJP if it were to come to power in New Delhi with a clear prospect of staying there for a worthwhile period of time. But it is not desirable to so stretch the point and in the process distort the perspective.
The BJP is different from both the pre- and post-independence Congress in a fundamental sense. It has a view of Indian nationhood rooted in Indian soil, history and culture which the Congress has never had.
The issue is not that the two viewpoints are different and that one is right and the other is wrong. The issue is that one viewpoint, represented by the BJP, is internally coherent and the other, represented principally by the Congress and endorsed by much of the western-educated intelligentsia and other political parties, is not.
Nehru spoke again and again of India’s unity in diversity. But in conceptual, as distinct from political terms, his emphasis was essentially, if not wholly, on India’s diversity and not on its unity. If that were not to be the case, he would have defined India as a nation in being and not as a nation in becoming. Most Indian intellectuals also define India that way.
Again, Nehru wrote and spoke extensively and repeatedly of Indian culture as being a synthesis of what grew up indigenously following the so-called Aryan “invasion” and what later invaders, including the Muslims, brought with them. But assuming a Hindu- Muslim cultural synthesis had in fact taken place, was it, or was it not, disrupted as a result of the British intrusion and manipulation? The answer has to be in the affirmative; for otherwise it would be difficult to explain the partition and the riots before and after partition. That makes it obligatory to spell out how this process of synthesis is to be resumed.
Neither Nehru nor anyone else has ever told us how this was to be done. This concept of secularism may at best be a practical way out of the Hindu-Muslim problem inasmuch as it provides for some form of uneasy co-existence. It certainly does not provide even in theory for a cultural synthesis. Indeed, it seeks to bypass the civilisational-cultural issue altogether.
Not surprisingly, secularism is divorced by its votaries from its original European meaning of secularisation of the mind and interpreted as equal respect for all religions. The word “civilisation” is almost never used by them, though that is the crux of the matter.
The incoherence of the Congress view of Indian nationhood notwithstanding, however, the party has had a powerful built-in electoral advantage so long as it has been assured of the support of a majority of Muslims and Harijans. Thus the BJP could not have been in a position to challenge it effectively unless this support had weakened substantially. V.P. Singh, Kanshi Ram of the Bahujan Samaj Party, and others, by no means well disposed towards the BJP, have performed this task in the two polls in 1989 and 1991 and thus facilitated the BJP’s task.
That too would not by itself have sufficed to make the BJP the Congress’s rival and potential replacement. It had to mobilise the Hindus on a scale it had not been in a position to attempt ever before. In this task, the VHP’s campaign on the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid issue has clearly served as its potent instrument. Inevitably, this use of the Ram Janambhoomi issue by the BJP for electoral purposes has come in for criticism by opponents of the Hindutva platform. As a result the secularism-Hindutva controversy has moved to the centre of the ideological debate, such as it is, among the country’s political and intellectual community.
Ideological issues are, however, never settled in ideological terms alone. Politics is about power; it is not a variant of university debates. A number of other factors determine the correlation of forces and, therefore, the outcome of an ideological contention. In 1984, for instance, the assassination of Indira Gandhi tilted the electoral balance heavily in favour of the Congress which otherwise was almost certainly facing a big decline in its strength in Parliament as a result of the impending poll.
Rajiv Gandhi’s murder has done the same in 1991. It is a reasonable view that the Congress has gained 30-35 additional seats on account of the sympathy vote and the BJP lost almost as many. Thus if the tragedy had not taken place, the rival status of the BJP vis-à-vis the Congress would have been even more evident.
That apart, however, a couple of points may be made in respect of the situation as it obtains, for whatever reason. First, if the BJP leadership cannot afford to be apologetic about the temple issue, it cannot afford to be pushed into some precipitate action either. To be precise, the issue does not relate to UP alone; it is a national issue. While a BJP government in UP will be within its rights to seek an amicable solution acceptable to Muslims, it will be ill-advised to resort to legislation. The BJP asked for a national mandate and it has not received one; it must respect this verdict, though it will be legitimate for it to continue its campaign, as other parties will on other issues; the Janata Dal on the Mandal Commission report, for instance.
Ideally, all political parties should agree on a truce for the time being so that the new government can try and tackle as best it can urgent problems of fighting the secessionists and managing the economy. That would be a practical form of “national government” that has been talked about in the past 18 months. By virtue of its status as the country’s second-largest party, a special responsibility devolves on the BJP just as it does on the Congress as the ruling party once again.
Secondly, except under the aegis of a strong party, coalitional politics is not a practical proposition for India just as a two-party system on the British model is not. To be governed effectively, India has to have a pre-eminent party which is what the Congress has been all these decades. So the question is whether the Congress can renew itself and revive its fortunes, or whether the BJP can replace it, or whether India has entered a prolonged period or incoherence with all its dangerous implications.
This issue is as complex as it is contentious. It calls for much greater elucidation than is possible in this space. I hope to return to it one day.
Sunday Mail, 23 June 1991