Politically divine

BJP, after 25 years of its formation and under a new president, still has a long way to go before it can become a real and committed Hindutva formation
John Philip Delhi

Over a year ago, in the last week of November 2004 to be precise, Lal Krishna Advani, the then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had described his own political organisation with a statement that had apparent irrational dimensions. The statement made while addressing the party's national executive meet held in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, was that 'the BJP is really the Chosen Instrument of the Divine to take our country out of its present problems and to lofty heights of all-round achievements.' Being part of the Hindutva ideological conglomeration, the leadership of the BJP as well as its associates in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) led Sangh Parivar would have had more believers in the 'divine' than in other political outfits, but even then Advani's invocation of celestial elements was seen as rather far-fetched.

 In such a context, the statement was explained away by BJP insiders in a more practical manner. They perceived the extraordinary formulation to be the result of certain organisational challenges that Advani was facing within the BJP and the larger Sangh Parivar. His problems with the RSS, which accused the former deputy prime minister of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of having presided over the ideological and organisational deviation and deterioration of the political arm of the Sangh Parivar, were growing in proportion at that time and the divine invocation was considered to be an offering of truce to the 'spiritually inclined' RSS top brass.

As later events proved, the truce offering with 'divine elements' was not particularly helpful to Advani. In a span of one year, his problems with Sangh Parivar's principal commandants intensified and they virtually threw him out of the leadership of the BJP. But after Advani's demission of office and Rajnath Singh's ascent as BJP president, both acts orchestrated by the RSS top brass, and after BJP's silver jubilee conference in Mumbai during the last week of 2005, the depiction of the party as the 'chosen instrument of the divine' seems to be acquiring an altogether new meaning. In the words of some ardent supporters of the new party president, the statement is steadily gaining in relevance.

Almost all political events of national import that have unfolded in the first four weeks of Rajnath Singh's tenure as BJP president have had one common streak; they have all helped the BJP and its political platform as the principal opposition party. In fact, it has been a seemingly unending series of favourable developments since Rajnath Singh's takeover, starting with the unexpected revival of the Bofors corruption scam, followed by the crisis in the Congress-led coalition government in Karnataka and leading to the supreme court verdict against Bihar's governor, Buta Singh.

Notably, every one of these issues was a gift from the ruling dispensation, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Not one of these issues had come to light on account of proactive political-ideological manoeuvres of the BJP. The political acumen or organisational skills of Rajnath Singh or his (yet to be rustled up) team was not actually tested on any of these issues. It was as though political advantage and space for campaign were being offered on a platter to the BJP under the new president.