With Narendra Modi going on a fast against communalism and casteism, the time has come to seriously ponder what relevance the BJP is going to have in the Indian political scene in the future. It is a well-known truism that the political windfalls of the BJP in the past have more often than not been the result of divisive rhetoric with a few symbols like the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue as the foci of its campaign. Its efforts to walk a fine line between its proto-fascist ideological leanings and the requirements of governance have not yielded good results in the past. And the reasons are not far to seek. If you take away its anti-minority shrillness, the BJP offers little that is different from other political parties and little that is more constructive than what other political formations have to offer.
Take economic matters, for example. The per capita annual GDP growth rate in rural India has not been very much above 0% in the last twenty or so years. Most of India's GDP growth has been in the service sector and the government's enthusisastic advertisement of an annual GDP growth rate of 8% or so is rarely, if ever, accompanied by the caveat that most of it is due to service sector growth around 12-13%. That puts the economic policies of the Congress Party at the right end of the ideological spectrum in the Indian context. After all, one cannot ignore things like the persistence of high levels of poverty when it comes to assessing the ideological leanings of the Congress Party. Where does that put the BJP as far as its relevance goes when it comes to economic issues ? The Congress Party is not exactly a party that is unfriendly to corporate interests. Not only that, GDP growth rate, which is the favorite economic indicator of economic conservatives, was not exactly impressive during the last BJP government's rule ( this is not to say that the slightly higher GDP growth rate under the Congress Party since then has yielded tangible benefits for the vast majority of the Indian masses ).
As for national security, while the Congress Party may be perceived as being softer than the BJP on some issues, the BJP has its own image problems in this area like the Kargil fiasco.
Corruption has become the latest obsession of a party that is searching desperately for an election-winning agenda. With no clear third front in the picture, this can yield some dividends. But, the BJP does have its own image problems having to do with human rights violations. As economic issues take center stage, as they should given the global economic scenario and the horrible record in the area of economic development at home, the potential for this image to yield positive dividends with the Hindu vote bank diminishes sharply. The alacrity with which the Chief Minister of the state which has been described as the " laboratory of hatred " is making what effectively amount to a volte-face on his past ideological extremism in order to position himself as a Prime Ministerial candidate should raise eyebrows among the intelligentsia and the Indian public, given the reports of pogrom-like activities during his tenure as Chief Minister in Gujarat. It is worth recalling that Adolf Hitler won democratic elections on his way to authoritarian control. India in the twenty-first century, with its enormous challenges in the areas of rural development, poverty, literacy, trade deficits etc, can ill afford to go down a similar path and have economic issues occluded by divisive agendas. Chances are high that the Indian public will put bread and butter issues higher on the priority list than communal issues and that it will wise up to the fact that excessive politicization of these issues results in paralysis of the law-and-order machinery in this area.
As a party that lacks an economic agenda with mass appeal and as a party with a proto-fascist character that seems increasingly anachronistic to a wiser public, the BJP will have a tough time projecting itself as a relevant political force.
by C. Jayant Praharaj