BJP’s existential crisis

Hindutva or governance? Ram Mandir or corruption? Narendra Modi as prime ministerial candidate or not? The internal debates of the Bharatiya Janata Party as it gets ready for the 2014 general election are being played out in the open.

And they indicate not so much a party that wants to get its strategies right and is thus discussing all options, but one that is being pulled in all kinds of directions because of some serious internal contradictions.
The BJP’s articulate and sound-bite meisters will blame it all on the media’s tendency to speculate and say that these deliberations do not reflect anything more than inner party democracy. “We are not a dynasty-driven organisation”, is the BJP spokespersons’ refrain. There is no denying this obvious fact — the Congress is controlled at the top by the Gandhis, which works well for the Congress. Similarly, the Akali Dal, the Shiv Sena (both BJP allies), the Samajwadi Party and the DMK, among others, are run as virtual family firms. Dynasties are now part of the Indian political scene.
But that is no consolation to the BJP. As the run up begins, the conflicts within the BJP are real and serious and could, in the coming years, threaten its position as the second biggest national party. If it fails to perform well in 2014, the BJP could slide into irrelevance on a national level; it may continue to hold on to several states, but will cease to be a credible rival to the Congress. After frittering away the opportunities that came its way during its time in Opposition, including a long period when the UPA looked directionless and almost ready to totter, the BJP has to now decide how to steady itself, consolidate and grow. The decisions it will take on these crucial issues, the personalities it will choose to lead it, the programmes it will put forward to the voters will decide its fate in the years to come.
Take the most high-profile dilemma of them all: should Mr Modi lead the party in the coming elections? Should he be in-charge of the campaign and have an influential say in choosing candidates? Or will the BJP go for broke and announce that he will be the party’s choice for Prime Minister should the NDA win?
On the face of it, the answer to that is clear—if Mr Modi is named as the PM-in-waiting, some allies, such as the JD(U), will desert the party. But more than that, millions of voters (and not necessarily from among the minorities) will resolutely cross over to another party to make an emphatic statement that they consider him a pariah. The JD(U)’s loss — assuming it does walk away, though it is not 100 per cent sure — would be a problem, but the question to be asked is, will it bring in sufficient votes and seats to make up for that loss? This is a moot point. There is no evidence yet that Mr Modi has the charisma and appeal to bring in new voters outside Gujarat. And what the BJP needs are new votes, not just votes from the old faithful. Indeed, the “Modi as the magic bullet” theory is an untried, untested one — what if even he fails to bring in the extra seats. And would promoting him at the cost of losing allies and votes be worth it? That is a calculation the party’s leadership and bosses — real and behind-the-scenes — have to make.
Most crucially, if
Mr Modi is named, it will firmly set the party on a particular path. For all the hosannas heaped on Mr Modi by Indian industrialists during Vibrant Gujarat jamboree and for all the love and adulation by his Gujarati fans in Ahmedabad and New Jersey, there is no getting away from the fact that he is an extremely divisive figure. By plumping for him as their leader, the BJP will firmly signal that he and his brand of politics is what they stand for. No amount of using clever platitudes and growth figures will take away the stain of 2002 and the BJP will be forever branded as the party that minorities and millions of India’s secular citizens should be wary of.
By nominating Atal Behari Vajpayee rather than L.K. Advani, the architect of the Rath Yatra which yielded vast political dividend, as the Prime Minister in 1998, the BJP had signalled a break from its perception of being a party of the hard, Hindutva right; with
Mr Modi at the helm, that image will come back centre-stage.
The same applies to Ram Janmabhoomi — for years, in government and out of it, the issue has been tucked away in the shadows with the growing realisation that it has no traction anymore and cannot be a vote-pulling gimmick. By talking about the governance record and competency of chief ministers like Shivraj Chauhan, Manohar Parikkar and, yes,
Mr Modi, the BJP has actually got more attention. But if the party succumbs to the pressure of the VHP and the like and talks about building the temple in its manifesto, it’s a signal that it is now going back to being the BJP of 1991. Is that what it wants?
The portents for the party are not good. By now, it should have clearly decided what and whom it wants to project in 2014. That there are still pulls and pressures on the very basics reflects a schizophrenia that can have an unhealthy effect. If the party itself is in a dilemma about its core values, what is its voter supposed to think? If it doesn’t know whether it should march forward, shedding the old baggage and emerge with a new, fresh look, putting aside anything that is divisive and disturbing or stick to old, tired and jaded formula well past their sell by date, then it cannot hope to capture the new voters who may be ready for an alternative to the Congress. In a sense the BJP’s dilemma is almost existential, because it is searching for an identity. The 2014 elections are a great — and perhaps last — opportunity for the party to reinvent itself and convince the allies as well as voters that it stands for progress, both economic and social. A big failure this time could spell big-time disaster for the BJP.