It is now fairly clear that the BJP government in India is on the way out. No other party is willing to join hands with the BJP. The only exception 4g the eight member Akali Dal (Badal) which surprised everybody by announcing an unconditional support to the BIP in its efforts to form government, The Congress party headed by former prime minister ‘Narasimha Rao has its own reasons why it has distanced itself from the BJP. The latter projected Rao as the most corrupt politician with whom. I NOW can NOX Join hands 10 form a coalition government Rao retains his hold Gn Congress members of Lok Sabha as well as the former ruling party. He is clinging to party office despite serious electoral reverses, by being in a position to determine the course of government formation, Rao feels he could escape adverse enquiries and harassment, from the new government, That is precisely why the two parties are not joining hands 10 form a Coalition despite the fact that the two have narrow differences ‘on most policy matters, ‘The Janata Dal and the Leftist parties do not want to touch the BJP with ‘even & pair of tongs because their support base consists of minorities, Dalits and other backward castes who are strongly allergic to the BJP, At the same time, the regional parties, other than Akali Dal, refrain from making a common cause with the BJP because of its strong bias in favor of strong Central government. The regional parties view strong central government as posing a threat to the identity of states. A growing Dalit movement in recent years took the scheduled castes away from the upper caste led Hindu fold, All these factors joined together to cause a splendid isolation for the Atal Behari Vajpayee government which came into ‘being in a Somewhat surprising manner, Shankar Dayal Sharma’s explanation for his invitation to Vajpayee was that he followed the text book rule of inviting the largest single party to try its hand at forming government first. As things are, leaders of the BJP themselves are surprised at their isolation. They have all but given up hope of gathering support of a minimum of 210 members to retain power; they are short by almost 70 members. Akali leaders Surjit Singh Barnala wide to persuade the regional parties in Assam, Tamil Naidu and Andhra to lend support to the BJP government but in vain, it appears Vajpayee’s effort to prove his majority before May 31 is foredoomed. This is known to the leaders of the BJP as well as to others. Earlier, Vajpayee, was willing to offer the post of Lok Sabha Speaker 10 some regional party but now he is making virtue of a necessity by announcing his support for P.S. Saygma who happens to be the combined candidate of the Congress party and the United Front. Even otherwise all indications are that the party is preparing to bow out of power, Vajpayee’s law minister Jethmalani is making brave statements about his priority to prosecute Rao for his acts of omission and commission while in power. This is being done for the sake of record. Other ministers are making announcements to be used later (o project themselves as epitomizes of clean, efficient and responsive administration. _ the short experiment in power is instructive for the BJP’s leadership, with the present narrow social base and limited political agenda, the BJP can never hope to gather a majority for itself in India’s Lok Sabha. It has 0 understand that slogans like a Ram Mandir can help the party undertake upper caste Hindu consolidation. But it cannot mobilize Support sufficient! To take it to the corridors of power. A vast, multi religious, multiracial, metalinguistic and multinational subcontinent like India cannot allow itself to be tied to the apron strings of a Ram Mand if The party 1016 evolve Tor itself a Target social base than upper caste Hinduism does for it. It can no longer afford to govern economy by narrow nationalism; otherwise it would continue to miss the laws.
The post poll political developments offer a lesson or two to the Congress party and its leadership too; they can adopt soft or hard Hindutva as a policy in India at the cost of their own future. The Indian State and its composition are different than the ground level social reality. Hindutva can only lead to isolation for its protagonists. They must learn to live with a politics of coalition in all spheres, Hindutva only limits it.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 22, 1996
