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 The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) return to its core Hindutva agenda depends on whether the party will succumb to the pressure of the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or follow a moderate policy. But as long as the party is part of a coalition, there is going to be some moderation, according to Christophe Jaffrelot, an expert on the politics of the Sangh Parivar.
Christophe, Director of the Paris-based Centre for International Studies and Research, says since the party has done rather well in Jharkhand and Bihar, where it is in coalition with other parties, it could strengthen the supporters of coalition politics within the party. Ruling out the apprehension that the BJP has increasingly begun to resemble the Congress Party, Christophe says the BJP is still different mainly because of its ideology. Certainly the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) implies political compulsions for the party. Its moderation today comes from coalition politics since most of its partners in the NDA do not share the Hindutva agenda. But it has not changed the BJP’s ideology in Gujarat. There was no moderation partly because there were no partners to accommodate. Secondly the BJP remains different because of its cadres coming from the RSS and its inclusion of the Sangh Parivar. Asserting that the Sangh Parivar is still a coherent collective, the Sangh Parivar expert says the links within the Sangh Parivar still remain. The RSS continues to be the reference point for the network, including people like Vajpayee. All the top people have been trained and socialised in the RSS. Within the Sangh Parivar, there might be differences. There are more moderate forces as well as more radical forces. But this is more of a division of labour. Although there might be real conflicts between the BJP and organisations like the VHP, there is no break. The RSS remains a mediating body, the centre of the network. Touching on the speculations of a possible change in the BJP’s position in the light of Vajpayee taking a back seat, Christophe says someone else will eventually fill Vajpayee’s shoes. Even LK Advani can be a moderate promoting coalition politics. He is a true practitioner of realpolitik. “We must remember that the BJP is not a party based on personalities,” he says. On how the BJP has adjusted to caste politics, Christophe says in the 1990s the most significant political phenomenon for long-term politics was not Hindutva but the rise of lower castes. Ayodhya was in fact over-determined by Mandal. It was largely meant to defuse the OBC mobilisation. In post-Mandal India, the BJP, like all mainstream parties, has to cope with the rise of the lower castes. It has to give tickets to the lower castes and the OBCs. In the BJP, leaders such as Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti are from the OBCs. But the party apparatus, from the bottom to the top, remains in the hands of the upper castes and most of its ministers at the state level today, like at the Centre, are also upper caste. Hence some of the tensions we witnessed in the recent past like when Kalyan Singh was appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the upper castes protested and had him removed. (Source: The Times of India)
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