Since the Bharatiya Janata Party’s political record in opposition in the past three years has been more inclined to the occult than ordinary politics, I am going to use metaphysical language to proffer this piece of gratuitous advice. When the party’s senior leaders gather in Bhopal today for the final moments of the national executive committee’s meeting, they should consider reincarnation as a final solution. If you think this is an absurd suggestion, please consider the party’s behaviour since it was unexpectedly tossed out of power in May 2004. Its first reaction to the defeat was not introspection but astrology. What follows is a true story. On the day that the whole world thought Sonia Gandhi was going to become India’s next prime minister some senior BJP leaders consulted an astrologer who predicted that this was not going to happen. He knew for certain, he said, that Sonia Gandhi was never going to be prime minister of India. The next day when Sonia’s ‘inner voice’ wisely advised her to turn down the job, these senior leaders raced back to the astrologer and asked what else he could see in the future. And, he, heady with his own prowess, told them that Dr Manmohan Singh’s government would not survive beyond September 2004. So between May and September the old men who lead our main opposition party put their feet up, indulged their wives and children, and waited for the government to fall. So certain were they of the astrologer’s powers that they did nothing by way of analysing reasons for their defeat. Of comment there was some — India Shining was a bad slogan — of analysis there was absolutely none. So when the government survived they were lost once more. There was a bit of hulla-gulla in Parliament and the odd ‘yatra’, but not the smallest attempt to rebuild the party. More seriously, the party that has spent nearly all of its life on the opposition benches seemed incapable of playing its role as a proper opposition party. The government offered them many chances. The prime minister promised administrative reforms that have not begun to happen. In the war against poverty all it gave us were huge, unwieldy schemes that have delivered little at enormous cost. Under the influence of the Left’s ever dodgy economic ideas, it decided to distribute what little forests we have left to Adivasis and it put important economic reforms like privatisation and labour policy on hold. The BJP said nothing. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s road building programme has slowed down to almost snail’s pace, but from the BJP we have heard not one word of protest. Its only contribution in the infrastructure area came recently and again it was on the metaphysical plane. It has taken the lead in protesting against attempts to demolish Ram’s mythical bridge to Lanka in the hope, perhaps, that Ram will come to the rescue once more. But, even the gods cannot help a political party when it is determined to commit suicide. The old men who control the BJP have not only failed to lead the party in any real way, they have spent an extraordinary amount of energy trying to topple their own governments in Rajasthan and Gujarat. When Vasundhara Raje was under Gurjjar siege, the BJP’s senior leaders concentrated on trying to get rid of her instead of calming the Gurjjar agitation. And, if Narendra Modi wins again in Gujarat, it will be no thanks to anyone in BJP headquarters. Suicidal tendencies manifested themselves also in the BJP’s inexplicable opposition to the nuclear deal with the United States. Instead of taking pride in the fact that it was their government that laid the ground for the deal, the BJP’s old men decided to support the Marxists in their attempts to bring the government down over the deal. The Marxists have made it clear that their real problem with the deal is that it will bring India closer to the United States in more ways than one. What possible reason could the BJP have to object to this? Or to a deal that is so beneficial to India that the loudest opposition to it has come from our two old foes China and Pakistan? So the time has come for the BJP to consider reincarnation. Just as the Jana Sangh died to reincarnate itself as the Bharatiya Janata Party, it is time for the BJP to die and seek rebirth. If recent polls are to be believed it has plenty of time. Not a single poll gives them the smallest chance of winning in the next general election or even leading a coalition government. If elections take place next summer as most pundits think they will this gives the party till 2013 to come back in a new incarnation. Meanwhile, RIP.
