BJP must pay attention to basic problems

Gujarat is not the end of the world. I doubt whether the voters would favour Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has lowered not only their spiralling economic growth but also their image. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's intervention to focus on issues "of development and governance" has stopped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from harping on the recent carnage in the state.

Modi himself says that he will not fight on the plank of the Godhra incident. Even if the BJP wins in Gujarat, it does not mean that the hate wave which the party rides will spread to other parts of the country. The Hindutva appeal does not sell beyond the Hindi-speaking states.

In Bihar, Laloo Yadav's preserve, it does not. In fact, the caste factor determines elections in the Hindi-speaking states. Even in Gujarat, though it is not a Hindi-speaking state, caste has come to the fore.

True, left to the BJP, which is guided by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Gujarat, the Hindutva and the Italian birth of Congress president Sonia Gandhi would have been the party's poll plank.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric, which has characterised Modi's yatras and his thought of displaying the replica of the burnt Godhra bogie, would have been grist to the election propaganda mill. But Vajpayee has upset the applecart by pointing out that if "the Godhra or the post-Godhra violence" is recalled, "it will look as if there is no other issue and that the voters are being toyed with."

This has created confusion in the Hindutva ranks. Modi may still play the Hindu card. He thinks he can harvest the Hindu voters after having sown the seed of hatred against the minorities, especially the Muslims. Reports are that he does not want any central leader to campaign in his state because he believes he can win single-handedly.

And if he can do so, he will be able to stake his claim to the prime ministership one day. He is mistaken. He cannot take the Gujaratis for a ride any more because they can see through him. He does not enjoy even a fraction of the respect which Keshubhai Patel, his predecessor, commands.

For obvious reasons, Modi has the support of the VHP which openly says that it prefers him to Vajpayee. That the BJP should be on the side of the VHP is understandable. They are members of the same parivar (family), no matter what press statements by different leaders say.

But how can the two behave in the same manner? While the VHP thrives on irresponsibility, the BJP leads the coalition at the centre and carries on its shoulders the task of running the country.

Still the two are so enmeshed that it is difficult to say which person is a member of which organisation. It looks as if the VHP comes to the fore when the law is sought to be violated or when the purpose is to abuse the critics, denigrate the opposition or threaten the authorities.

The BJP takes over when it comes to presenting a case a bit cogently since belligerency does not go down well. Their masks may be different, but they have the same faces.

The VHP says that the chief election commissioner (he is a Christian) has a "religious bias". The VHP dubs him anti-Hindu. The BJP blames him for lack of restraint. The VHP says it will defy the ban on the yatra. The BJP defends the VHP's right to launch the Vijay yatra to commemorate the demolition of the Babri Masjid a decade ago. The BJP has the right to assert that every organisation is free to carry out its programmes, but not pogroms.

The ruling BJP has to ensure that the extra-constitutional authority which the VHP and the Bajrang Dal are assuming, is curbed for the sake of governance, if not the country. From the point of view of the BJP, there is another factor it must guard against. If the extra-constitutional authority of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal is not curbed, they will become a Frankenstein's monster which may devour the BJP one day. Bhindranwale during Indira Gandhi's regime is a case in point.

The BJP and the VHP cannot wipe out the impression that they are two sides of the same coin. To call the VHP a religious or social organisation is to hoodwink the public. The BJP leaders were hand in glove with the VHP in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The two are together, arm in arm, in the election campaign. The two have jointly selected the candidates for the Gujarat poll.

What is disturbing about the BJP-VHP strategy is the manner in which it is vitiating the atmosphere. Those who are against it are dubbed anti-national or ISI agents. It reminds me of McCarthyism, which swept America in the Fifties and the Sixties.

Senator McCarthy ousted liberals from academic institutions, human rights activists and independent people from top government positions. The hullabaloo that the "communists" were dictating America's policies and programmes made people afraid of their own shadow.

The Hindutva zealots are trying to create the same type of atmosphere in India. Fear is what they are trying to instil. To some extent they are succeeding. People are afraid to protest even when the treatment meted out to them is unjust. They increasingly believe that it does not pay to speak out.

Maybe, the noise is meant to push into the background the government's failure on the economic front. More than half the population is poor and only a fraction enjoys the facilities which any country in the West takes for granted.

India's growth rate last year was around five per cent against the promised eight. It proposes to achieve one per cent of world trade in the next five years. What a target for the 10th Five Year Plan!

Worse are the reports on starvation. The centre, with 60 million tonnes of food grains in its warehouses, cannot escape the responsibility of starvation deaths either in Orissa, Jarkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. That the states do not have a proper distribution system does not condone the negligence in not providing the alternatives.

The government has been hiding the truth on the ground that dietary preferences of people come in the way of sending food grains to some states. The centre can use the NGOs. They are the ones who forced the government to send its teams to these states. The teams have now confirmed deaths due to starvation.

The Supreme Court's directive to the states remains unimplemented. Nearly one year ago it asked them to set in place the required administrative machinery to implement welfare schemes, particularly midday meals to school children.

But Orissa is busy with politicking in the ruling Biju Janata Dal, Jarkhand with the Congress party's infighting, Madhya Pradesh with its chief minister Digvijay Singh's essays in ego and Rajasthan with chief minister Gehlot's efforts to prove that the deaths were due to malnutrition, not starvation.

The BJP would do better if it were to pay attention to the basic problems, "governance and development", as Vajpayee puts it. If he cannot mend the ways of the party, who can? Once in a while he breaks his silence. Both people and his party notice it. Were he to do it more often, both will gain - the country as well as the BJP.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a Rajya Sabha MP