A party without difference - Financial Express

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It will be sonic time before what Shankarsinh Waghela can
mean to Gujarat or his former party is known. His new
party will take shape in a few days with a resolve to
work for Gujarat's interests which his former party has
allegedly ignored all along. The new party will
necessarily be friendly to the United Front in New Delhi
for the simple reason that Waghela's first priority is to
do as much damage to the BJP as possible. Beyond that it
is too early to predict the dimension of the erosion he
can cause in that party's ranks.

Putting together a new party in the current maelstrom is
an expensive job. To put together a new organisation,
drawing upon the strength of the truant elements of a
well-knit cadre party, is even more strenuous. In spite
of Waghela's proven flair for skulduggery and his
capacity to generate material resources, he will have to
work quite hard for some time before he can give his new
outfit a degree of relevance and viability.

The estimates of his capacity are of course varying.
There are those who see in him the redoubtable founder of
a third force which can compete with the Congress and the
BJP for political supremacy in Gujarat. Among them
mainly are optimistic Congressmen who have long felt the
need to do something to arrest their steady
marginalisation and stop the BJP's growth. For them it
is good to believe that Waghela has enough of mettle to
achieve their goal. Heading a new regional party, he can
be their comrade-in-arms.

Others do not think much of him. They are mostly BJP
leaders who have immense faith in their party's
cohesiveness and its ranks' sense of purpose and
discipline. Waghela, they believe, can cause no more
than mild tremors in the BJP citadel. Frenetic efforts
are under way to contain even such "mild tremors". The
slogan is that party wreckers should never be allowed to
flourish, politically or otherwise. Yet there are traces
of fear amid this show of disdain for Waghela. Suresh
Mehta has his chief minister's gaddi to worry about and
others the organisation. That Mehta has to keep denying
rumours that he may team up with Waghela is a measure of
their worry and his capacity for mischief.

The bravado should be viewed against the backdrop of what
happened some months ago. Waghela's first revolt was
quite grim. It looked the party would split more or less
vertically and lose power if he was not kept in good
humour. Atal Behari Vajpayee had to camp in Gandhinagar
for days and meet Waghela's basic demands even after his
expulsion to restore peace in the party and save the
Government. That was a humiliation the leadership felt
worth suffering in the interest of power and apparent
unity. The unity has been predictably short-lived.

While it remains to be seen how effectively he dislodges
the BJP in Gujarat and weans away its disgruntled
sections else-where, Waghela has shown it up as a party
as much vulnerable to the maladies of power politics as
any other party. This is significant. The BJP has been

a presumptuous party, taking pride in its distinctive
ethos and ideology and treating itself as different from
everyone else, holier than everyone else. It has been
backing up its claim to be a national alternative with
its record of cleanness and discipline. That
distinctiveness is wearing thin.

True, dissension in the high or low BJP echelons has not
become as rampant or corrosive as in other parties. It
can still look upon others with scorn, scorn for their
chronic pettifoggery which never infected it. This has
been its main strength. This is what mainly made it a
party with a difference. This is also a factor that gave
the BJP ranks a feeling of superiority and self-
righteousness, a feeling they shared with the communists.
Waghela has struck at the roots of that feeling. He has
also made it difficult for the BJP leadership to present
itself as a superior alternative, untainted by others'
organisational ills.

The BJP's other main strength has been, in a manner of
speaking, its politico-religious posture, its invocation
of Hindutva which some call a sort of refined cultural
nationalism. This is undoubtedly a slogan that earned
for the party a strong constituency of intensely
motivated people. While its image of a party with a
difference, a clean and disciplined party which sought to
promote a distinctive political culture, helped it strike
chords of sympathy in secular circles, its appeal to
Hindu sentiments and traditions won ardent endorsement
from those sections which were acutely conscious of their
religious heritage.

But the religious appeal has not really carried it far.
Certainly not far enough to give its leadership a
confidence that it can win a national mandate and emerge
as a national alternative on the exclusive strength of
its Hindu appeal. There are even hints that some of its
ideologues have begun to feel late in the day that it may
be impolitic to play the unvarying Hindu tune for
eternity. The upsurge of protest against the demolition
of that old structure in Ayodhya even sowed the seeds of
self-doubt in many BJP minds. The demolition and the
reconstruction of shrines seem to have ceased to be their
obsessive and exclusive concerns.

It is now fairly widely recognised that the BJP has to
reach out to non-Hindu sections as well those born Hindus
but whose responses are not predicated by their Hinduness
if it is to emerge as a national alternative. In other
words, the BJP has to subject itself to a subtle process
of secularisation, without great fanfare but not
secretively either. This is a painful process and
therefore the debate on it promises to be protracted. It
is a process that can affect the party's political
character and dilute whatever that has gone to give it
its distinctiveness.

Not only because of its politico-religious character but
also because of its enormous self-esteem as a party with
a difference from and superiority to all others, the BJP
has been happy to plough a lonely political furrow for
long years. It has been doing so with overwhelming
optimism. Its leaders have been hoping that they would
be able to ride to power on their own the day after if
not tomorrow. This abiding trust in itself and this

capacity to go it alone in the hope of a great new dawn
had also marked the BJP out from other political players.
As things unfold, this trust seems to have shaken and
there is an appreciation of the need to ally with other
like-minded or not-so-like-minded groups.

Recent events have shown that the BJP can play ball not
only with Kanshi Ram and Mayawati who have no reason to
be entirely proud of their religious heritage but also
with J Jayalalitha and M Karunanidhi, her sworn enemy,
whose party has evolved from an early spell of Rama-
baiting. If Atal Behari Vajpayee's dream of staying on
in power as the head of a coalition of such dissimilar
forces as the BJP and the DMK did not click, it was
neither because of his ideological qualms nor for want of
earnestness. It was just that Karunanidhi was not
available for the moment.

Only for the moment. As months or years pass, it should
be possible for the BJP to win new friends who can help
it capture power in New Delhi. It is possible for it to
capture only with the help of one or more like-minded or
not-so-like-minded parties. And it is possible as much
because of the others' willingness to ally with it,
shedding their old inhibitions, as because of its own
anxiety to grow out of its self imposed isolationism.
This means the BJP is willing to soften its sharp
angularities. This will also mean what it is not a party
with great difference. Waghela has proved it in a
different way.

Shri Rajive Kaul, President, CII, Past Presidents of CII,
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

We are meeting at an interesting point of time in our
nation's history. In another 10 days, the people of the
world's largest democracy will begin participating in
what is likely to be the last General Election of this
century. The realisation that this could well be the
last chance to exercise their democratic option before
the 20th century comes to an end is no doubt weighing
heavily on the people's minds. The importance of the
coming election is underscored by the fact that the next
Government will have to shoulder the onerous task of
leading the country from this century into the next, from
the present to the future, from a period of missed
opportunities to an era of exciting opportunities and
daunting challenges. Consequently, responsibility has
devolved upon the people to elect a Government that can
live up to this task. I have no hesitation in
reiterating here what I have been saying at election
meetings all over the country -- that this task can be
undertaken only by the BJP. Neither a decrepit Congress
nor a rag-tag coalition of disparate parties can be
entrusted with this transition. All available
indications suggest that the people concur with this
view.

Friends, standing on the threshold of the 21st century,
as we look around we are confronted by contradictions
that are indicative of the uncertainties of the future.
On the one hand, the rapid growth of modem technology and
collapse of economic barriers have created the
possibility, of greater and more equitable distribution
of material wealth. On the other hand, the world, more
so the developing world, is threatened by economic and
military hegemonism of some countries and religious
intolerance and exclusivism of some others. On the one
hand, nearly the whole world has come to accept democracy
as the system of governance. On the other hand, in
nearly every democratic country the system has been
corroded by corruption and avaricious politicians.

Today, India is at the very vortex of these positive
opportunities and negative trends. To most of our people
the future appears tense and uncertain because of their
experience of the last 50 years which, in retrospect,
were, wasted first on creating the Nehruvian edifice and
then on dismantling it. Some where along the line, the
people were forgotten by a Government obsessed with the
welfare of a chosen few at the expense of millions of
others. Understandably, a host of questions have begun
to surface, questions which paint in stark colours the
failures of the Congress and the frustrations of the
people. Why is this great nation of nearly a billion
people reduced to such a wretched state? Why are the bulk
of the people of an ancient land with a civilisational
history that dates back to more than 5,000 years
condemned to live in abject poverty and sub-human
conditions? Why is the Government not alive to the
dangers of separatism in Kashmir and the North-East
despite our nation having suffered the tragedy of
partition? Why are those who hold public office so
bereft of moral and ethical values? Why has our system
become so insensitive to the needs of the common man even
while bending over back-wards to serve the politically

powerful and economically, well-off?

We in the BJP have the courage to address these questions
and lessen, if not remove, the cynicism which has gripped
the collective consciousness of our nation. We also
realise that with every other party bereft of ideology
and, therefore, the political courage needed to guide
India from the present to the future, history has placed
a great responsibility on the BJP which, in the closing
years of this century, has emerged as the true inheritor
of all that is lofty, pure and inspiring in India's
political legacy. It is this realisation which has
propelled us to draw up a national agenda that not only
aims at India's regeneration but also seeks to bridge the
present with the future so that see make the transition
from this millennium to the next with the minimal
dislocation and disharmony. Our party's national agenda
is not shaped by narrow political considerations. As a
result, it does not cater to any one community or caste
to the exclusion of others. To that extent, it is a
truly national agenda.

Allow me to present you with the broad features of this
agenda.

Starting from 1953, when the Jana Sangh was founded, Aye
have reposed our faith ill liberalisation. We believe in
liberalisation in anything and everything that frees the
human spirit and encourages legitimate hope. But
liberalisation after four decades of restrictive
practices needs to be accompanied by strict measures for
transparency and accountability, checks and balances. We
in the BJP have been constantly reminding the Government
about this necessity. Regrettably, the Congress failed
to ensure these checks and balances and the country is
now suffering the consequences of this lapse in terms of
runaway prices of essential commodities, fall in the
purchasing power of the rupee and unparalleled
corruption. Because economic liberalisation has been a
matter of deep faith and strong commitment to us for so
long even while powerful Marxist thought held sway over
most of the Eastern world, not excluding India, our
thinking is shaped also by social concerns and a social
agenda, to which I shall revert later.

I am certain that the policies a BJP Government will
follow will dismantle further the licence-quota-permit
raj without ushering in a licentious regime. I am certain
our policies will free businesses and professions of
state control without bringing in anarchy. I am certain
our policies will stimulate and sustain a strong capital
market, but not a stock market seam. I am confident that
our policies will revolutionise the field of
communications through newly emerging technologies
without a scandal, I am confident our policies will
achieve substantial PSU disinvestment without selling the
nation's jewels for pieces of silver. A BJP Government
will set up a Disinvestment Commission of professionals
to oversee disinvestment in PSUs while protecting the
interests of the workers. And those PSUs which are
retained to further national goals and security, will be
run on business lines with minimal Government
interference. Proceeds from disinvestments in PSUs will
be used only on capital expenditure. Because the BJP's
goal is to provide productive employment and at the same
free our people of Government controls, Aye are resolved
to reduce the size of Government in a phased manner.

The BJP's policy of swadeshi has often been
misrepresented by its political opponents with the sole
intention of painting us as anti-reformists and anti-free
market. I would like to unequivocally state that this is
far from the truth. When we talk of swadeshi, we stress
our abiding faith in the creative genius of every Indian
and the ability of our entrepreneurs to compete with the
best in the world. The potential of this creative genius
is demonstrated by the Agni and the Prithvi missiles
which our scientists have developed on their own, by the
remarkable recovery made by, the public sector unit,
SAIL. When we talk of swadeshi, we stress on the
importance of self-reliance and self-dignity. Our policy
of swadeshi makes it imperative for us to ensure the
protection of local industry and enterprise, especially
the small scale sector. It is for this reason that we
believe in providing a level playing field. By swadeshi
we do not mean a total and absolute rejection of foreign
investment but a prioritisation of areas in need of such
investment; indeed, the BJP realises that foreign
investment is required in power and other components of
infrastructure and as such it will be encouraged.
Foreign capital will also be invited to invest in world
class technology projects as well as in export-oriented
ventures. By swadeshi we also mean that the benefits of
liberalisation should not be limited to a few but reach
the last man in the last row. For this, we shall adopt a
two pronged approach -- first, provide the physical and
economic infrastructure that is appropriate for the
stipulated growth in our GDP, and. second, provide the
required social infrastructure for a minimum sustainable
quality of life. And lastly, by swadeshi we mean an
industrial policy that will take into account economic
sovereignty, modernisation and decentralisation.

I shall now deal with a connected issue, one which has
begun to agitate every Indian. We in the BJP treat
corruption as the single greatest wrong that the Congress
has brought about in the last 50 Years. Our concern is
reflected in our Manifesto: "The corruption that now
corrodes our country is of the spirit, it is moral and it
is also financial." We in the BJP have decided to meet
this challenge by setting an example of impeccable
probity and unimpeachable accountability, We propose to
make it obligatory for every elected representative to
disclose his or her assets, avoid a conflict of interest
in the discharge of duties by public servants, make the
approval of contracts more transparent, and drastically
reduce the establishment's power to say 'yes' or 'no' to
the simple necessities of every day life.

These are by no means exhaustive measures. They are at
best the first tentative steps towards cleansing the
Augean stables which the Congress will leave behind. I
must add here that transparency cannot be a one-way
affair. For us to cleanse the system, we need a
corresponding effort by business and industry to shun the
practices of the pan which were far from honourable and
which have contributed in no small measure to the rampant
corruption that afflicts us today.

Consider the post-liberalisation record of business and
industry. The stock market boomed, yet millions lost
their savings in the stock market seam. The money market
flourished, yet the nationalised banks lost about Rs
4,500 crores, tarnishing many reputations and
destabilising the markets. PSUs' shares were disinvested
and the national exchequer lost Rs 10,000 crores. GDRs
were allowed and US $ 4,200 million raised abroad, but
the entire sum of money was not invested in businesses.

I am acutely aware of the fact that as we blame business,
businessmen blame us, the politicians. They call us
corrupt, they say we demand and obtain black money for
electioneering, etc. Having occupied the Opposition
benches most of our lives, we in the BJP were not the
beneficiaries of industry's largesse. Be that as it may,
in 1993 my colleague, Shri L.K. Advani, and I publicly
declared that the BJP would accept funds for the party
only by cheque.

I am also aware that to take the battle against
corruption to its logical conclusion. there is urgent
need for elect oral reforms. Among various other steps,
our Government shall institute changes in the pattern
offending of political parties and make them accountable
for their expenses. More than 20 years ago, in 1972,
Shri L.K. Advani and I appended a Dissent Note to a
Parliamentary Committee Report on electoral reforms in
relation to funding and accountability. Our 1996 General
Election Manifesto pledges to " introduce a scheme of
state-funding of candidates to all legislatures" and we
will strive to do this in the first few months of forming
the new Government at the Centre. That will remove the
excuse industrialists and businessmen have all along
offered for their unacceptable conduct in several areas.

And how will, business react then? How will it respond
to the challenge of transparency, honesty and social
obligation? What mill be your contribution to making
this country economically vibrant, socially stable, and
security wise strong? The limited reforms and the mostly
imposed-by circumstances and externally-preserved-
liberalisation has in five years trebled and quadrupled
your profits. We are delighted. The revenue collections
have also improved but no where near what they should
have been. I can assure you that the reforms and further
liberalisation the BJP plans to introduce will further
strengthen your balance sheets. But this will not be
without an obligation to the nation. The dream we have
for our people, for our country, a dream the BJP shall
make come true, will need resources. The BJP is
confident as businessmen you will generate such
resources; I assure you a BJP Government will entirely
use these resources to build a India of which all of us
will be proud.

I shall now turn to the other India, that in which more
than75 % of our 85O million people live and depend on
agriculture for their livelihood. It shall be a top
priority of our Government to invest at least 60 per cent
of Plan funds for agriculture. and rural development.
India has the potential to be the world's largest grower
and exporter of grain, food products and fruits, and we
are determined to realise this potential.
Simultaneously, in fact as a precondition to realising
this potential, the BJP is determined to start correcting
the glaring imbalance between per capita rural and urban
incomes. This imbalance bears testimony to the fact that
despite slogans and charades about helping the farmer, he
has been used, exploited and neglected. The BJP will not
allow this to continue. Industry, which draws nearly Rs.
50,000 crores a year from the rural areas, thinks of them
only as a market to sell their products. And in the
prices of what they sell to the farmers as inputs or
tools and what the farmer has to sell, there is nothing
like even near-parity. The BJP will work vigourously to
bring about parity. Because what we eat is as important
as what we wear.

It is because of my party's policy that the people come
first that we are committed to wiping out the dual
affliction of illiteracy and malnutrition. No country
can be great, or even aspire to be great, if its people
are illiterate and poor. My Government shall invest in
health and education, especially primary education,
because we believe in investing in developing every
citizen's potential to contribute to the regeneration of
our country. More importantly, we realise that fighting
illiteracy and hunger are challenges that have to be met
by the opening decade of the next century if we are to
avoid the humiliations of the present millienium. For
us, our citizens are our true wealth and for a self-
reliant and proud India. we have to draw the maximum
sustenance from them. Therefore, our Government will
increase state spending on education to six per cent of
GDP and increase the allocation for health care.

Similarly, we have prepared an agenda for the social,
political and economic empowerment of women as well as
protecting the rights of the girl child. Our pledge to
reserve 33 per cent seats for women in all legislatures
and to subject all policy decisions to gender analysis
will mark a paradigm shift in the governance of our
country. And because our people are our primary concern,
to ensure an equitable disbursement of resources so that
the largest number of people benefit from our policies,
we have decided to put family planning firmly back on the
national agenda. In our endeavour to cheek the country's
runaway population growth, we will be guided by both
incentives and disincentives. A connected issue is the
protection of our environment which is not meant for
endless exploitation but to become the source of
sustainable development. In all these areas -- in
ensuring gender equity, in checking our population growth
and in protecting our environment, industry has an
important role to play which can be minimised only at the
expense of the nation's interests.

Before I conclude, I would like to say a few words on my
party's social philosophy which is rooted in integral
humanism . We are committed to the eradication of social
and economic disparities that have prevented India from
emerging as a modem and dynamic nation. From this
commitment flows our agenda to ensure equity and
equality, to continue with affirmative action to help the
most deprived among the back-ward classes. the Scheduled
Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. At the same time, I
would like to stress that for us affirmative action is
not a tool of political expediency but a means of
empowerment. I would also like to stress the difference
between our approach, underlined by samajik samrasata,
and that of our political opponents: While we subscribe
to social harmony, others preach caste conflict. I need
not elaborate on which of the two is the right approach
to correcting the mistakes of the past.

A second point I would like to make is about the canard
spread by pseudo-secularists that the BJP is a communal
party. I find this accusation both unfair and
unjustified. My party's credentials have been confirmed
by the fact that wherever and whenever it has come to
power in the states, it has ensured peace and security
for all sections of society. We in the BJP have been
steadfastly, opposed to appeasement as state policy since
it benefits only those who profess regressive and
retrograde social norms. We are firmly committed to the
principle of 'justice for all, appeasement of none'.
This, we believe, is the essence of true secularism.

I have briefly touched upon some of the salient features
of my party's, the Bharatiya Janata Party's national
agenda. Our Manifesto provides a more comprehensive
picture of what we. propose to do if voted to power. I
would urge all of you to read the Manifesto which is my
party's covenant with the people of this country.

I and my colleagues would be happy to answer any
questions that you may have to ask. I would like to
thank CII for providing me and my colleagues with this
opportunity to present my Government's national agenda to
this august gathering.

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