HVK Archives: BJP should fine-tune tactics with strategy
BJP should fine-tune tactics with strategy - The Observer
Prafull Goradia
()
21 January 1997
Title : BJP should fine-tune tactics with strategy
Author : Prafull Goradia
Publication : The Observer
Date : January 21, 1997
The recently concluded Virar conclave of the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) must have helped towards the exchange of views and the
formulation of responses to new challenges the party faces now.
It is doubtful, however, that the party of Hindutva has ever sat
down to think through its plan to achieve its purpose.
Otherwise, why does it betray a tendency to operate on Congress
assumptions?
No doubt, the Congress was so successful that it is difficult not
to be dazzled by it. But where can that lead the BJP to?
An electoral example is how the BJP gets tempted to select a
candidate in line with the caste profile of the constituency. This
is despite the party's opposition to casteism.
It also knows that its electoral rise really accelerated after the
rath yatra which was a direct response to the casteist aggression
of Mr V P Singh. The yatra inspired the Hindus to overlook their
castes and to collaborate on a larger religious cause.
The Congress needed to divide the electorate in order to get
elected. Its manifesto was, therefore, classist or populist in the
garb of socialism. Its strategy was casteist with the minorities
being treated also as castes.
The future of the BJP lies in an entirely different approach - that
of getting all the potentially nationalist votes together and
polarising them against the rest.
A thought through plan would keep the party away from its tactics
being in contradiction of its strategic priority.
Politics, or for that matter political science, has no known
methodology for working out such a plan. Military science is more
gifted in this regard. One approach is that of Sir Basil
Liddel-Hart who is known as the captain who taught generals.
If borrowed in the context of a political party, his method would
first ask for the grand strategy of the organisation. In the BJP's
case, the answer would be to harness cultural nationalism in order
to galvanise India into becoming a united and prosperous country
all of' whose citizens are proud of their identity.
In Sir Basil's sequence, the next question would be what is the
organisation's policy? Evidently for the BJP, the policy should be
to acquire power at the Centre as well as most of the states. And
then retain it long enough to be able to consolidate it.
And to consolidate it well enough to be able to exercise it in
order to achieve its grand strategic aim stated above.
The implementation of this policy would depend on the efficacy of
the strategy. This is the most challenging aspect of evolving the
plan.
It begins with an analysis of the electorate across the country; in
military terminology a study of the terrain. Then, it proceeds to
an analysis of the weaknesses of the adversary; in politics this
exercise is more complex as the opposing parties are several or
many.
So much for what one can do to the opponents; where one can attack
them. For what they can do to one, a study of their strengths is
necessary.
Thereafter comes introspection of one's own weaknesses and
strengths. What about one that needs to be protected and what one
can exploit for achieving victory.
If the BJP read the terrain with the help of history, the scene
would seem different. For instance, a cardinal lesson of the
medieval or the Muslim period is the trauma caused by the impact of
Islam on the Hindu psyche.
Hindu India had until then suffered many an invasion but had found
a way of absorbing the invaders. But the same Hindu India had no
answer to Islam its message as well as its sword.
The Hindu genius was stunned. For some six centuries it produced
little that was creative except a number of Bhakti saints who took
the sanatan dharma from the confines of the classes and spread its
message among the masses. Many a symptom of this trauma is evident
even today.
The BJP's electoral track record was unimpressive until 1989. As
the struggle for the Ramjanmbhoomi progressed, the BJP won more
seats.
The Rath Yatra helped its Lok Sabha tally to rise to 119. The
demolition of the Babri edifice certainly did not reduce the score
in the 1996 general election.
The party secured more seats than any other.
Secularism has no relevance in India. Tolerance, yes, secularism,
no. In any case, most of the people love their religions. It does
not mean that they hate other faiths yet for four out of five
decades Hindus in large numbers had voted for parties with secular
pretensions.
Members of the Sangha Parivar often blame factors like western
education, English as the medium of instruction, convent schools
and colleges, the fashion of leftism, dialectical materialism as a
tool of analysis and so on.
The ideologues could sound convincing as far as the intelligentsia
is concerned. But what about the masses?
They could not have been influenced by any of these factors. Yet,
why did they not vote, for the BJP, in large enough numbers, until
the advent of the Ayodhya agitation?
Is this not a pointer to the contention of the Hindu dread? The
average Hindu assumed the secular posture to avoid a confrontation
with the Muslim.
That Hindu secularism (as distinct from tolerance) was like making
a virtue out of necessity. The Babri episode has given him some
self-confidence; that if thousands of his temples could be
desecrated, he could at least get back with one demolition.
The new self-confidence has reduced the necessity. And as the
necessity receded, the Hindu began to vote for the BJP more and
more.
The Hindu is crying out for more self-confidence. That is the
foundation of nationalism which is what the Sangha Parivar stands
for. Doing everything possible to give the Hindu this courage
should therefore be the fulcrum of the BJP strategy.
Whether this should be achieved through temple agitation by the VHP
or by organising yatras of by any other means, is for the
leadership to assess.
Once the strategy is clear, the tactics would spontaneously
dovetail into it. There would be no contradiction. The strategy
should help to implement the policy of winning power through the
ballot box.
Which in turn, to restate, should help to pursue the grand
strategic aim of galvanising Indians with the help nationalism.
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