National Interest: Modi versus his party - Indian Express

Shekhar Gupta : Sat Jun 15 2013, 01:51 hrs That's the first battle — given how far the BJP has drifted since Vajpayee's exit, 2004 loss The noise over Narendra Modi's elevation has drowned out some important questions. What does the BJP stand for now? How does its ideology, policy and politics compare with the Vajpayee-Advani years? How much distance has it travelled since then, and in which direction: left, right, forward or backwards? Or maybe, instead of the judgemental backward or forward, let's just call them the shifts since 2004, when the BJP lost power and, equally importantly, Vajpayee lost his voice politically and also, sadly, physically. Before we start assessing the impact of Modi's rise for the BJP, we have to see the consequences of Vajpayee's fading. Advani's grand strategy brought the NDA to power. But from then on, he decided to go along with the new, more inclusive paradigm that Vajpayee set, making the party either depart from, or nuance its view on all four crucial areas of governance and politics: economics, society, foreign policy in general, and Pakistan specifically. On all of these, the BJP became softer, more modern and inclusive. So inclusive, in fact, that even Farooq Abdullah could join the NDA. But the loss of power, an angry inability to accept it, and the sudden absence of Vajpayee, followed by the penance forced on Advani after his statement on Jinnah, changed much of this. THE first shift was on Pakistan. A party that led such a muscular peace process, resulting in the Lahore and Islamabad Declarations and an LoC ceasefire that has now held for a decade, made a quick about-turn. The near political execution of Advani by the RSS for the "crime" of saying a few nice things about Jinnah has to be contrasted with Vajpayee going to Lahore's Minar-e-Pakistan in February 1999 and stating that a stable and prosperous Pakistan was in India's interest. Nobody in the RSS dared to attack him. Only their Pakistani counterparts, the Islamic clergy, organised a "cleansing" of the steps Vajpayee had climbed at the monument to Pakistan's founding. In India, voters only rewarded the BJP with an even bigger mandate in an election that followed later that year, in spite of the betrayal of Kargil in the short interregnum. This was the first successful policy the BJP reversed as soon as it lost power. In the heyday of power, Advani got away with stating in public a remarkable new idea, that for his party to become more acceptable to India's Muslims, it had to somehow change the notion of Pakistan being a permanent enemy. That is why he supported all the peace initiatives, leading, in fact, the move to invite Pervez Musharraf to Agra. Nobody punished him then, least of all the voters. The party's turnaround on another one of its old, central foreign policy beliefs, that America was a natural strategic ally, was even more spectacular. It was highlighted by the opposition to the nuclear deal. It totally confused its urban voters and devastated its candidates in all the major cities. ... contd. ALSO READ National Interest: The final accommodation National Interest: The bleeding heartless The giant fix Allah and Aam Aadmi Please read our terms of use before posting comments TERMS OF USE: The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s). via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNG6PNZAYUHDirWRA3rD6K5YO1tvbg&url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-modi-versus-his-party/1129321/

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