Is India’s main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), heading for a split? Millions of Indians who would rejoice at that, built as the party is on a corrosive ideology of Hindu nationalism and hostility to Muslims.
At the moment its fortunes seem grim. Following a particularly poor showing in the general elections four months ago and riddled with infighting, it looks like a wounded dinosaur heading the way of previous mainstream alternatives to the Congress party (the Janata Party and the Janata Dal spring to mind). They came up, flourished and then split. Indeed, the BJP is but the latest reincarnation of what has been a constantly re-forming alternative to Congress. A split in its ranks and merger with one or more of India’s other parties would be entirely in keeping with the nation’s political history.
The reason for seeing a split on the horizon is because of arguments over the role of Hindu nationalism in the party. At a national executive meeting in Delhi in June and in Shimla where top leaders have been meeting over the past few days for a brainstorming session to see where the BJP should be heading, the Hindu agenda — Hindutva — has been under the microscope. It is causing no small divisions. There are those, the so-called moderates like party leader L.K. Advani, who feel that unless its importance is reduced, they will not be able to connect with a broader section of Indian voters. Against them are the hard-liners, such as former Human Resources Minister M.M. Joshi and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for whom there can be no dilution of Hindutva.
Against this background, last week’s expulsion of former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh from the party for his book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the politics that culminated in the partition of British India in 1947 might seem like the party rallying around Hindutva. With its criticism of both Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, the country’s first prime minister and home minister respectively, for the events and its praise for the founder of Pakistan, the book is certainly a remarkable outpouring from one of the chief minds of a party where hostility to Jinnah and Pakistan is almost a tenet of faith.
The decision brings ridicule to the party. It makes it look bigoted and terrified of dissent. It will not do it any favors with the Indian public that will see this as petty-minded viciousness. In fact, it is another reason to suspect the bust-up ahead. It looks very much linked to the divisions within the party. It is telling that the Gujarat government of hard-liner Modi has banned the book; in Karnataka the rather less fanatical BJP government has wisely concluded that a ban would only result in increased sales. It is telling too that at the Shimla get-together, a highly critical internal report was presented blaming Advani, Modi and the party’s chief election manager Arun Jaitley for the poll disaster. The report had been demanded by among others — Jaswant Singh. It looks like the old leadership is trying to get rid of their critics. It will not stop the rot — or the divisions. But then that is not something Indians living in this part of the world are going to weep over.
