NEW DELHI, 28 October 2004 — After two major election disasters, the Bhartiya Janata Party has taken a U-turn and has gone back to its hard-core Hindu agenda. Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani yesterday again injected a heavy dose of Hindu nationalism into the BJP after taking over its reins for the third time.
Advani sought to invoke the Hindutva plank by asserting that the party will not compromise on its ideology and it was committed to the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya even if it has to pay an electoral price for it.
Stating that the BJP stood for “cultural nationalism” and considered “Hindutva” as a way of life, Advani asserted: “The nation eagerly awaits the day the makeshift temple at Ram Janmabhoomi is replaced by a grand temple.” The Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya is the spot where Hindu extremists razed the 16th-century Babri Mosque in December 1992.
Advani was emphatic that construction of the temple would have started by now had the Vajpayee-led coalition won the parliamentary elections.
Advani, who enjoys the backing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), repeatedly asserted that the party would not abandon or be apologetic about its ideology.
“We should never be apologetic or defensive about our ideology,” Advani said, adding that he would counter the ideological assault unleashed on the BJP by the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
“There are national parties like the Congress and the BJP. But we are a nationalist party too,” he said, trying to draw a fine distinction.
He made one reference to “cultural nationalism” — which for BJP supporters denotes looking at issues through a Hindu cultural prism — and referred repeatedly to “ideology”, leaving no one in doubt that he was willing to take back the party to its core Hindutva ideology.
Advani attributed the party’s string of electoral setbacks this year to “a disconnect between good governance and electoral results, overconfidence in our abilities and MPs’ failure to nurture their constituencies”.
At the same time, Advani tried to capture the moral high ground, as he had done in the 1980s when the BJP had not ascended to power in New Delhi.
Exhorting party activists to try to “change the image of the ugly politician”, he urged them to be prepared for fresh parliamentary elections, saying the Congress-led government could collapse early over some “flimsy” reason.
“The UPA’s biggest weakness is that the Congress is fighting its own allies in every state,” he said, citing the tussle between the Congress and the Left in Kerala and West Bengal.
In its political resolution, the BJP attacked the Congress-led coalition for inept governance, dropping guard against cross-border terrorism, submitting to Left pressure and for its “ideological assault” on the previous regime.
Stating that the “people’s disillusionment was growing”, the National Council resolved to use every democratic means, inside and outside Parliament, both on its own and in cooperation with its allies, to oppose the government.
