'Introspection Is Different From Finger-Pointing'

1. It is a matter of concern that our Party seems to be plateauing insome states, which are our strongholds, and have actually suffered big reversalsin some others. Additionally, there are several big states where our politicalbase continues to be small, and our electoral presence is narrower still. Theseweaknesses have to be overcome.

2. The state of the Party organization at all levels, including at theCentre, needs to be improved. We have to strengthen unity in thought, unity inplanning and unity in execution in leadership tiers at the Centre and in states.

3. The Party has to urgently evolve a system of encouraging youngerleaders at all levels. We have a lot of young talent within the Party. But Ihave heard many young activists tell me that they are not given opportunity toserve the Party more effectively. It is sad that a certain "traincompartment" mentality has got developed within the Party, which makes thosein leadership positions to ignore promising, talented and committed cadres whoare standing "outside" and waiting for the door to open. This has to change.We must identify, train, groom and empower third, fourth and fifth generation ofleaders in the BJP. Our leadership planning should take into account theParty’s needs for the next twenty years.

Poll outcome is a setback, but certainly not ‘a rout’ 

Friends, while it is natural for all of us to be disappointed by the outcome ofthe elections, it is necessary that we neither let this feeling ofdisappointment turn into despair nor lose a sense of proportion and balance inassessing the voters’ support for the BJP. 

A section of the media has described the people’s verdict as a "rout" forthe BJP. It is nothing of the kind. We have won 116 seats in the 15th Lok Sabha,which is much more than what the Congress had won in 1999. In as many as 113other constituencies, our candidates came second. In 45 of these constituencies,the margin of defeat was less than 10% of the votes cast.  In 25 of thesethe margin was less than 5%. 

Without belittling the setback we have received, I must also point out that itis nothing in comparison to what we have suffered in the past. If the word"rout" could be validly used, it was in 1980 and 1984. In the 1980parliamentary elections, which were held after the collapse of the Janata Partygovernment, the Janata Party’s tally came crashing down from 295 (the JanaSangh segment was 97 or so) in 1977 to 31, of which the Jana Sangh component wasjust 18. In the 1984 polls, which were held after the assassination of Smt.Indira Gandhi, the BJP could win only 2 seats in the whole country.

We did not lose heart in 1980 and 1984. Therefore, where is the question of theBJP becoming despondent today, when we have 116 MPs in the Lok Sabha, Unlike inthe 14th Lok Sabha, when the Left was on the one hand a proactive partner inGovernment, but not being accountable or answerable for failures of Government,most of the time they could play the role of the opposition also.

I first came to Parliament in 1970, as a Member of the Rajya Sabha.  Thatwas a time when Marxist members used to exude immense confidence.  Some ofthem, even used to echo the boast of British imperialists, that a day wouldcertainly come when the sun shall not set on the Marxist ‘empire’.  Alldeveloping countries of the world, including India, are particularly vulnerableto the appeal of Marxism; the Jana Sangh has no future, they would affirm. 

And see what has happened to Marxist parties the world over.  Wiped off thesurface of the globe – with remnants left behind only in Cuba, Kerala, andCalcutta !  And in India while in an election which we ourselves concede isa surprising set back for us, we get 116 seats, they score just 16! 

Our prejudiced critics will deliberately exaggerate the BJP’s weaknesses. Butwe should know our strengths. With 116 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 47 MPs in the RajyaSabha, and eight states in which our Party is in government, the BJP is by nomeans an inconsiderable force in Indian politics. If anything, by decimating theThird and Fourth Fronts, the recent elections have concretized the BJP as theonly alternative to the Congress. 

I am pointing this out just to underscore an important aspect of the people’sverdict in May 2009. Theirs is a vote for stability insofar as the Congressparty’s strength has been considerably enhanced so that it does not any longerneed the crutches of the Left Front. But theirs is also a vote for bipolarityinsofar as the voters have strongly endorsed the BJP as the sole anti-Congressopposition pole at the Centre.

Big new opportunity for the BJP 

When anyone asks me as to what is the most significant contribution of the BJPto Indian politics, my reply is: for the first four decades of India’sindependence, the country’s politics was dominated by one single party – theCongress; in the last two decades, the BJP has succeeded in transforming thissingle-dominant-party polity into a bipolar polity. 

To achieve this, since the days of our party’s launching by Dr. Syama PrasadMookerji as Jana Sangh, the party’s leadership has been exerting to end theCongress Party’s hegemony in Indian politics.  Our initiatives inalliance politics and coalition governments started in the early fifties inPunjab when we had a SAD-JS Government in the State under the leadership ofJustice Gurnam Singh.  Later, we made a major contribution towards shakingup the Congress Party’s hold in the Hindi States when we helped the formationof SVD Governments in Bihar, U.P. and Madhya Pradesh in 1967.  Under ShriJaya Prakash Narayan’s leadership, the Jana Sangh’s major role in theanti-corruption and anti-emergency crusade of the early seventies was yetanother milestone in this effort.

For the Congress the watershed election was 1989.  Then on, the BJP justdid not look back until it first became the largest party in the Lok Sabha in1996, and then in 1998 formed the first NDA Government which lasted six years. 

Apart from Dr. Mookerji and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, other national leaderswho have played a key role in ending the Congress Party’s monopoly of powerhave been Dr. Lohia, Shri Jaya Prakash Narayan, Shri A.B. Vajpayee, Shri GeorgeFernandes and Shri Madhu Limaye. 

This success of the BJP in smashing the monopoly of the Congress party has beenresponsible for arousing the ambitions of so many bit players – severalcaste-based parties and several regional parties. 

It is my view that while as in 2004, this time L.S. election was an aggregate ofthe variegated verdicts in the States, a common mood that dominated thevoters’ psyche throughout the country in this last election was that the UnionGovernment should not come into the hands of any such bit player.  Nowonder, it is only two parties, the Congress and the BJP, who have won in the15th Lok Sabha a tally of seats running into three digits.  All otherparties are way behind.  Bipolarity in national politics has thus beenendorsed by the electorate itself in the 2009 mandate.

* * *

In the aftermath of the 2009 Lok Sabha poll, two other issues have beenraised in public discourse, as also within our party.  These are : BJP’srelations with the RSS, and the correct meaning of Hindutva. 

Both these issues were debated publicly way back in 1979-1980 while we werestill in the Janata Party. Vajpayeeji, Nanaji Deshmukh, Sunder Singh Bhandari,myself and many others like us belonging to the RSS were asked to sever our tieswith the RSS if we wanted to continue in the Janata Party.  When wedeclined to do so the Janata Party threw us out of its fold.  It was thenthat on April 6, 1980 the BJP was formed.  

We feel really grateful to the Janata Party for taking action against usotherwise we would not have achieved in Indian politics the remarkable successthat we have. 

For many in the BJP like me, association with the RSS has been a life-changingevent.  I regard Dr. Hedgewar’s RSS as the noblest mass movement ofmodern India just as Swami Dayanand’s Arya Samaj and Swami Paramhans’Ramakrishna Mission were similarly two great cultural movements launched in thenineteenth century. 

At our office bearers meeting two days back two eminent Muslim colleagues ofours affirmed their faith in Hindutva but cautioned against any narrow bigotedanti-Muslim interpretation being put on it. 

In 1979-80 when this issue of Hindutva was being debated in the Janata Party RSSChief, Bala Saheb Deoras, addressing the annual Vijaya Dashmi rally at Nagpurobserved :

In this speech, Deoras reiterated the R.S.S.’s rejection of the concept of atheocratic state and asked: "How can a people believing in the dictum Ekam satvipra bahudha vadanti (Truth is one, sages call it variously) ever becomechampions of a State which would uphold the interests of one religion at thecost of others?" 

Deoras regretted the tendency to decry use of the word Hindu as if it denotedsomething narrow and communal.  He said that, "the word signifies not anyreligious sect or geographical confines but symbolises a cultural life-currentwhich has been enriched over centuries due to continuous interactions." He added : "It is our firm belief that words like Hindu and Bharatiya, HinduRashtra and Bharatiya Rashtra, are synonymous." 

Let every Indian citizen, irrespective of the faith to which he belongs, knowthat BJP’s understanding of Hindutva is fully in accord with the unanimousjudgement given by the 3-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court on December 11, 1995.

* * *

Hidden in the demise of the Third Front and the Fourth Front is a big newopportunity for our Party. It is now obvious to every discerning observer ofnational politics that, in the years to come, genuine and effective oppositionto the Congress can develop only around the pole of the BJP. Those whose hatredfor the BJP has been stronger than their preference for an alternative to theCongress will either gravitate towards the Congress or become irrelevant innational politics.
 
The BJP has an opportunity to rally all others around its own pole to build astrong, stable and superior alternative to the Congress.  The history ofpost-Independence politics in India clearly shows that the people want such analternative.

Three states – Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand – will elect their newVidhan Sabhas soon.  The BJP, along with its allies, must get set to winthe people’s mandate in at least two of these three states.  I thereforeurge my colleagues, both at the Centre and in these states, to beginpreparations for the coming Assembly elections in right earnest.

In short, the road ahead places two tasks before us: (a) increase the BJP’sown independent strength, and (b) increase the Party’s coordination with ourpresent allies in the NDA and other non-Congress forces. I have no doubt thatour Party can bounce back by addressing both tasks diligently.

In order to let Party cadres know both the opportunities and tasks before us, Ihave decided to tour the entire country in the months to come. I shall bevisiting all the states, and more than one place in some of the bigger states.

Let me conclude my remarks by conveying a summing-up message. True, Elections2009 did not produce results that we expected. We should not be found wanting inhonest introspection. But introspection is different from finger-pointing. Letus treat the outcome of the elections as behoves a mature and highly resilientpolitical party. True, we have to recognize our weaknesses. But let us not losesight of our enormous strengths ¯ our nationalist ideology, our army ofcommitted cadres, our battalion of talented leaders and, above all, the supportand goodwill of the people for the BJP. 

It is not only we who are disappointed, our legion of supporters are equallydisappointed that we could not defeat the Congress. The people have high hopesand heightened expectations from the BJP.  Let us strive to rise to theirexpectations.
 
Thank you.
Vande Mataram!