Generally optimistic about the party’s future, the delegates to the BJP’s first plenary session (held at Bombay in December 1980) expressed considerable discomfort with the new party’s symbols. The party’s adoption of Gandhian socialism, though defined to sound like Deendayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism, aroused the most outspoken criticism. What bothered the delegates was the use of the term socialism, which many identified with Marxism, long identified as a ‘foreign’ ideology by the RSS. Vijaya Raje Scindia, the BJP’s vice-president, circulated a note to the working committee charging that the adoption of Gandhian socialism as the party’s ideology would make the BJP look like a ‘photocopy’ of Mrs Gandhi’s Congress party, and thus cause the party to lose its ‘originality’.78 She later withdrew her objections when, according to press reports, the party leadership convinced her that the BJP’s ‘socialism’ had an ‘Indian content’.79
Vajpayee, in his address to the delegates, took pains to distinguish Gandhian socialism from Marxism. He claimed that Gandhian socialism rejected (a) the notion that all ideas are grounded in ‘material conditions’, (b) violence as an instrument of policy, and (c) the concentration of political and economic power.80 Yet doubts continued to be expressed. One delegate, objecting to the use of socialism in the party’s economic statement, suggested that the statement be discussed in local units; still another delegate proposed that the word socialism be replaced by Ram Rajya (ideal state).81 The debate was not over substance. Gandhian socialism was defined in a way that kept the BJP well within the centrist economic orientation of the Jana Sangh. The problem was with symbols.
The party also had to work out the thorny question of what approach it would take towards the opposition parties. The RSS cadre, given their unpleasant experience over the previous three years, was wary of working too closely with other parties. Another merger was clearly out of the question. But this was not an immediate prospect since the party leaders were optimistic that the BJP could on its own develop into a national alternative to Prime Minister Gandhi’s Congress party. The party decided that any arrangements with the opposition would be temporary electoral adjustments. However, if the BJP’s electoral performance sagged, some difficult decisions regarding broader cooperation would have to be made.
The early electoral tests sustained the BJP’s initial optimism regarding its future. The first test came almost immediately after the Jana Sangh group walked out of the Janata Party. Prime Minister Gandhi had called for assembly elections in late May 1980 in nine states where her party had done well in the general elections. The BJP had only a few weeks in which to nominate candidates, raise money and conduct a campaign. The results demonstrate that it was able to reclaim much of the old Jana Sangh’s support base.
The greatest gains were in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, two states with Jana Sangh chief ministers during the Janata period. The largest losses occurred in Uttar Pradesh, where Charan Singh’s Lok Dal was a major force, and in Punjab, where the BJP campaigned without the backing of the Alkali Dal, whose earlier support to the Jana Sangh was responsible for its good showing.
The party’s electoral good fortune continued. In late 1981 the BJP won two assembly bye-election contests, and in January 1982 it wrested the Sagar (in Madhya Pradesh) parliamentary seat from Prime Minister Gandhi’s Congress party. This parliamentary victory was considered significant because Sagar is outside the traditional area of Jana Sangh strength in the north-western part of the state. On 19 May 1982 four more states (Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Kerala) went to the polls. The BJP worked out electoral arrangements with Charan Singh’s Lok Dal in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, though the two parties admitted that the understanding in Himachal Pradesh broke down largely because many Lok Dal candidates refused to withdraw from seats which had been assigned to the BJP. Nonetheless, the BJP improved its representation in Himachal Pradesh from 24 to 29 in a house of 68 seats, making it the largest single party there.82 In Haryana the BJP representation dropped from 11 to 6 of the ninety-member house. In Kerala and West Bengal, the BJP fought alone in the hope of laying the groundwork for a third alternative (between communist and Congress-led alliances in the two states). While it won no seats in either state, party leaders justified the go-it-alone strategy as a tactic intended to acquaint voters with the party. In seven scattered parliamentary contests conducted at the same time, the BJP added one new seat (Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh), and it retained the Thane seat, which adjoins Bombay.
With this string of electoral good fortune, party leaders were optimistic that the BJP could become the national alternative to the Congress party. This optimism prompted the party’s national executive in February 1982 to reject the concept of a National Front, then being actively considered by other opposition parties, to concentrate on an electoral strategy for the forthcoming elections rather than ‘carrying out unending talks about unity which create more disunity than unity’.83 The national executive prepared a statement governing the BJP’s relations with other opposition parties. The BJP would ‘retain its separate identity’; would support ‘concerted action by opposition parties . . . on specific issues relating to people’s welfare and democracy’; and would participate in ‘electoral arrangements with other parties aimed at ensuring the defeat of Congress (I) candidates’.84
In an effort to provide a more precise programmatic content to the BJP, its national executive in August 1983 drew up a set of economic priorities. These were presented as the party’s ‘five demands’: (1) the reduction of rural poverty, (2) the expansion of the public distribution system to cover the ‘entire’ rural population, (3) the revival of the food-for-work programme, (4) the establishment of employment generation as a criteria for evaluating industrial performance, and (5) the expansion of credit for small-scale industry.85
The RSS for its part appears to have softened its anti-politics line. A 10 October 1982 editorial in Organiser was full of praise for the BJP, noting among other things that ‘where most other parties have no membership and no party elections, ad hoc committees and presidents for life, the Bharatiya Janata Party brings a whiff of fresh air of party democracy’. It predicted that ‘the BJP is poised to take off—and take a great leap forward’. However, it also expressed mild criticism about the lack of new initiatives that would distinguish the BJP from other parties.86 Balasaheb Deoras, in a late 1982 discussion with swayamsevaks, stated that ‘maybe, among political parties, BJP is closer to RSS’.87 The Vidyarthi Parishad in mid-1982 revoked its 1977 policy against participating in student union elections.88
But the BJP did not experience the anticipated take-off, which forced its leadership to rethink the question of cooperation with other opposition parties. Sunder Singh Bhandari, the BJP vice-president, lost a prestigious parliamentary contest in June 1982 to a Congress party opponent. The BJP, with a traditional base of support in the Hindi-majority Jammu area of J&K, lost every seat it contested in the 1983 J&K assembly election. Mrs Gandhi’s criticism of Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah helped to polarize the electorate on communal lines, which resulted in a shift of Hindu BJP supporters to the Congress. The results from the 5 January 1983 assembly elections (which the BJP fought alone) in the two southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, did not live up to the party’s hope of establishing a firm base for itself in the south, and thus cast doubt on its aspirations of becoming the national alternative to the Congress party. In Karnataka it won only 18 of 225 seats, and in Andhra Pradesh only 4 of 294 seats. While the RSS had experienced a spectacular growth in the south since 1977, this expansion did not seen to have an appreciable effect on the BJP, though it could be argued that the expanded RSS presence provided the BJP with the cadre necessary to establish an organizational framework that could be used to mobilize support in future elections.
But the major shock was the February 1983 elections for Delhi’s two legislative bodies. The Jana Sangh had traditionally performed very well in Delhi; the BJP anticipated a victory that would r
evive its electoral momentum. However, it won only 19 of 56 Metropolitan Council seats and 37 of 100 Delhi Municipal Corporation seats. The Congress had traditionally been the Jana Sangh’s major competitor in the capital city; it won majorities in both the Council and the Corporation. The press reported that the RSS cadre maintained a neutral stance in these elections.89 Despite widespread press speculation of an understanding between the Congress and the RSS, we have no reliable information that an arrangement was arrived at in Delhi or elsewhere offering RSS support to the Congress. More swayamsevaks were clearly voting for the Congress, but not because of any RSS appeal to do so. However, the lukewarm support of the RSS to the BJP in Delhi probably had a significant influence on how many of the RSS cadre worked and voted for the BJP. Vajpayee accepted responsibility for the loss and submitted his resignation, though the party refused to accept it, and he was elected unopposed in March 1983 to serve a second term as president.
The BJP played a negligible role in the politics of Punjab and Assam, two states where inter-ethnic tension aroused demands for increased autonomy by the majority community in each state—demands that were at odds with the RSS conception of an integrated Indian nation. In Punjab, the BJP lost the support of its traditional urban Hindu constituency to the Congress as Hindus and Sikhs polarized politically in the wake of the militant Sikh movement for greater autonomy led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Indeed the Hindus may have held the BJP responsible for the earlier cooperation between the Jana Sangh and the Alkali Dal, the political arm of the Sikh community. The RSS for its part tried to diminish the tension between two groups it defined as Hindu, and in the process alienated much of its Hindu support base. The RSS did, however, support military action in June 1984 to expel Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. For many Hindus, both the RSS and the BJP had lost their aura as protectors of Hindu interests, and many flocked to various Hindu defensive organizations that formed in response to the communal tensions in the state. The Hindu voters almost totally abandoned the BJP in the September 1985 Punjab assembly elections.
In Assam, a state where the Hindu Assamese were protesting the migration of Bangladeshis into India, the RSS bypassed the BJP and gave responsibility to the Vidyarthi Parishad to project solutions to the anti-foreigner protest movement led by a regional student association—the All-Assam Students’ Union (AASU). The BJP, with a minuscule base, played virtually no role in the politics of the state and mobilized little support in either the 1983 or the 1985 assembly elections.
Indications began to appear in early 1983 that many in the brotherhood were disappointed with the BJP. On 10 April 1983, for example, an article critical of the BJP appeared in Organiser under the pseudonym of ‘Sindu’. The writer argued that the BJP had failed to develop into a movement with a distinctive programme capable of attracting mass support. Rather, the BJP appeared to follow the lead set by other parties. ‘Sindu’ also criticized the BJP for playing down its Hindu orientation, arguing that ‘nobody need quarrel with its efforts to attract non-Hindus. But many may also view it as a certain weakening of character.’
The series of electoral setbacks resulted in a controversial shift in tactics. In April 1983. Vajpayee advised the party’s national council to support a United-Front line intended to bring together all ‘nationalist democratic forces’, barring the communists and the Muslim League in order to improve the opposition’s chances in the anticipated mid-term polls. Vajpayee may have feared the political isolation of the BJP. To reduce concerns about another united opposition party, Vajpayee emphasized that his proposal did not include a merger of opposition parties.90 The proposal aroused such resistance that the council avoided a formal decision, leaving the matter to the national executive, which at its 7–9 May meeting in Bombay adopted Vajpayee’s proposal.91 But the national council also decided to tighten up the party structure. Of the four general secretaries, only Lal Krishna Advani was retained—a step which was probably intended to give the general secretary the broad powers once performed by the organizing secretary in the Jana Sangh, and which was another step away from the Janata model. Complaints about ‘indiscipline’ in local units may have prompted the national council to tighten control over both recruitment and promotion. The step may also have been influenced by Vajpayee’s National Front Scheme. Vajpayee might try to broaden the party’s support base with his National Front strategy, but the party at the same time would be better prepared to ensure that this move did not undermine organizational cohesiveness.
With the imprimatur on the notion of a National Front, Advani met with the leaders of thirteen other opposition parties, including the communists, at a 28 May 1983 conclave called by Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao of Andhra Pradesh to discuss common approaches to national problems. There were several other such meetings, but differences over policies and personalities blocked the formation of the overarching National Front envisaged by Vajpayee. Rather, three different groups emerged. The BJP for its part joined with Charan Singh’s Lok Dal to form the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). But even this partial front shattered when Singh arranged for the merger of his Lok Dal with several other opposition parties in November 1984 to form the Dalit Mazdoor Kisan Party without consulting with his BJP alliance partners. Thus Vajpayee’s experiment proved a failure. The BJP went into the 24–27 December general elections with no national allies, though it did arrange for adjustments with a variety of parties in several states.
The results of the national elections were a disaster for the BJP, as they were for the opposition generally. The Congress party, under Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership, won a landslide victory, capturing 401 of 508 contested parliamentary seats, and 49.16 per cent of the vote. Campaigning under the slogan, ‘Continuity that gives the country unity’, the Congress received its greatest victory since India’s Independence. This slogan is rooted in fears that Indira Gandhi’s assassination on 31 October 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards underscored the dangers to national unity, apprehensions that RSS leaders shared.
In the December 1984 national elections, the BJP won 2 seats (out of 221 contested), one in Gujarat and one in Andhra Pradesh,92 14 less than in the outgoing Lok Sabha. Vajpayee and the entire BJP establishment lost their contests, and the party was totally decimated in the Hindi-speaking states that had provided most of its seats in the past. There is widespread speculation that many RSS cadre backed the Congress party, and that they were pleased by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s tough policy against Sikh militants in Punjab and against alleged softness of the Abdullah government towards pro-Pakistani elements in Jammu and Kashmir. The pervasive view that a solid victory for Rajiv Gandhi was necessary to keep in check the forces of disintegration probably had a compelling appeal for many RSS members, as it must have had for a large part of the BJP’s traditional constituency.
Still another factor which may have convinced many RSS members to vote for the Congress was the refusal of the ruling party to make the RSS an issue, in contrast to the 1980 campaign.93 The prospect of the fractious opposition leaders forming a coalition government must also have struck many as disquieting. A replay of the unstable Janata Party government in such dangerous times could undermine national unity.
The BJP recouped its losses somewhat in the subsequent eleven state assembly elections (see Table 9). However, its showing did not remove the questions regarding the party’s strategy. Vajpayee’s National Front strategy was one of the victims of the electoral debacle. The national executive at its 3–6 January 1985 review of the national elections specifically ruled out any National Fronts and announced that the party would contest the forthcoming assembly elections alone whenever possible, though any decision on seat adjustments was left to state units.94 The national elections also forced the party leadership to reconsider which of its political legacies—the Janata or the Jana Sangh—would shape its future. Early indications—tighter party discipline, stress on an ideological consensus, the continued recruitment of RSS pracharaks,95 and a suspicion of al
liances—suggest a tilt towards the Jana Sangh legacy. Still another sign of movement towards the Jana Sangh legacy is the BJP’s adoption of controversial Jana Sangh policies which the Janata Party had not accepted. The most prominent examples of such policies are the national council’s decisions advocating the repeal of Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which gives a special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and its backing of an Indian nuclear weapons capability.
Table 9: BJP Performance in March 1985 State Assembly Elections
*Figures calculated from elections after April 1960.
Even the symbols are being altered in ways more consistent with the Jana Sangh background of the BJP. At the party’s July 1985 national executive session, Integral Humanism replaced Gandhian socialism as the BJP’s philosophy, though substantively the party’s economic policy remained the same.96 As a follow-up to this decision, the party held a six-day conference beginning 8 October 1985 to discuss the report of a working group set up by party president Vajpayee to review the functioning of the BJP since 1980.97 The working group rejected the proposal to revive the BJP in the mould of the Jana Sangh, though it supported the July 1985 executive committee decision to restore Integral Humanism as the BJP’s philosophy. The executive committee, as expected, agreed. The executive committee also adopted a ‘Gandhian approach’ to socio-economic problems, rather than Gandhian socialism as a guiding principle for the party. The national council, however, meeting after the executive committee, restored the phrase Gandhian socialism, while retaining Integral Humanisn as the basic party philosophy. The debate in the national council lasted for several hours, and it was not about substance, but about symbols. Without totally rejecting its Janata past, the BJP moved significantly back to the symbolism of the Jana Sangh, thus underscoring the membership’s desire to restore greater cohesiveness while at the same time recognizing that ‘socialism’ as a symbol reflected the populist course which the BJP, like the Jana Sangh, had accepted.
The Brotherhood in Saffron Page 23