People's Democracy

BY saying that the assembly poll outcomes would be "no reflection" on the centre’s performance in any way, prime minister Vajpayee has obliquely admitted that his party is going to suffer serious reverses in these polls. The admission came just two days before Punjab was to go to polls on February 13, to be followed immediately by polls in Uttaranchal and in northern parts of the existing Uttar Pradesh on February 14.

This is diametrically opposite to what the same Vajpayee had said on some occasions earlier. For example, he had asked a meeting of MPs from UP to go to the people of the state so as to retrieve the party’s image. For, he had insisted, the UP poll outcome would be crucial for the fate of his own government. And it was the same Vajpayee who had proposed Advani’s name as overall incharge of the BJP’s poll campaign in the state. The reason was obvious.

Talking to mediapersons on February 11, Vajpayee also said the temple was "no issue" in the polls. Contrary to the popular perception, he even said there was no anti-incumbency factor in UP and Uttaranchal. However, his press conference had its own share of comedy. Perhaps the biggest joke of the year so far was his claim that his party would win the UP polls as it was providing "an efficient and corruption-free government" to the people there. (Really!) He also resorted to the cheap trick of putting the blame for everything wrong in UP at the doors of former chief minister Kalyan Singh who was the BJP leadership’s darling before his expulsion from the party.

Wasn’t it the same BJP that disrupted the BSP, Congress and some other parties and rewarded some six dozen defectors with ministerial positions? As is known, many of these had criminal backgrounds.

But Vajpayee’s statement that temple construction is no issue in the UP polls, cannot be taken without a pinch or two of salt. The fact is that he has to placate his NDA allies who had agreed to come to the BJP side in 1998 on the understanding that the "contentious issues" (temple, common civil code and article 370) would be kept out of the common agenda. For the 1999 polls too, the BJP agreed to abide by the NDA agenda and, for the first time in its history, did not issue a separate manifesto of its own.

Yet the fact is that the RSS-controlled outfits never cared about the NDA agenda and did their best to rouse communal feelings in the country. They were hoping that, as both the central and the UP state governments were in the hands of their own party, they would get a chance to do something about the temple construction in order to retain their mass base. It was in this background that they issued an ultimatum from the Kumbh Mela last year and finally took out a rathyatra from Ayodhya to Delhi last month. It is another thing that the issue has failed to click despite all these desperate efforts on part of the Sangh Parivar. On his part, as said earlier in these columns, instead of taking tough action against these moves, Vajpayee only tried to appease the saffron hawks, boosting their morale thereby.

The fact is that, apart from ostensibly keeping aloof from the RSS-VHP campaign, the BJP and Vajpayee have made not a single creditable move to demarcate from the Sangh Parivar’s fratricidal game.

Two things are certain. First, even if the BJP says that temple issue is not on its agenda, it does not mean that other RSS outfits will not play their incendiary game. The saffron brigade has always been notorious for saying many different, even opposite, things at the same time; that is why it is often termed a hydra-headed monster. Second, even if the issue has failed to click at the moment, its disruptive potential cannot be underestimated.

There is a simple reason to say so. All the opinion polls so far have, without exception, indicated that the BJP is going to suffer a humiliating defeat in UP and Punjab at least. In UP, no opinion poll is prepared to give it more than 125 seats in a house of 403. It is thus certain that, no matter who forms a government in the state, there will be no place in it for the BJP. That is why apprehensions are being expressed on a wide scale that the RSS-controlled outfits may rake up the temple issue in a bid to create headache for the new state government. The VHP’s latest threat of starting construction work from March 15 can be understood in this context.

Nay, even today, while the top BJP leaders are avoiding to mention the temple issue in public meetings, the BJP cadres lower down are trying to exploit the issue in their poll campaign. (That they are definitely not going to succeed is another matter.) In fact, the VHP is still hoping to get the 67 acres of land adjoining the disputed site --- an issue the prime minister has already referred to his law minister for ‘advice.’ In case the VHP does get this land, it can hope to present the people, parliament and judiciary with a fait accompli, just like what they did by erecting a makeshift temple in Ayodhya on the very next day of the Babri demolition.

Moreover, the BJP-presided regime has failed the people not only in UP but in the whole country. The BJP-led NDA government has imposed unprecedented burdens on the people in a short span of only four years. This period has witnessed closure of tens of thousands of factories, sale of public sector units to private hands for a song, downsizing of government departments. There has been a big increase in unemployment and retrenchments. There has been ruination of the peasants and agriculture, more so after liberalisation of agricultural imports, compelling peasants to commit suicide. The period saw hikes in the administered prices of foodgrains, sugar, petroleum products, power, fertilisers and many other things, including the DMS milk from Rs 7 to Rs 14 per litre in Delhi. This very regime compelled the people to buy onions and coriander at Rs 80 to 100 per kg. Allocations for various social sectors have been reduced, but user charges for education, health and many other services have been substantially hiked. This was the period when several dozen people died in Orissa villages while FCI godowns stocked 62 million tonnes of foodgrains. On the other hand, with the BJP-led government’s incessant attack on small savings and other measures, the real income of the people has constantly gone down, making their life hell-like. As for corruption, compared to the dubious heights the BJP-led regime has touched, even the Bofors scandal appears as a peanut. That coffin thieves are currently ruling the country, is how the people perceive this regime. Significantly, in his February 11 press conference, Vajpayee gave a clean chit to Fernandes again, refusing to accept that the coffin scam has any substance in it.

Naturally, resistance to these policies is growing. The last two years have witnessed militant struggles involving workers, peasants, employees, teachers and other sections. While some of these agitations were organised by the Left parties, others have taken place out of their areas of influence, showing how deep-seated the discontent against the NDA government is. It is no wonder that the BJP-led alliance suffered defeat in all but four assembly elections out of 19 that have taken place since the BJP came to power. The massive response the Samajwadi Party-led Lok Morcha is getting from the UP electorate, is also an indicator of this all-round discontent.

It is thus clear that the BJP’s desperation is growing with each passing day. No matter whenever the next Lok Sabha polls take place, the BJP will have no creditable achievement to show to the people, just as it has nothing positive at its hand to project in UP. In such a situation, it will be only its game of rousing passions and dividing the people on communal lines on which it will have to rely. The recent statement given by BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy, that the temple issue is not on the BJP agenda till 2004, assumes significance in this context. It will be noted that the next Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP and allies will have to give an account of all their acts of omission and commission, will take place in September 2004. Or maybe earlier, who knows!

It is with the prospect of defeat at the national level haunting the BJP, that the RSS and its outfits will try to keep the temple issue alive till the next parliamentary elections. Maybe the issue fails to click at that time too, but the tragedy is that the brigade has no other issue left with it.

No doubt the common mass of the country understand the BJP’s desperate game and will rise in unison to foil it. The mass of our people may be illiterate and poor, may be groaning under the burden of exploitation and oppression. But on several occasions they have unmistakably demonstrated that they are no less concerned about national unity and communal amity, and that they are capable of defending this unity. That is why the BJP’s attempts to rouse passions in the name of terrorism have miserably failed. The people of all parts of the country, who are by and large secular, have with a sense of abhorrence refused to be misled by the BJP moves to project all the Muslims as terrorists or terrorist supporters. In fact, it is this secular ethos of our people that has been one of the bases of our democratic existence, in contrast to some of our neighbouring countries where democracy is yet to strike roots.

This poses a real dilemma before the BJP’s NDA allies. Given the anti-people measures being taken by the BJP-led regime, its communal drive and moves to saffronise education, its attacks on secular and federal structure of the country, its record of corruption, and no less its pro-US foreign policy of servility, the people are increasingly turning against this regime, while the NDA parties are still clinging to it for the sake of power.

Also, the NDA parties cannot have the consolation that the big brother is faithful to their common election manifesto. Forget about creation of one crore jobs and other electoral promises that have been met more in their breach, even the contentious issues are being pushed by other means. By its actions, the big brother has already indicated that the union government belongs not to the NDA but to the BJP. So, what the allies have got from their tie-up with the BJP, except ministerial positions but also an erosion of their mass base? Will they like to persist in their present course and perish, or will they change their ways and say good-bye to a party that has proved thoroughly anti-people and anti-national? Let this round of assembly polls be over and this question will pose itself before the allies with full force.