Paramount Task Today Is To Defeat BJP

  Harkishan Singh Surjeet

TODAY, the atmosphere in the country has got surcharged with the speculations that Lok Sabha may be prematurely dissolved, maybe in this very month. Talk is on that the Vajpayee cabinet may not go in for a regular budget this time but seek a vote on account, and convene a special session of parliament for the purpose, possibly after January 20. Consequently, attempts are now afoot to forge alignments and realignments.

There is no doubt that the BJP has got elated following the recent assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi. There were certain factors, outlined in these pages earlier, that contributed to the BJP victory in the first three of these states, much to its own surprise. The victory has now fuelled the BJP’s hopes that it may repeat the feat at the all-India level; it is talking of garnering no less than 300 seats alone. One may recall that the BJP contested around 300 seats but could win only 181 in 1999. Now if its leaders are talking of contesting around 340 seats this time and hoping to win 300; there must be something magical on their minds, which they themselves know better. The situation is expected to be clearer after the BJP national executive meets at Hyderabad on January 11-12.

One thing is certain: If the BJP’s dream really materialises, if at all, it may easily dispense with the so-called National Democratic Alliance, as the more hawkish outfits of the Sangh Parivar have been demanding.

EUPHORIC PROPAGANDA

THERE are certain things that have added to these speculations. While the Election Commission restrained the union government from running its “Shining India” propaganda blitz during the run-up to the assembly polls, the regime is now going about it in full steam. Newspapers are full of full-page euphoric advertisements about it, and these expenses will be apart from what the BJP would incur for the coming elections. One may note that the party spent billions on propaganda during the 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha polls.

Today, there are certain things the BJP’s media managers are trying to focus. One is that the country has a big foreign exchange reserve, upward of 100 billion dollars, little realising that this in itself cannot be a solace to the suffering millions. Nay, these reserves have left many economists wondering as to what the government is planning to do with them; till now, the rulers seem to have no coherent idea about it. Moreover, the government is hiding from the people the fact that a large chunk of this reserve consists of monies pumped in by foreign institutional investors and non-resident Indians, who brought this money here because of very low interest rates in the US and Europe. As much of this reserve is hot money, it may quit the country in a moment, once it finds a greener pasture elsewhere. Also, the Institute of Economic Growth has forecast that the rate of accrual to the forex reserves may soon come down.

The recent GDP growth figure has given the government yet another chance to brag. The CSO’s recent estimate was that our economy developed at 8.4 per cent during the second quarter of the current fiscal (July-September 2003), and this was enough to make our rulers and their hangers-on dizzy. But this too involves a deception game, with the regime posing as if this rate pertains to the whole year. The fact is that if the combined growth rate for the six month period, April to September, is calculated, it comes down to around 7 per cent. Moreover, if one assumes that this rate would hold for the whole fiscal, it would still be less than the tenth plan target of 8 per cent per annum. 

AND UGLY REALITIES

WHILE gloating over the recent GDP figure, the regime is also not prepared to accept that its performance overall has been dismal. In the last five years of Vajpayee regime, the average growth rate was only 5.8 per cent per annum while the preceding five years had seen an average rate of over 6.5 per cent.  

Export growth has always been a mantra for globalisers, but the regime has failed on this front too, with our export growth rate coming down to about 5 per cent compared to the targeted 12 per cent. Investment in agriculture has substantially declined, and so has been the plight of the rural population.

As for job growth, the regime seeks to hide the ugly reality that, contrary to the poll promise of creating one crore jobs every year and its reiteration in the tenth plan document, the last five years saw a decline in job availability. As The Statesman (January 2) pointed out, “employment in the organised sector declined by a shocking 1.5 per cent last year. It has, indeed, been on decline ever since the NDA came to power in 1998, reversing a trend of job growth seen under Congress and United Front governments since 1991.”

As for Vajpayee’s claim of creating 86 million jobs in unorganised sector, the fact is that the jobs lost in organised sector are far from compensated in unorganised sector. There are two reasons for it. First, in the last five years, there has been a steady trend of closure and sickness of industrial units. More than two million small and medium size units have downed their shutters in this period, while these very units are regarded as labour intensive and main job providers in the unorganised sector. Secondly, many units are killing jobs in the name of reducing costs and increasing competitiveness.

In sum, “In the midst of hundred billion dollars, the country has 29 crore people living below the poverty line, who earn less than Rs 300 a month” (The Pioneer, January 6). It is therefore no wonder that these five years saw an unprecedented number of suicides by farmers in various parts of the country, apart from starvation deaths in Orissa and some other states, and that too when FCI godowns were overflowing with grains.

A PERIOD OF SCAMS

THE last five years also saw unprecedented scams. Apart from the suspected give and take in the telecom license deal, the period saw the UTI scam that devoured the savings of no less than two crore people. Then came the Tehelka scam in which a former BJP president was seen accepting money from decoy arms dealers. The defence minister’s name was also involved in it and is yet to be cleared; the fellow is still boycotted by opposition parties in parliament. He is also said to be involved in what was called the coffin scam.

The period also saw the Bhansali scam and then the ruinous Ketan Parekh scam in stock market that sent the bourses tumbling down. The government also opened the infamous “Mauritius route” for huge tax evasions by corporates. As for the recent episode involving a union minister, Dilip Singh Judeo, the Forensic Science Laboratory of Hyderabad has certified that the video tape showing him accepting money was authentic. One may recall that Vajpayee, known for his glib talk, had sought to defend this very Hindutva zealot by saying that while Ajit Jogi’s case was clear, Judeo’s case was hazy. While admitting that he had received money, the same Judeo had claimed that he had done so for his re-conversion drive, as if bribe-taking for communal purposes were justifiable!

The government has also doled out huge concessions to corporate sector while imposing one burden upon another on the common people. Interest rates in banks, saving schemes and provident funds were slashed down across the board, making the life of even middle class people difficult. The unprecedented reduction in subsidies has reduced the people’s real incomes and purchasing power, severely affecting their life standards.

FOREIGN POLICY

AS for foreign policy, the period saw a tilt towards the US that compromised our time-tested policy of non-alignment that had earned for India a place of honour in the world. The regime has consistently ignored the appeals for rejuvenating the NAM. Riding roughshod over the people’s opposition, the regime went on courting the Zionists who are killing the Palestinians every day and making their life miserable in numerous ways. Vajpayee was the first Indian prime minister to invite an Israeli prime minister to India. 

The NDA government refused to condemn the US attack on Iraq; it agreed to “deplore” it only after the pressure of public opinion. But for this pressure, it could have even sent our troops for policing job in the occupied country, so that the US occupiers could take their own soldiers out of the firing line.

It is true that in recent months the government took certain steps to improve relations with Pakistan; the welcome developments at SAARC summit are being commented upon separately in this issue. (See Editorial.) But the fact is that such steps should, and could, have been initiated much earlier. Instead of building upon the steps the United Front government had taken towards normalisation of Indo-Pak relations, the Vajpayee regime chose to indulge in nuclear jingoism; our home minister even went to the extent of threatening Pakistan on Kashmir issue. Also, after the heinous attack on parliament building in New Delhi, the regime embarked on a jingoistic

Operation Parakram that could have been avoided. In fact, the mobilisation of our troops for this operation and their subsequent demobilisation cost us no less than Rs 8,000 crore.

In this context, there are reasons to suspect that the recent moves to improve relations have been at the bidding of US imperialists who cannot give up Pakistan but do not want to alienate India either. They want both India and Pakistan tied to their apron strings so that South Asia could be secure for their hegemonistic plans. As reported by media, Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s Man Friday, has been in touch with Ms Condolezza Rice, national security advisor to Bush, throughout the SAARC summit and earlier.

THREATS TO NATIONAL UNITY

THE regime has been notorious for its overt and covert support to communal forces who are out to divide the people on religious lines. The period began with an orgy of anti-Christian violence in Gujarat and other states, leading to the burning of a missionary and his minor sons alive. Yet, instead of condemning this inhuman crime, our “moderate” prime minister pontificated on the need of a national debate on conversion!

Various towns in UP, Rajasthan and some other states witnessed renewed communal violence in this period.

These acts of violence were complemented with sustained efforts to pack the educational and other institutions with RSS men. A drive to saffronise the whole set-up is on, and this includes the curricula and textbooks in a bid to produce a generation of bigots.

The most catastrophic was the violence in Gujarat after the heinous torching of a train bogey at Godhra. Using this event as an excuse, communal forces unleashed a massacre of Muslims all over Gujarat, which continued for months together. There are reasons to believe that communal forces were preparing for some such act for months, and the BJP state government backed them in perpetrating this massacre. Moreover, as many reports highlight, low key violence against Muslims still continues in Gujarat.

CENTRAL QUESTION

THIS brings us to the central question of today --- of defeating the BJP and its allies in the polls. As the CPI(M)’s 16th congress (Kolkata, October 1998) had concluded, the BJP is not like any other bourgeois landlord party; behind it stands the fascistic RSS that aims to create a theocratic state in the country. That was why the party congress said defeating the BJP was the paramount task. That analysis still holds.

This is no easy task, however. The fact is the BJP has been banking upon a whole gamut of self-seekers who know no principles except filthy lucre. If Judeo of the BJP said money is no God but, by God, it is no less than the God, the same holds true for those who have provided clutches to the BJP. This is the real nature of the motley combine called NDA. 

This is not to say that the BJP and allies cannot be defeated; in fact, they had lost 22 out of the 28 assembly polls held prior to December 1, 2003.

The situation is not dismal for the secular forces, as many would like us to believe. If the National Conference, Paswan and Ajit Singh quit the NDA earlier, the DMK and MDMK joined the list recently. The BJP is also at loggerheads with Chautala in Haryana and BJD in Orissa. In Goa, the BJP engineered splits in two of its smaller allies. Many parties have suffered erosion in their mass bases since they allied with the BJP, and it is possible that some more parties quit the NDA in the coming days.

However, defeating the BJP would not be an automatic process. Here the role of the Congress, biggest opposition party in the country, cannot be doubted. Of late, the Congress has given up its “go alone” stance and is now open to forge ties with anti-BJP parties. This may help crystallise the situation.

As for the role of Left parties, we have basic differences with the Congress on economic policies, in the main. One will recall that it was a Congress government that initiated the LPG policies in 1991, which the BJP led government is pursuing with a vengeance. Such differences between the Congress and Left parties cannot be wished away. Also, in the states where the Left is strong, its main contest is with the Congress party.

However, while the Left cannot afford to give up its demarcation from the Congress or any other bourgeois landlord party, and while policy differences between the two formations would remain, they can certainly cooperate on the specific issue of defeating the BJP. In states where the Left is not a force, it may extend support to the Congress or another such party that is in a position to defeat the BJP. This is the only viable course open for anti-BJP parties in today’s situation.

As for the parties that are called centrist, individuals like Fernandes are hyperactive to rope them in a separate motley combination. Known as the BJP’s troubleshooter, even today this man is playing the game on BJP’s behalf. The idea is to prevent these parties from joining hands with the Congress or the Left, so that the anti-BJP votes are split, to the BJP’s advantage. Data show that such splits in anti-BJP votes went to help the BJP in Goa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and some other states. All the parties that swear by secularism have to beware of this game. For, the fight today is to protect our national unity, our pluralistic ethos and our existence as a civilised nation --- nothing less.