Advices To BJP Party

[Guest]

<b>The Lotus Hocus Pocus</b>

by T.R.Jawahar

Saturday, 20 June, 2009 , 04:36 PM

It is easy to attribute the UPA’s ascension to power to an arithmetic accident. But the BJP’s sordid show at the hustings cannot be explained away in a similar vein. The Cong’s victory claim may not be so convincing, but the fact remains that the BJP has lost, gross and square. And in a hypothetical two-horse race, the Cong now is surely edging ahead of the BJP. So some post-defeat turbulence was expected. But the raging parivar war, over personalities and not principles, only pushes the party even deeper into the hole it had dug for itself.

Sure every party needs powerful personalities to push its policies in the public domain. Inherent in this is the risk of the man becoming the message himself. But the BJP was supposed to be different: a democratic, cadre-based party as against the dynastic, leader-dependent Congress. It was therefore expected that the personal ambitions and aspirations of such leaders are subject to party interest and ideological constructs. But the personality-above-party bug bit the BJP in 1998 itself. Having waited long enough, Vajpayee’s Prime Ministerial itch gained priority over party principles and pride and he succumbed to blackmail in government formation. And as he reigned for six years, his deputy LKA became the next man in waiting. Come, 2009, it was again an individual’s now or never question; 82-year-old Advani’s ‘future’ as India’s PM gained precedence over everything else. The party has really lost to its own prima donnas first!

That said, the fading away of the twin towers of the BJP from the political landscape is sad enough. They built the BJP from scratch in 1984 and converted the Cong-centric India’s polity to a BJP centric one. Above all the BJP under the duo’s leadership broke the myth that no non-Congress government can last its full term. But that these personalities also provoked the party’s decline is only part of the story. The larger reason for the BJP’s debacle is that, having abandoned almost all of its basic principles, while in or out of power, the party is seeing a massive ersoion in its core constituency. It stands defeated, not because ‘secular’ voters dumped it but for betraying those core issues so dear to the constituency that launched its ascent. In its pursuit of fresh pastures which were at best a mirage, it has lost its original turf.

What explains the meteoric rise of the BJP, the quintessential Indian Right wing party, in a wholly Left-oriented milieu? Now, let us not delude ourselves that the Indian voters of the 80’s and 90’s were smitten by the looks of Vajpayee or Advani. Charisma, in a traditional sense, was the least of the BJP’s pluses unlike with the Cong. The BJP rose by riding the crest of a cultural backlash; while India had attained political independence, Bharat remained a suppressed civilisation. Every nation that broke free from a colonial yoke sought to rediscover its roots, but Nehru’s India acted as if it never had a history of worth and was born only in 1947, a position that suited the pseudo secular axis of Marxists, media, missionaries and mullahs. This disconnect came home to roost after fifty years of Cong rule emaciated the nation’s resources and spirit. The Ram Mandir movement symbolised this resurgence. To attribute the credit wholly to the BJP for what was essentially a people’s groundswell is to overestimate the party’s capability and commitment. At best, its leaders sensed the mood and capitalised. That Advani’s bid to have his coronation in Delhi even while Rama remained exiled from Ayodhya fell through was providence at work.

Besides Ayodhya there was a bunch of issues agitating the average Hindu mind that the BJP identified with much to its benefit. Equitable economic growth, healthcare and education are matters of concern for all nations at all times. And politics over these is as rife in India now as it has always been. And sure, good, clean governance is an imperative for political success, but that is so for all parties, across Left, Right and Centre. But what about the issues that defined the politics of the BJP, made it different and brought it the electoral moolah? Jihadi terror and Evangelical conversions find the ‘tolerant’ Indians ripe for the picking. For the Marxists and Maoists, the poor and oppressed are cannon fodder. For the Media, the elite mindset minted by Macaulay is a matter of honour than talking about the ‘worn out’ past. And then we have the strange spectacle of sons of the soil calling themselves minorities just by switching Gods; or the scenario of group after group wanting to be called backward just to move forward! Indeed, these are the forces and farces, outside traditional political battlefields, that the BJP was supposed to take on. But what was its record? It traded Jihadis. It did nothing to arrest the flow of dubious foreign funds that were at the root of fraudulent conversions. Ayodhya went off the radar at the sight of Delhi. A Uniform civil code, despite the SC recommending it, was quickly and quietly forgotten. The much tom tommed abrogation of Art 370 turned to ashes on the ubiquitous backburner. The much touted Hindu unity was sacrificed at the altar of caste politics that the BJP too played with aplomb. And these Swadeshi champions were powerless to stop a foreigner from making a bid, albeit aborted, for the PMO. And then comes the discovery that Jinnah is secular! And coalition dharma became an alibi for skipping all such obligations. Indeed, the BJP’s very purpose of existence was frustrated in every way. And worse, by its abdication, it became a Cong clone.

So, has the Right turn reached a dead end, as the secular brigade claims? The media, particularly, now wants the BJP to take a decisive ideological U turn, if it has to survive. Wolves cant have the well-being of goats in mind and would only want the prey to walk into their paths. So heeding them would only lead to losing even the residual gains. The future? World over, with globalisation and immigrations threatening national identities, positive rightwing politics to defend national cultures is only on the rise with nary a contradiction with modernism or development. For instance, it was Vajpayee’s so called ‘communal’ regime that laid the foundation for India’s economic and technological advances. Again, denial and deriding of a nation’s core religion may seem secular but is suicidal. Stronger the roots, stronger the tree that in turn shades all the ‘plural’ aspects that we often talk of. Former US prez, Jimmy Carter, who is now a West Asia peacenik, has said a couple of days back:’ ... all the children of Abraham, Christians, Muslims and Jews, should unite for the sake of their holy land ...’. Now, is this communal? Rather, that’s how a human mind falls back on its basics in times of crisis, and that’s how nations are defined. India that is Bharat should not forfeit its safety net in the name of secularism. In short, only the men and methods must change, not the message.

But for now, the space on the right is a vacuum. If the Sangh Parivar does not fill it, someone else should if only to give political articulation to those orphaned issues. Also, there has to be a check on Singh Parivar. Er, I actually meant, Signora Parivar!

http://newstodaynet.com/col.php?section=20&catid=30

[Guest]

Belongs in multiple threads...


<b>Will the real Hinduism stand up?</b>

Seshadri Chari

Deccan Herald, Sunday, June 21, 2009

It could be justifiably argued that the politicisation of Hindutva is not the BJP's doing at all.

Even as the jury is busy on the post-2009 poll verdict, it is indeed remarkable that almost all the post-poll analyses of the BJP's inglorious showing have<b> produced a commonality of views between both the supporters and opponents of the party -jettison Hindutva</b>.

A crowning irony of Indian politics in the past sixty years has again been another strange commonality between two diametrically opposite terms - 'communalism' and 'secularism.' Neither have been satisfactorily defined; for example the Indian Union Muslim League is 'not communal' for a section of the intelligentsia as such, while the demand for the abrogation of Article 370 - a temporary provision in the Constitution of India - and the implementation of a uniform civil code - mandated by the Directive Principles- are unfailingly derided as 'Hindu' demands, and are therefore, 'communal.'

After successfully providing a stable and economically progressive government under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, <b>the NDA went to polls in 2004, not on the basis of Article 370, Ayodhya or Hindutva, but seeking a mandate for good governance and economic prosperity. Indeed, its slogan was not "Jai Shri Ram", but "India Shining."</b>

It won 138 seats, only seven less than its chief rival the Congress. While the Congress' 2004 poll campaign was centered on "aam aadmi", a la Garibi Hatao rehash, it was the Left that injected the debate of communalism vs. secularism and managed to elbow their way into corridors of power, minus, of course, any accountability to the aam aadmi, as has been their wont.

<b>UPA’s report card</b>

Cut to Election 2009. <b>Only the naïve or the staunch apologist would deny that the UPA regime that held power for the last five years notched up an ignominious report card of atrocious governance, contemptuous disregard of the aam aadmi and all-round administrative disaster.</b>

Not only did it fail to carry forward the progressive and futuristic projects and plans of its predecessor the NDA but also had little qualms in deliberately stalling them. <b>From the scrapping of a tough anti-terror law like POTA, goaded by vote-bank greed to the infamy of Mumbai 26/11, not to forget unabated Maoist mayhem in vast swathes of Indian territory, the UPA's approach to national security has been virtually one of shameless surrender to terrorism.</b>


<b>The shambolic picture of its economic (mis)management was revealed throughout its five-year regime, with GDP growth plummeting to less than 5%. </b>These then, were the issues that the BJP raised throughout its campaign along with a pitch for a strong and decisive central authority focused on national security and economic development. Yet, after the heat and dust of election 2009 has settled, <b>all that is being highlighted as the high point of the BJP's campaign is Kandhamal, stray pub-bashing in Mangalore, plus Varun Gandhi's verbal ballistics.
</b>

<b>Undoubtedly, these issues became a convenient tool for the BJP's detractors, to equate the party with Hindutva and Hindutva with only violent activism, which served their purpose of addressing their own requirements of vote-bank politics.</b> The BJP's election war room probably failed to comprehend the potential harm of this negativism, and was clueless about the correctives to the wrong perceptions it did engender and also <b>failed to engineer its poll campaign back to its original agenda of focusing on the UPA's undeniable failures.
</b>

While the Hindu psyche has undoubtedly been wounded because of a series of continuing terror attacks and religious shenanigans, its desire for a strong and stable government, free from the vagaries of coalition partners, owing to a plethora of political parties, is also unmistakable. Evidently, the BJP lost out to the Congress on this perception of stability.

Where does Hindutva figure in all this? Indeed, it could be justifiably argued that the politicization of Hindutva is not the BJP's doing at all. <b>The BJP's shortcoming was that it could not educate the post-2004 cadre and the voters about its core ideology and consolidate its support base.</b>

The disconnect between the BJP's core ideology and its voters could be at the root of its predicament today. <b>Indian classicism has shaped and sustained Indian thought, polity, and society, similar to what Greek classicism has done to the West. This unique journey through the vicissitudes of time would of course, merit a separate analysis, but pointedly, with the advent of the British, Indian classicism underwent a renaissance of sorts, centred on nationalism.</b>

A vibrant debate that spanned Vivekanand to Tilak, Tagore Gandhi, Savarkar and Ambedkar, all of whom perceived it in different shades, was abruptly stalled after 1947 and unfortunately became moribund, with our search for imaginary roots in contrived ideologies like socialism and secularism.

<b>Core philosophy</b>

Post-1947, it was (the late) Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who made a forthright endeavour to address this imbalance through Integral Humanism, which was greatly influenced by Indian classicism, which again, was at the core of the Jan Sangh, and should ideally be the core philosophy of the BJP. <b>This happens to be the challenge before the BJP leadership, young and old, i.e. of merging its ideology with the demands of a modern polity.</b>

For Mahatma Gandhi, Hinduism was a "relentless pursuit of Truth, and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued, and as soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst upon the world with a brilliance perhaps unknown before." (Young India, April 24, 1924). <b>The BJP would be doing a great service to Indian political discourse if it is able to come out of its fatigue.</b>
<i>
(The author is former editor of Organiser and a senior political analyst. Email: charidr@gmail.com)</i>

http://www.deccanherald.com/contents/188/s...-spotlight.html

[Guest]

<b>BJP lost because of hostile media</b>
Subhash Bisaria

Organiser


It was the media that did the BJP more harm with its focused, negative, venomous and malicious onslaughts than pseudo- secular anyone else.

How many public meetings did Rahul Gandhi attend—100, 150 or 200? Even if we take 5000 as audience listening to him (of whom many would be party workers) how many people did he reach? Just 10 lakh out of 110 crore. A pittance! But media reached him to all. Contrast this with Shri Advani, Shri Narendra Modi and Shri Rajnath Singh’s much more qualitative and substantive public meetings, how many people did it reach? Media, out of necessity, showed a few glimpses of those portions specially that were unimportant or controversial or quoted out of context. Harm done? Double. Plus it did not fail to hold group discussions, or sought opinion from so-called experts thus establishing the bias deep down in the psyche of the people.

I remember one Jan Jagran Abhiyan held at Balrampur Gardens in Lucknow for which people deliberated, held meetings and month-long preparations were done.

The yatra conducted state tour and was received into the city from Hardoi. About ten thousand people attended it, but it was hardly reported by the media though they were all there.

<b>What I mean to say is that nationalist forces fail to get themselves across to people. </b> Similarly, BJP has many issues before it, but it can’t build up the pressure in the absence of media. Neither Shri Modi nor Shri Varun Gandhi are responsible for the debacle of the BJP. In fact, Shri Modi tried to rejuvenate the masses (but his Hindutva was often deflected or communalised by the media) of the Congress and media propelled notions of secularism. <b>Hindus today need mass awakening, awareness and revival and for that a vibrant, honest and fearless media is required</b>. <b>Attitude of 110 crore Indians can’t be changed overnight but it can be done.</b>

<b>What can the BJP’s media do?</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> 
* Awaken 50 per cent non-voting class
* Mitigate the adverse publicity made by the secular media that maligns the Hindu image
* Restore the confidence and self esteem of the Hindus through short serials, documentaries etc on our great leaders like Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Vir Savarkar etc
* Counter the propaganda against the saints, RSS, VHP or other Hindu bodies. Show the other side of the coin too on issues pending before the nation. For example, Kashmir problem, show the plight of the Pundits in camps repeatedly, how their properties are being seized by the local jehadis in Kashmir. Infiltration by the Bangladeshis and plight of the local Assamese and Bengalis.
* Not to report the random cases of terrorism or conversions but to complete the jigsaw picture of converting India into the pockets of Islamic and Christian states and to seize power from the Hindus.
* Issues of distortions in the text books
* Convince how only swadeshi or India-centric policies can ensure food and employment to all
* Pick every opportunity, festivals etc, for talking and discussing the Hindu customs, traditions and scientific values attached to it and removing the doubts created by the opposition and many more.
* Teach Sanskrit and scriptures through TV
* Importance of cow
* Bring awareness to love-jehad where Hindu girls are purposely trapped by the paid Romeos then converted and married.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The nationalist forces have all been painted in black by the media and the secular jamat. The challenge before the new channels would be highly challenging. As the secular brigade and the vested interests from the India and abroad would like to isolate and choke it to death as they do fervently to BJP, VHP or RSS.

<b>Even backward looking and averse to technology, Muslims have launched a channel deceptively called Peace Channel.</b>

India has 5 crore cable network connections and DTH and if there are five members in a family the cable has a direct access to 25 crore people especially in the urban sector and incidently <b>it was in the urban sector where the BJP lost more than in rural or Vanvasi areas.</b>

Media made the poor victims as the perpetrators of crime in the following and created a false public opinion abroad

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->    * Violence in Kandhamal
    * Killing of Swami Laxmanananda
    * Godhara retaliation
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Remedies:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->    * Party workers should be respected and listened to
    * No compromise on Hindu-centric ideology
    * Media savvy
    * Launch of at least two national magazines one in Hindi, the other in English and two TV news channels effectively managed and controlled.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>Media has become partner of ruling party</b>

Nothing is more distressing than to hear that corruption has entered the field of journalism. In pre-Independence days, journalism was a mission; now it has become business. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to take some of the more important newspapers as the last word in truth. Writing in the Free Press Journal (April 27) <b>Sushma Ramachandran (described as an economic and corporate analyst) blasted business journalism in no uncertain terms. Here are some of her findings, which are extremely disturbing</b>:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->    * “Many financial dailies publish news items that are blatantly one-sided…
    * “There should be worries over the fact that puff pieces on the corporate sector seems to have become the order of the day. One leading mainstream English newspaper had a business editor for about a year who specialised in long articles praising one big business house after another.
    * “There is a view within the media community that despite the huge salaries now being paid to business journalists in the print and electronic media, the incidence of corruption remains the same as when scribes were paid a pittance.”
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

According to Sushma Ramachandran, as far as the public issues are concerned there has been a pernicious practice of handing out envelopes filled with cash or cash vouchers to reporters at the press conference, so that they could buy “a small gift” for themselves. Some multinationals went to the extent of organising foreign junkets for obliging journalists. According to Sushma, “Rare are the cases where journalists can go on a trip without a clearance from their bosses.”

The Indian Express (May 23) carried a report on the same subject, the occasion being an address delivered by the chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice GN Ray, at a seminar organised by the Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism and Communication. Justice Ray in his speech expressed serious concern over “the paid-news syndrome” in the media describing it as the worst form of misinformation or even disinformation. The chairman said that presently journalists are “working on package”, that “editors are being marginalised” and that they themselves have allowed “devaluation of the dignity” of their high and respected office. Or take what Sevanti Ninan writes about journalists in The Hindu (May 24).

Asks Ninan: “Should you believe everything you read about a candidate in a newspaper” and she answers her own question by saying: “Not after these elections.” <b>In Madhya Pradesh and in Andhra Pradesh, money was charged for press coverage of candidates which according to Ninan gave “a whole new dimension to the business of media impacting elections”. It would seem that in Andhra Pradesh, especially, every Telugu newspaper and some of the Telugu news channels charged for positive coverage “at the same column centimetre rate as they do for advertisements”.</b>

Apart from misleading the voters, that helped candidates circumvent the limits on election spending. Or take the issue of exit polls. The Hitavada (May 14) provided a list of eleven TV channels that broadcast exit polls and not one of them came anywhere near the truth and they included Headlines Today, Times Now, India TV, Star News, CNN-IBN, Aaj Tak and NDTV. How can so many of them, all run by professionals, go wrong? <b>One can understand a couple of them slipping, but all eleven of them? Many of the so-called professionals went wrong also in 2004. Obviously, an explanation is called for.</b>

One learns that the media earns from an election more so than in a year of no-electioneering. According to a report, one broker offered an independent candidate three weeks of coverage in four newspapers for a sum of Rs 10 lakh. Learning that a certain newspaper was running a bad report on a candidate, the latter is supposed to have paid Rs 4 lakh to stop it. What can we call it: black mail?

For many candidates, money apparently is of no great consideration. If Deccan Herald (April 30) is to be believed—and why shouldn’t we?—some 223 millionaires and 258 with criminal record were in the election fray. To such, what is a sum of just four lakh rupees?

In the last Parliament, there were apparently 128 people with a dubious past of whom 55 were allegedly involved in serious crimes. In the new Parliament just elected, according to The Indian Express ( May 25), there has been a 19.15 per cent increase in their numbers with the election of 74 MPs who are accused of grave crimes. Voters may have rejected communism, but they have obviously not been able to differentiate between an honest man and a criminal. Or have the voters also been sufficiently bribed for their tacit support? Who knows? But, after all is said and done, the one painful question remains to be answered: How come all exit polls failed? They were apparently carried out by “professionals” who knew their job. But from what they prophesied, they were anything but professional. Anyone who knows something about exit polls knows what “sampling” means.

Writing in The Hindu (May 24) Sevanti Ninan asks a sensible question: “If reporters talk to candidates more than voters, how can they get their predictions right?” But then there is another question of even greater relevance. Think of the CNN-IBN showing times without number the scene of Varun Gandhi making those remarks that put him in jail. What lay behind this show? Was it necessary to repeat Varun Gandhi’s performance to the point when one felt like throwing up? Then there was that interview that Barkha Dutt had with Priyanka looking all so coy and saying how much she admired both her mother and brother. While Narendra Modi was sounding harsh most of the time, Priyanka was sounding so nice and gentle. Was all that part of a well-organised public relations job? <b>One suspects that the Congress had appointed a better public relations firm than the BJP.</b> But all this is hindsight.

One will never know why the voter behaved the way he did though several answers are available and all of them sound very credible. All that we do know is that the voter had foxed the professional twice. That raises an important question: <b>Do our professionals understand the Indian mind? Was the voter interested only in continuity of a government and not so much in who ran it? And in stability of a government and not so much in its ideology? Only time can tell.</b>

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jun 21 2009, 10:55 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jun 21 2009, 10:55 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Advani is not behaving or ever behaved like current appointed Prime Minister of India, who was holding Obama book all over UN building and when he met Obama he said, Please please please sign this book for my daughter.
Advani is full of pride, he may get party funds or support from Hotel-Motel Guju lobby of USA but he is not US stooge. Appointed Prime Minister is another story. He was joke of town during last UN meeting. Radio talk shows had field day on appointed Prime Minister of India.[right][snapback]99022[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->He can still be unwittingly used. If they push the right buttons.

The question is what's the likelihood of the US hedging their bets - the US has shown repeatedly in different parts of the globe that it is capable of this, and is interested in doing so in India's case too. Not unlikely that with the backhand, they'd attempt to sabotage the only opposition to their pet party, and with their forehand vote in the pet party (Congress).

Any meddling foreign power bent on messing up another nation (democracies are Easy, so are colourful revolutions) would not just be doing its best to 'promote' (push into power) the party of their choice but also to bore holes in the opposition.

The meddling in South America, Eastern Europe including Yugoslavia - all recent examples. And India's been manipulated in the past by the christoBritish vampire, I mean empire, so why not remote-control manipulation by the US govt today?



<!--QuoteBegin-ravish+Jun 21 2009, 09:34 PM-->QUOTE(ravish @ Jun 21 2009, 09:34 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mr Husky,
Do you really <b>believe</b> in what you have posted?
[right][snapback]99019[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->What an interesting question and choice of verb, pro-ravishing ravish. So, how long have you been prone to belief, ravish? (Also called "faith" in christianism). Are you given to <i>believing</i> that you ask such questions? After all, only those who are into believing suspect others of being capable of "believing" too.
Psychologists and psych students may consider you an interesting case for psychoanalysis. IF is the wrong place though, therefore check yourself into Bedlam or wherever for receiving the kind of attention you obviously crave.

[ravish]

Husky, Thanks for your most valuable observation , shall certainly try it out.

[ramana]

From above post # 261

T.R. Jawahar's analysis

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>What explains the meteoric rise of the</b> BJP, the quintessential Indian Right wing party, in a wholly Left-oriented milieu? ... The BJP rose by riding the crest of a cultural backlash; while India had attained political independence, Bharat remained a suppressed civilisation. Every nation that broke free from a colonial yoke sought to rediscover its roots, but Nehru’s India acted as if it never had a history of worth and was born only in 1947, a position that suited the pseudo secular axis of Marxists, media, missionaries and mullahs. This disconnect came home to roost after fifty years of Cong rule emaciated the nation’s resources and spirit. The Ram Mandir movement symbolised this resurgence. To attribute the credit wholly to the BJP for what was essentially a people’s groundswell is to overestimate the party’s capability and commitment. At best, its leaders sensed the mood and capitalised....

Besides Ayodhya there was a bunch of issues agitating the average Hindu mind that the BJP identified with much to its benefit. <b>Equitable economic growth, healthcare and education are matters of concern for all nations at all times. And politics over these is as rife in India now as it has always been. And sure, good, clean governance is an imperative for political success, but that is so for all parties, across Left, Right and Centre.</b> But what about the issues that defined the politics of the BJP, made it different and brought it the electoral moolah?<b> Jihadi terror and Evangelical conversions find the ‘tolerant’ Indians ripe for the picking. </b>For the Marxists and Maoists, the poor and oppressed are cannon fodder. <b>For the Media, the elite mindset minted by Macaulay is a matter of honour than talking about the ‘worn out’ past. And then we have the strange spectacle of sons of the soil calling themselves minorities just by switching Gods; or the scenario of group after group wanting to be called backward just to move forward! Indeed, these are the forces and farces, outside traditional political battlefields, that the BJP was supposed to take on.</b> <b>But what was its record?</b> It traded Jihadis. It did nothing to arrest the flow of dubious foreign funds that were at the root of fraudulent conversions. Ayodhya went off the radar at the sight of Delhi. A Uniform civil code, despite the SC recommending it, was quickly and quietly forgotten. The much tom tommed abrogation of Art 370 turned to ashes on the ubiquitous backburner. The much touted Hindu unity was sacrificed at the altar of caste politics that the BJP too played with aplomb. And these Swadeshi champions were powerless to stop a foreigner from making a bid, albeit aborted, for the PMO. And then comes the discovery that Jinnah is secular! And coalition dharma became an alibi for skipping all such obligations. Indeed, the <b>BJP’</b>s very purpose of existence was frustrated in every way. And worse, by its abdication, it <b>became a Cong clone</b>.

<b>So, has the Right turn reached a dead end, as the secular brigade claims?</b> <b>The media,</b> particularly, now <b>wants the BJP to take a decisive ideological U turn,</b> if it has to survive. <b>Wolves cant have the well-being of goats in mind and would only want the prey to walk into their paths. So heeding them would only lead to losing even the residual gains. </b>The future? World over, with globalisation and immigrations threatening national identities, positive rightwing politics to defend national cultures is only on the rise with nary a contradiction with modernism or development. For instance, it was Vajpayee’s so called ‘communal’ regime that laid the foundation for India’s economic and technological advances. <b>Again, denial and deriding of a nation’s core religion may seem secular but is suicidal. Stronger the roots, stronger the tree that in turn shades all the ‘plural’ aspects that we often talk of. Former US prez, Jimmy Carter, who is now a West Asia peacenik, has said a couple of days back:’ ... all the children of Abraham, Christians, Muslims and Jews, should unite for the sake of their holy land ...’. Now, is this communal? Rather, that’s how a human mind falls back on its basics in times of crisis, and that’s how nations are defined.</b> India that is Bharat should not forfeit its safety net in the name of secularism. In short, only <b>the men and methods must change, not the message.</b>

But for now, the space on the right is a vacuum. If the Sangh Parivar does not fill it, someone else should if only to give political articulation to those orphaned issues. Also, there has to be a check on Singh Parivar. Er, I actually meant, Signora Parivar!

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

and Seshadhri Chari's article in post #262

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The disconnect between the BJP's core ideology and its voters could be at the root of its predicament today. <b>Indian classicism has shaped and sustained Indian thought, polity, and society, similar to what Greek classicism has done to the West. This unique journey through the vicissitudes of time would of course, merit a separate analysis, but pointedly, with the advent of the British, Indian classicism underwent a renaissance of sorts, centred on nationalism.

A vibrant debate that spanned Vivekanand to Tilak, Tagore Gandhi, Savarkar and Ambedkar, all of whom perceived it in different shades, was abruptly stalled after 1947 and unfortunately became moribund, with our search for imaginary roots in contrived ideologies like socialism and secularism.</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thse two posts posit the nationalist cause as no other article. I would say of the Indian classicism the Hindu component was the major contributor.

[Guest]

<b>ELECTIONS 2009: READ THE FINE PRINT</b>

<b>by GVL Narasimha Rao</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Media analysis of the 15th Lok Sabha election results has largely been aimed at forcing certain perceptions that have no empirical evidence. There have been analyses on how the surge in the Congress’s tally heralds a nationwide revival of the party. The Congress’s national vote share has gone up only marginally from 26.5 per cent in 2004 to 28.6 per cent in 2009. Curiously, the vote share of 28.6 per cent secured by the Congress in 2009 is almost the same as what it got in 1999 (28.3 per cent) when it got its lowest-ever tally of 114 seats in the general elections.

How could one say that the Congress has revived nationally when its national vote share has only increased marginally? Further, even as the party has gained in terms of votes in seven states — Punjab, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Uttarakhand — it has lost votes by more than 3 percentage points in a number of them (such as Orissa. Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh). UP is the only state where the Congress has shown real signs of revival with the party’s vote share going up by an impressive 6 per cent.

The other myth doing the rounds is that the Congress has an enhanced appeal among metropolitan voters due to its forward-looking policies, as well as the appeal of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh among the educated middle classes, and the ‘youth appeal’ of Rahul Gandhi among the young voters. This has no electoral proof. The Congress’s vote share in metropolitan constituencies has virtually remained the same, 30.7 per cent in 2004 and 30.4 per cent in 2009. Therefore, the premise that the new generation of urban voters with increased prosperity and greater opportunities finds the Congress more attractive and in sync with their aspirations has no basis.

This notion is coloured by the electoral performance of the party in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai. While the Congress did creditably well in Delhi, its victory in Mumbai has less to do with the imaginary enhanced appeal of the party and more to do with the emergence of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) as a spoiler for the BJP-Shiv Sena combine.

If the Congress’s revival is not the reason for its stupendous success in the polls, what factors have contributed to its victory? The party benefited primarily from the decline and division in the vote share of its opponents. The fall in the vote of the BJP in a number of states; huge negative swings against regional parties like the Telugu Desam Party (8 per cent), the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (7 per cent) and the Samajwadi Party (4 per cent); the emergence of new parties like the Prajarajyam Party in Andhra Pradesh; the rise of the MNS in Maharashtra and the break-up of the BJP-Biju Janata Dal alliance in Orissa have all contributed to the Congress’s gains even as it suffered vote losses. In UP, it secured 21 of the 80 seats, even though it polled only 18 per cent of the popular vote. What helped the Congress in UP was the favourable distribution of votes — concentrated in a few pockets — that helped the  party to translate its fewer votes into seats.
It is a given that the Congress has won this election comprehensively. The scale of the Congress’s success has astounded everyone, including party bigwigs. The ‘wave’ in favour of the Congress, however, was invisible — because there wasn’t any.

It is the failure of the BJP and other parties to hold their own that caused the BJP’s defeat; not because of a serious challenge from the Congress. This should be the message for parties like the BJP.

G.V.L. Narasimha Rao is a BJP political analyst.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

So if the INC vote share stayed about the same (total and urban) and the major regional parties (TDP, AIADMK, SS etc) lost to new parties(PR, MDMK, MNS etc), then where did the BJP vote share go? Did it self defeat itself by staying home and later gave homilies after the defeat in true historical fashion?