08-08-2006, 05:19 PM
I agree with this author totally. I loved the grand vision shown by Vajpayee (Infrastructure/National highways) and even his thoughts on River linking. Ever since their defeat, they are nothing but patehtic. They whine, fight amongst themselves, rake up useless issues. They had a chance to kill this anti-national, anti-hindu government purely on the basis of price rise, terrorism, internal/external security, Quattrochi issue and Volcker report.
I am totally apalled at their conduct. Show some positive thinking. FIght the evil UPA with grit and determination.
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http://www.indianexpress.com/story/10104.html
Party whining
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Natwar episode shows again BJP in opposition is stuck with nay-saying
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Related Stories
Expansion and division gamesState of vacuum in times of terrorWill India ever have a Buffet?Being middle class is ok Dear Prime Minister
It is often said that Indian political parties engage in vote bank politics. But the conduct of opposition parties suggests the reverse. Rather than think about how to ideologically reposition, organisationally rejuvenate, and stitch together a new social coalition, parties out of power fall into a kind of torpid languor. The guiding assumption becomes this: rather than run after the electoral bus, keep standing where you are and hope the bus stops where you are. The Congress was like this in opposition, and it was only a wafer-thin mathematical alchemy that propelled it to power.
The only lesson the BJP has learnt from the last election was this: loiter around and your chance will come. Its response to the failure of âIndia Shiningâ is party whining. The waiting game is corrosive: it breeds laziness and creeping boredom, always a fatal combination. Nothing exemplifies this more than the BJPâs parliamentary strategy. It is dissipating itself in peripheral issues like the privilege motions against the prime minister. Politically it would have been better to let the Congress be hoist with its own petard and let the law run its course, rather than call for a privilege motion that will pay no dividends. Having given the Congress an opportunity to deflect attention from politically potent issues, the BJP would be better off in the long run if it stuck to a high-minded focus on policy rather than create bedlam centred on personalities. In doing so it is enhancing the suspicion that as a party it has nothing to say on important issues any more.
The BJPâs ideological reinvention was never going to be easy. While the BJP may jettison Jaswant Singh for his inscrutable handling of the mole affair, it would be a loss if it jettisoned his larger message. How did the BJP manage to so decisively transform India? Even for those of us for whom the BJPâs potential for spreading the insidious poison of communalism remains a serious concern, this question is worth asking. Jaswant Singh gave a sense of what a credible ideological reinvention of the BJP might have looked like: liberal in economics, capable of a steep learning curve in some areas of governance like infrastructure, and committed to integrating India into the global economy as quickly as possible. In an odd sort of way it was the first government in the last two decades to be supremely confident about Indiaâs prospects. The party that thrived on the politics of anxiety left office with an India less anxious about its place in the world. Shedding its virulent anti-minority strain was always going to be a challenge. But the BJP knew that it had to evolve out of this kind of politics for two reasons: the compulsions of coalition politics and the fact that this plank can be used as mobilising strategy only episodically.
Jaswant Singhâs observations on Gujarat are too tepid for the enormity of the crimes committed there, but his underlying aspiration is more plausible: community should not be the axis of the distribution of rights and privilege; the politics of community balancing is always an unstable equilibrium that creates divisions rather than real benefits. While in some sections the BJPâs anti-minorityism is over-determined, it could have evolved into the more principled line: not that those minorities are pampered (this is its own hate propaganda) but that the state needs to evolve to a point where the distinction between communities becomes irrelevant to the determination of rights. The BJP underestimates the potency of this stand, if it can be carried with conviction and not marred by hate. The irony is that while Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Advani have tried to ensure that they evolve, they curiously abandoned any concern for the partyâs evolution.
Where should the BJP go? The most obvious plank of its strategy has to be the platitude: first hold on to what you have through governance, a lesson at least the Madhya Pradesh government is unwilling to learn. Second, the current equations of caste politics put it at a disadvantage; its only hope, as in the past, is to break the mould rather than conform to it. In short, Rajnath Singhâs short-term objectives in UP will not do BJPâs long-term goals any favour. Third, voters respond to parties that are seen to be filling an ideological and leadership vacuum, rather than those that exacerbate it through a politics of nay-saying. It may be time for the party to think out of the box and take up positions beyond its usual cliches.
The BJP was the first ruling party comfortable with capitalism. But if it were a little more imaginative it could have appropriate a lot of the space the Left is occupying by mounting a critique of the crony capitalism that the pro-poor Congress is engaged in. An integrated tax structure and unified market was Jaswant Singhâs great idea. While the BJP initiated the rather ill thought through idea of special economic zones, it is still not too late for it to oppose the creeping granting of arbitrary diwani rights to private companies over land that might over time be as significant in scale as granting rights to the East India Company. As the CPM in Bengal has realised, with the growth of capitalism, land is going to be the axis around which social conflicts revolve. The best hope for a political party is to combine a consistent pro-capitalist line with a consistent anti-crony capitalist line. This will bring into the BJPâs ambit a constituency it has so far neglected: small to medium landowners, whose interface with capitalism is going to be the next big structural and political challenge.
Instead of opposing for the sake of opposing, the BJP would do well to hone in on its core message: liberal in economics, strong on national security, a generosity that is commensurate with its aspirations for India, an attempt to detach citizenship from community identity, and an ability to deliver at the level of the states. Forget the petulant glee that comes from targeting personalities, make your message on inflation, roads, power, etc more visible. In UP the BJP finds itself in the same dilemma that the Congress did: facing oblivion. But the solution for both parties in UP may be an unorthodox one: demand a much-needed further break-up of the state and hope that its politics can be transformed for ever. Perhaps it might be too much to expect a leopard to change its spots, but this leopard has no option.
I am totally apalled at their conduct. Show some positive thinking. FIght the evil UPA with grit and determination.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/10104.html
Party whining
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Natwar episode shows again BJP in opposition is stuck with nay-saying
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Related Stories
Expansion and division gamesState of vacuum in times of terrorWill India ever have a Buffet?Being middle class is ok Dear Prime Minister
It is often said that Indian political parties engage in vote bank politics. But the conduct of opposition parties suggests the reverse. Rather than think about how to ideologically reposition, organisationally rejuvenate, and stitch together a new social coalition, parties out of power fall into a kind of torpid languor. The guiding assumption becomes this: rather than run after the electoral bus, keep standing where you are and hope the bus stops where you are. The Congress was like this in opposition, and it was only a wafer-thin mathematical alchemy that propelled it to power.
The only lesson the BJP has learnt from the last election was this: loiter around and your chance will come. Its response to the failure of âIndia Shiningâ is party whining. The waiting game is corrosive: it breeds laziness and creeping boredom, always a fatal combination. Nothing exemplifies this more than the BJPâs parliamentary strategy. It is dissipating itself in peripheral issues like the privilege motions against the prime minister. Politically it would have been better to let the Congress be hoist with its own petard and let the law run its course, rather than call for a privilege motion that will pay no dividends. Having given the Congress an opportunity to deflect attention from politically potent issues, the BJP would be better off in the long run if it stuck to a high-minded focus on policy rather than create bedlam centred on personalities. In doing so it is enhancing the suspicion that as a party it has nothing to say on important issues any more.
The BJPâs ideological reinvention was never going to be easy. While the BJP may jettison Jaswant Singh for his inscrutable handling of the mole affair, it would be a loss if it jettisoned his larger message. How did the BJP manage to so decisively transform India? Even for those of us for whom the BJPâs potential for spreading the insidious poison of communalism remains a serious concern, this question is worth asking. Jaswant Singh gave a sense of what a credible ideological reinvention of the BJP might have looked like: liberal in economics, capable of a steep learning curve in some areas of governance like infrastructure, and committed to integrating India into the global economy as quickly as possible. In an odd sort of way it was the first government in the last two decades to be supremely confident about Indiaâs prospects. The party that thrived on the politics of anxiety left office with an India less anxious about its place in the world. Shedding its virulent anti-minority strain was always going to be a challenge. But the BJP knew that it had to evolve out of this kind of politics for two reasons: the compulsions of coalition politics and the fact that this plank can be used as mobilising strategy only episodically.
Jaswant Singhâs observations on Gujarat are too tepid for the enormity of the crimes committed there, but his underlying aspiration is more plausible: community should not be the axis of the distribution of rights and privilege; the politics of community balancing is always an unstable equilibrium that creates divisions rather than real benefits. While in some sections the BJPâs anti-minorityism is over-determined, it could have evolved into the more principled line: not that those minorities are pampered (this is its own hate propaganda) but that the state needs to evolve to a point where the distinction between communities becomes irrelevant to the determination of rights. The BJP underestimates the potency of this stand, if it can be carried with conviction and not marred by hate. The irony is that while Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Advani have tried to ensure that they evolve, they curiously abandoned any concern for the partyâs evolution.
Where should the BJP go? The most obvious plank of its strategy has to be the platitude: first hold on to what you have through governance, a lesson at least the Madhya Pradesh government is unwilling to learn. Second, the current equations of caste politics put it at a disadvantage; its only hope, as in the past, is to break the mould rather than conform to it. In short, Rajnath Singhâs short-term objectives in UP will not do BJPâs long-term goals any favour. Third, voters respond to parties that are seen to be filling an ideological and leadership vacuum, rather than those that exacerbate it through a politics of nay-saying. It may be time for the party to think out of the box and take up positions beyond its usual cliches.
The BJP was the first ruling party comfortable with capitalism. But if it were a little more imaginative it could have appropriate a lot of the space the Left is occupying by mounting a critique of the crony capitalism that the pro-poor Congress is engaged in. An integrated tax structure and unified market was Jaswant Singhâs great idea. While the BJP initiated the rather ill thought through idea of special economic zones, it is still not too late for it to oppose the creeping granting of arbitrary diwani rights to private companies over land that might over time be as significant in scale as granting rights to the East India Company. As the CPM in Bengal has realised, with the growth of capitalism, land is going to be the axis around which social conflicts revolve. The best hope for a political party is to combine a consistent pro-capitalist line with a consistent anti-crony capitalist line. This will bring into the BJPâs ambit a constituency it has so far neglected: small to medium landowners, whose interface with capitalism is going to be the next big structural and political challenge.
Instead of opposing for the sake of opposing, the BJP would do well to hone in on its core message: liberal in economics, strong on national security, a generosity that is commensurate with its aspirations for India, an attempt to detach citizenship from community identity, and an ability to deliver at the level of the states. Forget the petulant glee that comes from targeting personalities, make your message on inflation, roads, power, etc more visible. In UP the BJP finds itself in the same dilemma that the Congress did: facing oblivion. But the solution for both parties in UP may be an unorthodox one: demand a much-needed further break-up of the state and hope that its politics can be transformed for ever. Perhaps it might be too much to expect a leopard to change its spots, but this leopard has no option.