Reuters India | By Krittivas Mukherjee | 20 August 2009

Book row signals change in BJP’s politics

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A row over a controversial new book has underlined that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be leaning toward a more radical agenda to reinvent itself after a heavy election defeat in May.

The BJP expelled one of its top leaders on Wednesday for writing a book sympathetic to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Muslim founder of rival Pakistan.

The step against Jaswant Singh, former finance and foreign minister, is testimony to the growing clout of the radical elements in the party that are overshadowing its more technocratic, pro-reform politicians, analysts said.

It may also signal a greater grip of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, the BJP’s ideological parent which aims to transform India’s secular society and establish the supremacy of a Hindu majority.

“It’s the Talibanisation of the BJP where the hardliners want the secular minority quarantined, if not completely neutralised,” said political commentator B.G. Verghese.

Directionless after the election defeat, the BJP has been debating its future — whether its Hindu-revivalist agenda, once its passport to power, was now irrelevant for younger voters.

The party rose to prominence in the early 1990s on the back of a Hindu-revivalist movement and ruled from 1998 to 2004 promoting economic reforms. But it suffered a shock 2004 election defeat. It’s May election loss was partly blamed on a lack of political direction and leadership.

Singh’s book — “Jinnah: India-Partition Independence” is seen as challenging the basic polity of the BJP, which demonises, along with much of India, the Muslim leader for demanding the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.

“The book is directly in conflict with the BJP’s Hindutva (Hindu-revivalism) and anti-Pakistan rhetoric,” said political analyst Kuldip Nayar.

“The expulsion of Jaswant Singh seems to have had the endorsement of the majority. We can expect a tightening of the RSS hold on the party.”

Some analysts feel it maybe premature to say a harsh sectarian agenda is what the future BJP is going to adopt.

A disjointed BJP has also meant the party is unable to play the role of an effective opposition at a time when the government is surrounded by myriad crises from fighting a drought to swine flu and questionable diplomacy with Pakistan.

“There will be a sense of revulsion among the BJP supporters and voters that this opportunity is being lost and the party is bogged down with something from the past which has little relevance for young Indian voters,” said Swapan Dasgupta, a columnist.