ARE we at halfway point in the Atal decade? After the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in three out of the four states that recently went to polls in the Hindi-speaking northern region, suddenly the prospects of an Atal decade stare us in the face. The BJP has recovered, rightly or wrongly, the sense of political sustainability that it had lost with the collapse of its coalition arrangement with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Now a morale-boosting threesome victory has provided it just the momentum that a political party needs in the last year of its five year innings. Unless something dramatic happens – to our leading political players and the principal parties – before the country goes to the general elections in September 2004, if not earlier, the chances are that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led national democratic alliance (NDA) should get voted back to power.

A number of reasons suggest this scenario, even though the polity remains inherently fractious. By surviving and prospering for more than five years at the Centre, the BJP has come close to displacing the Congress as the principal political party in the country. Admittedly, the BJP still does not have the geographical spread of the Congress, and there are large chunks of the country where the BJP neither has an appeal nor more than a token presence. Still, it has come to convert the Jan Sangh legacy and the Sangh Parivar’s perseverance into electoral assets and political advantage.

 

 

Further, in three successive national elections – 1996,1998 and 1999 – the BJP has consistently won more seats than the Congress, even though its vote share was substantially lower (23.75%) than that of the Congress (28.30%). But what the BJP lacks in terms of geographical spread or ethnic representation, it has made up by ‘honestly’ presiding over the NDA; in the process, the NDA has become the functional equivalent of the Congress as the pan-Indian political party.

On the other hand, the Congress has been out of power at the Centre since 1996 though it shared power with the United Front between 1996-1998 as a junior and outside partner in a coalition arrangement. This is the longest stint of absence from power for the party that still subscribes to a self-image as the ‘natural party of governance’. In other words, the Congress is finding it increasingly difficult to retrieve its reputation as the ‘only winning game in town.’

For decades the party sustained its brute organizational momentum by ensuring that those who left its fold or chose to oppose it were left out in the cold; it had the wherewithal to punish those who dared to flirt with dissension and to reward those who accepted its terms of cooperation. Now, other parties and leaders are in a position to exercise veto over its return to the national gaddi.

 

 

The BJP victories in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have postponed the day of the NDA’s collapse. None of the allies will want to jump off a stable ship. With the NDA holding firm, the Third Front cannot take off. The parties that could potentially constitute the ‘Third Front’ are still in no position to bypass the Congress to become the core of a successful coalition; this still-to-be-born Third Front would need the defections of substantial ‘allies’, past or present, like the Nationalist Congress Party, Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK, or Mayawati’s BSP, before it could be perceived as a workable proposition. The three BJP victories have not only stopped the NDA’s much expected crumbling process and the consequent realignment of forces, the north Indian vote has also reduced the Congress’ attractiveness as the kingpin of a potentially winning alternative coalition.

The BJP has managed, thanks to the Atal prime ministerial innings so far, a reputation as a party of governance; so far this was the Congress claim, a claim based on history as also on sheer experience of ministerial years it could boast of. All these years there was a nice fit between the Idea of India and the Congress credentials to implement and carry forward that idea. The longer the Congress stays out of power, the weaker will be its claim to be the only party that knows how to govern this vast country. Nothing symbolizes the weakening claim than the leadership claims and experience of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi.

The BJP has also demonstrated a capacity for staying together, despite all the reports and facts of ambition, intrigue and insurgency from the Advani camp. This is in sharp contrast to the Morarji Deasi-Charan Singh divorce, as also to the V.P. Singh-Chandra Shekhar/Devi Lal separation, and the P.V. Narasimha Rao-Arjun Singh/ N.D. Tiwari breakdown. True, the Advani prime ministerial ambition factor has produced divided government and divided authority, but the opposition has been unable to take advantage of this internal split. The BJP may become the first non-Congress political party to come to power and complete its five year term.

 

 

What has sustained the BJP/ NDA coalition is the Vajpayee government’s achievements since 1998. These achievements have reinforced the BJP’s claim – a demonstrable claim – of being a party capable of dealing adequately, competently and even innovatively with the rest of the world, conducting our foreign relations with becoming responsibility and pursuing our national interests relentlessly. It can claim to have redefined the India-USA relationship; it has taken forward the process of rapprochement with China, without in any way diluting the traditional ties with Russia. Except for Pakistan, it has dealt with our South Asian neighbours sensitively, though there have been moments when New Delhi has acted clumsily and boorishly. But more importantly, the Vajpayee government has demonstrated a knack for converting economic strength and advantage into geostrategic opportunities.

Above all, the BJP/NDA has demonstrated a reasonable competence in performing the basic task of a ruling party: the art of garnering political support for the Indian state. The task requires unending negotiations for consent, agreements that bring value-additions to the Indian state’s legitimacy. Those who get a chance to preside over the Indian state have an obligation to ensure that discontent and dissension do not degenerate into secession, and those who feel alienated and entertain secessionist thoughts are given reasons and incentives to stay within.

 

 

The fundamental task of the Centre’s political executive is to creatively use democratic representativeness and electoral legitimacy to make the Indian state an attractive proposition, an arrangement that is based on inclusion, partnership and equality. The BJP has, by and large, performed this task. It has made a fetish of having introduced creativity in the Indian federal structure. It is to the BJP’s credit that it has carried forward the dialogue process with the insurgents in Nagaland, worked out an agreement with the Bodos and established a Bodo Territorial Council, and agreed to sit across the table from the All Party Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir. And within, it has remained sensitive to the representational demands. For example, it has continued to expand the Mandal list, without seen as playing the Mandal card.

Having continued the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh-Chidambaram market-centric economic reforms, the BJP has handled the political economy reasonably well. Corporate India has good reason to be satisfied with its performance; all those who during 1997/1998 took the risk of investing in a Atal Bihari Vajpayee prime ministerial bid, can be said to have more than recovered their money. The Vajpayee dividend has been good for corporate India. The middle classes too have been given no reason to be unhappy with the BJP; for all the outrages and crudities of the Sangh Parivar and VHP, the Vajpayee regime has had a soothing effect on the ever-fragile nerves of the middle classes. According to its economists and policy-makers, the consuming and spending middle classes are growing and expanding at breakneck speed. The BJP appears to have decided to elevate the middle classes as the dominant category of voters, not just in terms of influence or economic clout, but also in terms of political preponderance.

On the eve of the next general election then, the polity appears to be delicately poised but not uneasy with itself: the incumbent party has not given sufficient reason to substantial powerful groups, interests, individuals, or ideological conclaves to feel angry enough to want it out. Corporate India is enjoying its honeymoon with the Vajpayee regime; the middle classes are being serenaded; the OBCs, the dalits and the tribals are being politically courted and accommodated; only the minorities have a legitimate reason to be dissatisfied with the ruling party. By contrast, the BJP’s rivals are unable to propose any platform that will make any of these pro-BJP groups and constituencies switch sides.

The chances then are that the next Lok Sabha elections would replicate the current 13th Lok Sabha and we shall find ourselves in the second half of the Atal decade. This decade has the potential of transforming the Indian state and its polity if Atal Bihari Vajpayee can succeed in bringing off three transformations.

 

 

First, reconciliation and peace with Pakistan. For most part of his prime ministerial innings, Vajpayee has helped deepen an anti-Pakistan mood in the country. He and his party have instigated a redefinition of Indian nationalism as one negatively anchored in cultivated animosity towards Pakistan. Having demonstrated that the Indian state would not be run out of Kashmir and having acquired a new confidence in the appeal of democratic India to the people of Kashmir, especially since the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, he now appears to have decided to seek reconciliation with an intractable foe.

 

 

In the first week of November, he addressed the Combined Commanders Conference, the most formidable gathering of military officers in India. And he had this to tell his generals: ‘I will also say a few words about our western neighbour, Pakistan. We have yet again announced some measures a few days ago to promote greater people-to-people interaction, cultural exchange and economic cooperation. Our constant effort is to encourage those elements in Pakistan who recognise the folly of permanent hostility towards India. By our recent measures, we have also silenced the whispering campaign that the requirements of forthcoming elections dictate a harsh Pakistan policy. The political leadership of this country is well aware that the constituency for peace with Pakistan is much larger than that which favours hostility.’

This was probably the first time that an Indian prime minister articulated the strength of the ‘peace constituency’, that too before an audience that has an organizational and ideological interest in hostility towards an ‘enemy’. It may be that having won the 1999 election as a Kargil war hero, Vajpayee was tempted to showcase himself as peacemaker. Whatever the political compulsions, should Vajpayee succeed in redefining our relationship with Pakistan, it would recast our polity also. And, needless to add, any reconciliation with Pakistan will temper the contours of alienation and conflict within Kashmir.

 

 

The second reconciliation the Vajpayee decade could see would be at home with the minorities. The middle classes which fuel the economy and have no time for distractions demanded by the likes of Praveen Togadia and Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, would force the Vajpayee regime to offer the minorities a respectable place at the high table of Indian democracy and dream. Whatever be their stance at the hustings, even the most ideological of Vajpayee’s ministers never tire of telling foreign audiences that not a single Indian Muslim had been found to be among the worldwide Al Qaeda network.

As prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee has, by and large, remained faithful to secular constitutional obligations. Gujarat was an exception. But later on he saw to it that the Modi regime did not act as if it was immune to the demands of rule of law. Even under pressure from Hindu fundamentalists to rig the system in their favour, especially in the Ayodhya matter, he has been careful not to provide them any comfort outside the realm of the Constitution. The Muslim community itself has watched his periodic bouts with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which of late has taken to condemning him as ‘anti-Hindu’.

If Vajpayee were able to achieve any kind of breakthrough with Pakistan, he and his party would be able to reach out to the minorities. As it is, there is a realization that unending hostility towards Pakistan and an anti-Islamic bias in our fight against terror would only suck India into conditions of civil war; the Muslim community too has no reason to subscribe to the jehadis’ definition of a new global order. In any case, the inspired hostility that the Muslims are made to feel towards the BJP is a byproduct of political contestation between the secular and the communal camps. If the larger context of animosity towards Pakistan changes, then the sub-text of internal prejudices and preferences will change too.

 

 

The third transformation that the Atal decade could see is the possible metamorphosis of the BJP into a ‘normal’ party. This is the most difficult task that Vajpayee would be asked to perform. The BJP cannot become a normal party till it is weaned away from the RSS; for now, the idea is sheer blasphemy for any BJP functionary – from the most traditionalist like L.K. Advani to the most modernist like Arun Jaitley. But that weaning would become objectively desirable and possible as the BJP realizes that in the process of becoming a governing party it is also changing – against its wishes and against its grain. As it is the BJP has travelled a long way from being a bania party to a party that can rightly claim to have the OBCs, the tribals and dalits with it.

A party has reason to remain dogmatic and unchanging when it is confronted by an entrenched enemy, but the BJP’s ‘challenge’ is weakening. Just as the 1984 ‘sweeping’ victory made the Congress turn inward, looking for ‘enemies’ within, purging itself of what Rajiv Gandhi called the influence of power brokers, a victory in 2004 should help the BJP sort out its internal and external demons. Without a formidable challenge, the party can manicure its zeal, redefine its priorities and remix its profile. Now, with its oppositional agenda fulfilled, the BJP in the Atal decade will have to become a normal party.