Sitaram Yechury

The BJP general secretary’s revelation that its prime ministerial candidate is the mukhota (mask) hiding the real mukh (face) of the BJP is a description that is not confined only to Mr. Vajpayee. As the elections draw closer, the BJP’s behaviour exposes it as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While it seeks to maintain a public poster to attract new allies, it continues to privately nurture its hidden agenda — the establishment of a fascistic and intolerant `Hindu Rashtra’. In the process it is spreading, true to its Goebbelsian propaganda technique several myths and illusions, its real character will be unmasked on the forthcoming elections, its illusions shattered and its myths exposed.

Let us examine the reality behind some of the myths that it ingeniously seeks to spread through subterfuge.

Myth 1: That all political parties ganged up prevent the BJP from ruling in after 1996 elections, where it had allegedly received the popular mandate.

Reality: The charge that the BJP was denied its rightful role to rule is completely baseless. In the 1996 elections, though the BJP emerged as the single largest party winning 161 seats, it fell far short of the required majority of 272. Further, it polled only 20.29 per cent of the vote, while the Congress polled 28.8 per cent, and the major constituents of the United Front together polled 29.45 per cent. Therefore, both in terms of the number of MPs (the United Front numbering 187) and in terms of the vote percentage, the United Front was the largest formation in the 11th Lok Sabha. Thus, the Saffron Brigade’s claim that the people had given it a mandate is a lie.

Further, despite not having a majority, the BJP formed the government in 1996. It, however, could not survive even the vote of confidence and had to make an ignominious exit after 13 days. The BJP thus, was not denied its chance to form the government. The truth is that it simply failed in its effort. In fact, the BJP was prevented from clandestinely high-jacking the leadership of the government which the people did not give them.

Myth 2: That coalition governments are inherently instable, hence vote for the BJP.

Reality: It is indeed strange that the BJP, which is forging the most opportunistic alliances, throwing to the winds all norms of political morality, principles and ideology with the single aim of capturing power by hook or by crook, should today decry coalition governments. It had mocked at the 13-party United Front coalition. Yet, today it has more number of parties with whom it has forged alliance in its lust for power. To name only a few: 1) Shiv Sena; 2) Samata Party; 3) Akali Dal; 4) Haryana Vikas Party; 5) AIADMK; 6) MDMK; 7) PMK; 8) Mr. Ramamurthy’s breakaway Congress party in Tamil Nadu; 9) Hindu Munnani; 10) Ms. Laxmi Parvathi’s Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh; 11) Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde’s party in Karnataka; 12) Naresh Agarwal’s break away Congress party in Uttar Pradesh; 13) the break away BSP group in Uttar Pradesh; 14) Mr. Navin Patnaik’s Janata Dal in orissa; 15) Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress in Bengal; 16) Mr. Kukapare’s party in Kashmir. And it is still looking for more. Such ideologically disparied parties constitute the stew that the BJP is brewing for the country.

Myth 3: That BJP is the only party that can provide stability.

Reality: With such an concoction of parties, the BJP is the worst placed today to provide any stable government. Such have been the divergent opinions of its friendly parties today that the BJP has formally announced that its common minimum programme will be told to the nation only after the elections are over and it forms the party. Many of its allies disagree with the BJP on its most important agenda consisting of Ayodhya, Article 370, Uniform Civil Code etc — its communal agenda. Wearing its mask, the BJP through one leader disclaims all these as being part of their agenda. While another leader reiterates that these constitute the BJP’s agenda. Some other leaders go even beyond this to include Kashi and Mathura as the basis for a people’s movement in the future. While the mukhota disowns the communal agenda, the BJP’s state government in Uttar Pradesh has directed all primary school students in the state to start their day by reciting vandemataram' and to sayvandemataram’ instead of `yes sir’. Its diabolic game plan is clear. While the mukhota is for the public consumption, the BJP will continue to implement its communal agenda. With such deception, there can be no stability in the country for the people. Their rule is bound to be a period of social strive and large scale insecurity amongst the minorities.

In any case, one needs to question what does stability mean and for whom is the stability to be ensured?

Until recently the country experienced an uninterrupted five-year rule by the Congress. In that sense it was indeed stable. But then what did it mean for the people?

** intensified communal tensions assuming grotesque proportions,

** destruction of the Babri Masjid, thousands of lives lost in communal violence, homes and property of many more destroyed, insecurity and fear gripping millions of the minorities.

** instead of confrontation of the communal forces, the `stable government’s compromise with them, compounding the problems.

** intensification of upper caste oppression leading to caste conflicts.

** unprecedented burdens inflicted by the economic reforms policy, with poverty deaths, price rise, growing unemployment, retrenchment and closure of lakhs of factories.

** and on top of all this, a full five years for the `stable’ government to loot the country and people through a series of scandalous scams.

Thus stability for the government to rule for five years was the most unstable period for the people. What we need today is stability for the people, and not for a government to plunge the country into a communal holocaust and deepen the divide between the people still further. On this score, the performance of the United Front government, though for a short 18 months, ranks far superior.

Stability requires not just the throwing up of a motley crowd to form a majority, but a commitment to secularism, national unity, federalism and pro-people economic growth. The BJP has displayed itself as a party which has no other commitment but to capture power unleashing a barrage of communal viciousness.

Myth 4: That the BJP will pursue a `swadeshi’ economic programme.

Reality: The slogan of `swadeshi’ and the BJP’s championing of India’s economic self-reliance is, one again, only a mask that dons its real economic agenda of complete subservience to imperialist finance capital. Wherever its has been power in the states, it has indiscriminately invited the multinational corporations to come to plunder our resources. It pursues an economic philosophy which its leaders have claimed on the floor of the Parliament that Congress has highjacked when it introduced the economic reforms in 1991. Yet today, seeing the discontent growing in the working people they adopt populist slogans in order to mislead the people and seek to take advantage of the popular discontent.

One example will suffice to expose its double speak on matters of economic policy.

All through the 1996 election campaign, the BJP campaigned against the Enron power project in Maharashtra saying that it was a loot of the people. Some of its leaders even thundered that if they come to power, they shall throw the Enron in the Arabian sea. Yet, when they took charge as government for 13 days in May 1996, they approved the Central government’s counter guarantees to the multinational Enron permitting them to loot the people! What is more worst is, this decision was taken by the Union Cabinet on the day the Parliament was debating Mr. Vajpayee’s confidence motion. The Union Cabinet met during the lunch recess of Parliament, a few hours before the voting took place to dislodge the government and approved the Enron power project. What morality can they claim when they rush through such an important decision knowing full well that their government is not going to last. This is their commitment to `swadeshi’.

There are many more myths that shall be exposed in our subsequent columns. But let it suffice to say that by its conduct, the BJP has thoroughly exposed itself as a party bereft of any principles or character. Its high sounding rhetoric of a party with a difference, a party whose chehra (face), chalan (line) charitra (character) and chintan (ideology) being different from all other parties has been thoroughly exposed. It has emerged as the most self-seeking opportunist conglomerate ever seen in Indian politics.

One final word. Its projection of Mr. Vajpayee as the people’s Prime Minister on the strength of orchestrated opinion polls will also not sell. A person who can be a helpless witness to the destruction of the Babri Masjid, a person who has repeatedly displayed impotence in dealing with his own party’s communal agenda is nothing but a cosmetic mask hiding the diabolic communal agenda of the Saffron Brigade. The people of the country want a Prime Minister who can protect the unity and integrity of its social fabric and not a Prime Minister who breaks out in poetric agony helplessly watching the spread of communal poison and insecurity amongst the minorities.