bJP cannot provide stability


	Falsyfying History Communalising education India's Nuclear Doctrine Dangerous vision of India's nuclear Future BJP cannot provide stability BJP's stability is nothing but a hoax, it has already failed Kamtapuri What and why? An Agenda for self reliant development The terms "privatisation" "commercialisation" "independent regulator" "re-structuring" "competition" were used to suit the interest of a few.

The entire nation is involved in the elections to the 13th Lok Sabha which commence on September 5 and conclude on October 3. People are anxiously anticipating the results of this exercise. Having to face third election in as many years, the voters, the media, the experts -- all seem to be concerned about the stability of the government that will be formed after the elections. Sensing this concern of the people, the unprincipled 24-party alliance led by the BJP has started to claim that it can provide stability. This claim of the BJP will prove as hollow in the future as it has proved in the past.

It is quite well established that, the stability of a government does not depend on members alone. After all, the Vajpayee government had been able to cobble together a majority after the last elections but could not last more than 13 months. The essential perquisites for a stable government are its constituents should have a coherent and shared perspective on the problems facing the people and the country. There should also be a common understanding in relation to the forces which need to be mobilised to maintain the unity of the country and a common point of view in relation to the strengthening of the constituent units of the Indian Union, a firm commitment to defend and strengthen secular and federal character of Indian polity. There should be a common approach and determination to solve the basic problems of the people, hunger, unemployment, education, health and housing. In order that a government be stable it has also to follow a consensus foreign policy which allows the country to resist imperialist pressures and play a leading role to gather and lead anti-imperialist forces at the international level.

The BJP-led alliance known as NDA singularly lacks such a shared perspective among its constituents. After the 1996 elections when Congress lost monopoly of power, the BJP although around one third of the total strength of the parliament emerged as the single largest party and as the single largest party decided to form a government. They had hoped that they will gather the numbers on the basis of horse trading. Some of their spokes persons had boasted that once Vajpayee is sworn in, there will be a queue of defectors to provide the government stability. They failed miserably and could not engineer a single defection. The United Front government that came to power after working out a common minimum programme was twice pulled down by the BJP in the company of its arch rival, the Congress. The BJP which is now crying hoarse about the opposition pulling down their government without an alternative wants people to forget that twice in the last Lok Sabha it had done the same in the name of fulfilling its oppositional duty.

The BJP contested the 1998 elections by forging a number of alliances, some of them having vastly different perceptions on all the basic issues. The opportunistic nature of the alliance became evident when they decided to contest the elections on their separate manifestoes and made it clear that they would evolve a common approach only after the elections. This was a ploy to keep the alliance partners and their manifestoes at a distance in case they came to get a majority on their own. It was only after their inability to get a majority that a national agenda for governance was evolved and the contentious issues put on the back burner. The issues of Babri Masjid, article 370 and Uniform Civil Code which constitute the basic Hindutva philosophy of the BJP are not shared by all their allies. It is as much opportunism on the part of the BJP as its allies to accept the BJP's posture on the face value. No less a person than Advani of the Saffron Brigade had admitted in parliament that the BJP was committed to the Hindutva agenda and it was being shelved only till they get a majority on their own. A number of lesser lights of the BJP, including several ministers in the government repeated Advani's statement in more chauvinistic verbiage.

Even today the BJP's commitment to the divisive and sectarian agenda of Hindutva is neither diluted nor abandoned. On August 22, a senior functionary of the BJP K N Govindacharya said "we (the BJP) work with a bifocal vision. We are neither breaking out of our commitment to those issues (Ram temple, uniform civil code, abrogation of article 370) nor are we apologetic about our stand." He said that since the BJP had not yet attained the "steering position" in Indian politics, it has decided to leave those issues aside "in the interregnums".

In its typical style, the BJP speaking in several voices but none of these voices is witting to claim that the BJP has abandoned its sectarian agenda. In a statement clarifying the statement of Govindacharya, the BJP has merely said that the BJP would not swerve from its commitment given in the NDA manifesto to put a moratorium on all contentious issues. It needs to be noted that the official "clarification" is not a denial and it does not talk of abandoning the "contentious issues" but merely of putting a moratorium on them for the time being. Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in Ahmedabad on August 23 that, the contentious issues were not part of the election agenda. This statement of Vajpayee gives the game away, the hypocrite Vajpayee is only trying to hoodwink the gullible. No where has he declared that the BJP is not committed to these issues or that it has dropped them altogether. It is this duplicity and hypocritical stance of the BJP in adhering to its divisive agenda vis-a-vis its allies, the electorate and its own following that is the biggest source of instability in the country.

The political conduct of the BJP in the last 16 to 17 months also belies its claim of providing stability. It has, in fact, set the lowest standards in political morality in the last fifty years of functioning of Indian democracy. In Uttar Pradesh every single defector was made a minister and there are at least 25 ministers with criminal record have found a place in the BJP government of Uttar Pradesh. In Himachal Sukh Ram was given a pride of place in the BJP government only to be dropped later. In Haryana the BJP's crass opportunism has led it to ditch its long term ally Bansi Lal in favour of Chautala who had enacted the biggest farce in Indian democracy on the eve of the confidence vote which Vajpayee government eventually lost, when within 24 hours he took two diametrically opposite stands. With such political morality the BJP cannot provide stability. The Vajpayee government fell because the allies of the BJP were not happy with them and a major pre-poll ally decided to withdraw support. Despite their efforts to contain the internecine quarrels of the alliance in check by assigning ministers fulltime jobs to contain disaffection of the allies, the Vajpayee government could not provide stability because the alliance led by it lacked coherence and principled allegiance to a programme on ideology. The same situation prevails now and therefore the BJP's claim of providing stability does not inspire any confidence.

The commitment to Hindutva on the part of the BJP has led the RSS and the VHP to claim that it will support only the BJP candidates in the ensuing elections and not its other allies in the NDA. What bigger proof is required of the discord among the alliance partners and the consequential instability that is inbuilt in the alliance.

The current spectacle of the Janata Dal led by Sharad Yadav begging to gain entry into the NDA, the resultant friction, tension and war of words between the leaders of the Samata, Lokshakti and the BJP is evidence enough to show that the tall talk of stability has very fragile foundations. Moreover, the total opposition in the world views of the BJP and the erstwhile Janata factions, most notably on the question of reservations provided for in the Mandal Commission, will ensure that the BJP-led coalition will fall apart on the first opportunity.

The BJP-led coalition has successfully alienated minorities by its unabated communal offensive. The major target of physical violence in the last 16-17 months has been the Christian minority while the Muslim minority was kept terrorised though not physically attacked through out. The recent Hindu-Muslim riots in Ahmedabad were a reminder to the Muslim minority. The scheduled castes, tribes and other weaker sections have been alienated due to unchecked attacks, unprecedented price rise, failure to create fresh employment. Not a single promise was redeemed. No reservation for women, no one crore jobs, no Lok Pal Bill. The BJP even reneged on its own commitment to "swadeshi", prompting its own mentors of the RSS and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch to be critical of the Vajpayee government!

The biggest disservice to the nation that the BJP government did in its 16-months of the rule has been the total surrender before US imperialism. After the mindless exercise of Pokharan-II, the BJP government broke the national consensus on the foreign policy issues and allowed US imperialism to dictate terms to India. The consensus foreign policy which during the last five decades had been an instrument of safeguarding our independence and rebuffing imperialist pressures through the non-aligned movement has been abandoned. This has led the US imperialism to put pressure on India's foreign and economic policies. Several BJP spokespersons and their penpushers are happy at this development when they claim that building of good relations with America (in fact, a pat on the back) in this unipolar world has been a big achievemnet of the Vajpayee government. This surrender to US imperialism is going to be yet another source of instability of the BJP is voted to pwoer.

The assurance of the corruption-free regime by the BJP has been blown apart by the recently exposed telecom scandal, involving a sum of Rs 50,000 crore, and leading upto the prime minister's office itself. No corrupt government can provide stability.

A government which has been negligent of national security as witnessed in Kargil conflict with Pakistan, where repeated warnings were ignored for political expediency cannot provide stability.

Finally, a government led by a party which had no role to play in our independence struggle (infact, its prime ministerial candidate had dissociated himself from 1942 movement and provided information on some of the participants to the British government), cannot appreciate the aspirations of our people. A party and an alliance that cannot fulfil the aspirations of the people, cannot provide stability, despite whatever claims it may make.