Years of aberration?

Anyone following the course of the United Progressive Alliance government and its often seemingly contradictory alliances since 2004 will have noticed that on several occasions in the last three years, the dominant partner, the Congress, has found support for economic reforms from the main opposition party, the BJP, rather than its own Left allies or even its southern allies.

The consonance on economic policy in fact would be surprising to those whose observations of the BJP have ended in 1996, the fateful year when the BJP, although the largest single party in the Lok Sabha, could not form the government, due to its inability to draw support from other parties.

From 1996 onwards, the BJP has not just been expanding politically, but also drawing away from the Sangh Parivar in terms of economic policy, favouring foreign direct investment (FDI) and creating an entire ministry of disinvestment devoted to divesting public stake in government companies.

The book, a series of articles to look into the growth of the BJP into the polarising force of Indian politics, is at heart an examination of the way the BJP has changed over the years from a largely Swadesh-spouting outfit, and political untouchable to an expanding political force and a strong votary of economic reforms. It also examines the NDA government's pet projects of rewriting text books with a largely Sanskritic interpretation of Indian history, and the furore over the film Water, which looked at the plight of high-caste widows in north India. The book looks into disinvestment in a big way through the sale of Modern Foods and the protests against Kentucky Fried Chicken and Monsanto. Where the book fails is, however, in the fact that it never succeeds in explaining in full as to why the BJP, in direct contravention of what its Sangh Parivar masters want, turned its back on Swadeshi to embrace economic reforms.

Salim Lakha gives a half-baked explanation in an article entitled "From Swadeshi to Globalisation." He says that the split in the Sangh Parivar on the issue of economic reforms occurred due to divergent views within the Parivar. One, espoused by senior ideologue Govindacharya and his followers, was that the line of Swadeshi and government support to small and medium enterprises be followed. The other was held by the senior leaders of the BJP who had spent fewer years in the RSS. This was to embrace economic reforms as an enabling characteristic of India's emergence as an economic super power.

The Information Technology revolution and the technocentric policies were at the centre of this belief. Even the defeat of 2004, when slogans of 8 per cent and "India Shining" and "Feel Good Factor" were counter-productive to the BJP re-election bid, has not been able to drown down this school of thought. The belief that reforms are inevitable and good has taken root. Just how this change occurred has not been elaborated by either Lakha or even Prabhat Patnaik, who also looks at BJP economic policy. What we get is an examination of what is already in the public domain. The chapters on rewriting history books and on films and the Sangh Parivar are in fact more explanatory. What is particularly interesting is a chapter on the television media and the growth of the BJP, the party being one of the first to realise the power of "byte politics."

In a chapter entitled "Militarised Hindu Nationalism and the Mass Media" by Rita Manchanda, the colossal impact of television, and the serialisation of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata resulting in a growing masculine consciousness of Hindutva has been examined. Ironically it was in Rajiv Gandhi's tenure as Prime Minister that this consciousness gained strength and popularity. Audio cassettes by Sadhvi Ritambhara and frequent Rath Yatras that had the appearance of digvijayas of great Hindu kings by BJP leaders fed the propaganda machine. This coincided with the burgeoning print and electronic media, which occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s""images which have become indelible records.

The book tries to examine Hindutva, its emergence and its six years of governance, and its changing shape and form. Apart from certain chapters which do not delve particularly into the aetiology of things, the rest of the chapters are readable. For my money I would still recommend Christopher Jaffrelot.

Hindu Nationalism and Governance

Edited by John McGuire and Ian Copland
Oxford University Press
Price: Rs 695; Pages: 476