Before the BJP embarked on its policy of embracing whoever came in the way if he could promise a few seats, there was at least no doubt about its ideology.
Now there is no such certainty. True, it is believed that the party has not really deviated from its prescribed course of ushering in a Hindu Rashtra and that its present posture is only a tactical retreat. Even then, at least for the present, one has to accept the BJP's assertion that it abides only by the agenda of the National Democratic Alliance and has put its own on the back burner.
The danger is that the absence of an agenda - or the denial of one - can set the country on an uncertain course. This is a new and highly disturbing development for a democracy like India's which is still evolving. The central point of the democratic experiment is that the political arena is a battlefield for competing ideologies ...
... An agenda can also be suddenly sprung on an unsuspecting nation ...
. The step resembles the first BJP government's nuclear tests were carried out although the party's election manifesto only said that the nuclear option would be reviewed - something which earlier governments had also indicated when they said that the option would be kept open.
But, suddenly, the people of India were presented with a fait accompli in May 1998 merely to boost the BJP's image ... A "nuclear India" was always the Sangh Parivar's cherished dream - its hidden agenda --- and the moment the saffron camp got the chance it conducted the Pokhran II blasts, reflecting the typical militarism of a fascist mindset, without caring for either national or international opinion or their unfavourable security implications like negating India's huge conventional military advantage over Pakistan.
One of the dangers about the ambiguity of a party's agenda is that it can foster crass opportunism ... Once it decided to follow the covert path of saffronising textbooks and appointing RSS pracharaks as educationists instead of the overt path of building a temple, it gave an excellent opportunity to time-servers like Hegde, Kumaramangalam, Paswan, and other stalwarts to jump on to the caffron bandwagon, arguing that the BJP has changed or, at least, is no longer as threatening to a multicultural society as before.
What also emerges from their behaviour is the possibility that they personally never had any agenda at all but that of getting a ministership ... Indeed, the alacrity with which "socialists" like George Fernandes - and that, too, with an international tag! - have embraced fascism underlines their bankruptcy. Fernandes is actually on record for saying that he had stopped thinking from the time he switched his allegiance overnight fron. Morarji Desai to his opponents in 1979.
It is not that an agenda is sacrosanct ... But there is nothing hidden about them. Even the half-hearted nature of a change can be explained ... but it is still open to public view.
There may also be a tactical change as in the case of the CPI-M participating in India's parliamentary democracy although it remains formally committed to a dictatorship of the proletariat. But no one is unduly worried because, first, the ideology has collapsed worldwide and, secondly, the CPI-M's fraternal outfits are not seen striving for that ideal either in word or deed ...
But ... the dictatorship of the Hindus is very much a part of the Sangh Parivar's agenda, and the BJP as the Parivar's political arm cannot deny that it is not its own as well. The rewriting of the school textbooks is only the first step in its project of injecting the communal virus in impressionable minds. Who can say that with the help of its naive and greedy allies, it will not use a fixed term of the Lok Sabha to push through its agenda with greater vigour although it never featured in #ts manifesto?
There is nothing wrong with a party openly advocating a radical revision of the statute book. But it is the surreptitious implementation of its programme which is unacceptable.
(Source: The Hindustan Times, 15 November, 1999)
Shekhar lyer On BJP's Omnipresence in Government
... The BJP, which claimed to have made a big "sacrifice" by agreeing to give major ministries to them, has ... "planted" its Ministers of State as if to keep a watch on senior ministers.
The Railways portfolio, which went to Ms Banerjee, has now two Ministers of State - Digvijay Singh (Janata Dal-U) and Bangaru Laxman (BJP) ...
Right from the beginning, Ram Vilas Paswan (JD U) who got Communications, had to work with TapSikdar of the BJP, who was made his deputy. Even Defence Minisier George Fernandes, who enjoys the confidence of the D.P top brass, had two Ministers of State belonging to he BJP - Harin Pathak and Bachi,Singh Rawat – until yesterday's changes. Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav of the JD-U has Chamanlal Gupta of the BJP as the Minister of State.
Nitish Kumar of the JD(U), who was shifted to agriculture, has Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav as Minister of State. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 24 November, 1999)