Now that the BJP has survived a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha by the skin of its teeth, it is beginning to appear in a gentler, more benign light in the eyes of many who have all along criticised and feared it ...
But to conclude that the party's image problems are behind it would be premature. The problems are deep- rooted and no amount of packaging can wish them away. For instance, there is as yet no hard evidence to suggest that the sangh parivar is able, let alone willing, to speak in one voice on such basic issues as cultural nationalism, the legitimate rights of minorities and economic reform. Tactical prudence, more than a strategic re-think, appears to be guiding its conduct at present. Indeed, some of its more articulate advocates are already bemoaning its drift away from its ideological moorings. It would be fatal, they argue in substance, if the BJP were to be metamorphosed into a variant of the Congress.
In the weeks and months ahead, we are certain to witness an intensification of this ding-dong battle between the pragmatists and the purists. Its outcome is far from clear. The reason is simply this: the battle is not so much an internecine affair of the sangh parivar but a far more subtle and protracted struggle being waged within Indian society as a whole as it seeks to come to terms with a swiftly changing world. Significant in this regard is Joseph Campbell's recently published Indian Journal. Campbell, who died in 1987, widely acknowledged as one of the most outstanding authorities on comparative mythology ...
His diary of the journey, which lasted for six months, narrates in grim detail his disillusionment with a country he had to passionately admired. Its squalor and misery appalled him as did its bureaucratic inefficiency, sloth and corruption. What irked him even more was the virulent anti-Americanism of its elites (they seemed not to be concerned about the brutality of life under communism) and their smug and arrogant claim to be spiritually superior to the decadent and materialist West.
But the source of Campbell's greatest misery was the assorted holy men and women who mixed spirituality and politics, resorted to nationalistic and religious chauvinism, recked of life-denying bhakti sentimentalism (instead of stressing the life-affirming jnana-marg or the gnosis, intellectual path) and showed a callous disregard for whatever is truly uplifting and transcendental in Indian culture: its music and sculpture, its classical literatures, its philosophical speculations and so forth.
... Despite this disillusionment, Campbell was enthralled by ... aspects of his Indian experience. The Indian he came to cherish was one who was free of caste prejudice and religious bigotry, who pursued his spiritual calling without a to-do, who was engaged in the modernisation of India even while remaining deeply attached to its cultural roots.
In short, an Indian who did not wear his secular or religious badge on his sleeve but assumed his Indianness without being either apologetic or aggressive about it. Campbell found such Indians in all spheres of activity ... They rejected both patriotically oriented religiosity and religious flavoured patriotism and focussed instead on the individual who, without every losing sight of the transcendental, nurtured his skills and talents in spirit of enquiry. It is this framework which beckons both the secularist and the sangh parivar. (Source: The Times of India, 8 April, 1998)
