The (Khurana) eruption may have been capped, but it would not do to overlook ... the dissonance in the nationalist constituency. Every BJP activist must be disconcerted over the unapologetic manner in which the Vajpayee regime is busy signing away on the dotted lines when it comes to dealing with the outside world, especially the Americans. The distinct deshbhakti to which the BJP ideologues laid exclusive and proprietary claims all these years is suddenly being shown to be counterfeit, though entirely homegrown. The BJP activists cannot be faulted for feeling a bit disoriented because the Vajpayee Government is zealously pursuing the very unhidden agenda for which it columnized its rivals as lacking in deshbhakti.

There are three promises in the BJP's pre-1998 pseudo-deshbhakti agenda - sprucing up the cult of militarisation, bashing up the minorities, and facing down the meddlesome foreigner. A combination of these three psychological promises was used to crank up the nationalist fervour and to position the BJP as the only party capable of protecting disinterestedly our national interest ...

First, the promise of the militarisation project. The nuclear bomb, the threat of a pro-active approach in Jammu and Kashmir, the suggestion to roll back the soft state syndrome, and later the Kargil 'victory' were all part of the half-hearted attempts at promoting a new machoistic culture; invocation of the cult of 'shakti' and glorification of the armed forces did warm the cockles of the middle classes. The deshbhakti index shot up (with) Kargil ...state funerals in the villages; and, the electoral dividends were quickly encashed in the Lok Sabha election.

But then the BJP constituency has not been given that much cause for satisfaction ... The joy of Pokhran II was marred by the Pakistani bomb; all the serenading of the rained forces was rudely interrupted by the sacking of Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat; the triumph in Kargil was followed by the surrender at Kandahar. The deshbhakts noted with dismay that even the anointment of Sardar Patel II as the super-czar of internal security has not deterred the militants in Kashmir; if anything, the situation is getting worse ... And there is bound to be dissonance in the heart of every deshbhakt every time a Bharatpur happens; what ... reflexively hides their monumental incompetence and negligence ...

The second element in the unhidden pseudo-deshbhakti agenda was a promise to show the minorities their place. The call for a national debate on 'conversion', the burning of the Staines, the elevation of Dara Singh into a cult figure, the incessant chanting of the ISI menace, etc. were all intended to brow-beat the minorities, even while proclaiming to have put the 'contentious' issues on the back-burner. Unfortunately this project too got botched up because of a vigilant opposition and a vigilant media, who refused to be taken in by the wonderful jugalbandhi between the hard-liner, fundamentalist RSS and the soft- liner and moderate Vajpayee. What must have come as a great disappointment to the BJP deshbhakt was that a presumably nationalist dispensation in New Delhi was unwilling to stand up to the foreign investors and foreign Governments who found distasteful all these verbal and physical assaults on the minorities and their autonomous space.

And, the third element was that in a regime of blue-blooded deshbhakts, India would stand up to the outsiders be it in matters economic or strategic ... And what is the two-year-old record? The Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister are never tired of patting themselves on the back for bringing the country into the Americans' good books; but the BJP cadres cannot be faulted for hearing a minatory tone when Washington talks down to New Delhi. For the first time the Federal Bureau of Investigation has set up shop in India ...

Consequences of these corrosive compromises on the strategic front are not immediately visible, but the result of the 'selling' of the nation's interests in the economic field are all too apparent; in fact, in black and white, as pointed out by Khurana. More than the BJP's nationalist cadres, it must be corporate interests who must be feeling most let down by the Vajpayee regime ... It was the promise of a deshbhakt regime providing protection to the Indian brands that prompted the Rahul Bajajs and the Ratan Tatas to bankroll the 'Vajpayee: Man India Awaits' project. And now when Khurana accuses the Government of giving in to the American pressure in this matter of removing quantitative restrictions (QRs), the pseudo-deshbhakts reply ... that they are merely carrying out ... the agreements entered into by the previous Governments.

Khurana had to be demonstratively muzzled because he was about to cry that the emperor was indeed without his nationalist clothes. Serious students of Government have known all along that slogans of deshbhakti are no substitute for administrative competence, ethical leadership and political imagination. Tho BJP establishment is naturally uncomfortable at any outbreak of dissonance ... It is taking a leaf out of the Congress book: a soft personality cult, discouragement of any open debate, prime ministerial superiority over the organisational wing, etc. ... The BJP's nationalist constituency cannot be blamed for feeling cheated at the hands of the pseudo-deshbhakis. (Source: The Hindu, 3 May, 2000)