(A) combination of 14 parties, not the BJP is ruling the country. What has won is the concept of pluralism because the BJP itself has diluted its parochial stand to come to power. It has changed its thesis of Hindutva to make the appeal broad-based. And it has dropped the three contentious issues ...
The President's address - a government's policy statement - says that secularism is integral to India's traditions. All doubts over the government's future policy should end unless there is more than what meets the eye ... Even in numbers, the BJP has not won. It is 178 out of 539. And that too because of seat adjustments with the Lok Shakti in Karnataka, the Biju Janata Dal in Orissa, the Akali Dal in Punjab and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. The BJP's near-majority in the Lok Sabha is due to 89 MPs, who constitute its ally. How can a government, which can be defeated by the switch-over of half a dozen members, be viable or have its writ of authority running?
Therefore, it is not correct to say that the BJP has come to power. At lest, it can be said that the party is leading a shaky coalition. Even for reaching this position, (BJP) has had to make several compromises. The BJP leaders have themselves said that they have revised their agenda to agree upon a national one. In his reply to the confidence vote debate, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee gave an undertaking that he would abide by the National Agenda, nothing else ... Hindutva ... does not figure in the programme ... The BJP was realistic enough. No ally would have been ready to join its combination if it had persisted with Hindutva. In the same way, had the BJP insisted on having its agenda of "one people, one culture", the party would have been in the wilderness once again ... The BJP has bowed to win.
However, if the BJP was willing to go so far, it could have shared power earlier. At one time, the party was extremely finicky about the allies. Party president L.K. Advani reportedly said that the BJP would go it alone. From the 1996 election, he changed the tune. He realised that in a country where regional parties were gaining in strength, the prospects of a single party getting a majority in Parliament were dim. This time, the party entered into pre-poll alliances and reaped the fruit. It is not that the BJP was untouchable, an argument which the party advanced repeatedly. It was the other way round. The party kept distance from others. In the 1998 election, the BJP spanned it and hence came to lead the coalition.
This should, however, make the BJP realise how deep is the country's ethos. No fundamentalist stand can prevail here. With 82% Hindu, the country has turned its back on Hindutva. It has withstood the pressure from fanatics and fundamentalists, whose fervour has always subsided eventually, because tolerance is firmly implanted in the mind of Indians ... India is among the few states which have no official religion, no pope, no church and no book other than the Constitution. And as the Ganges has taken into her lap a multitude of different streams, whether stormy, placid or dirty, so has India assimilated the strange and the strong from several climes. Both the river and the country have remained undefiled, pure.
Nonetheless, it has to be admitted that the influence of the BJP as such has been growing over the years. All states, except Kerala, have returned it to the Lok Sabha ... This should make secular forces think. Be it the Rath Yatra or the pernicious propaganda on the construction of a Ram temple, the fact remains that the party has made inroads even in the countryside. Many Hindus have come under its spell. Thé Hindu intelligentsia has been contaminated and taken in by the argument that the governments in Delhi have appeased the Muslims. Their argument is thin, unsupported by any evidence, in fact, it is just an anti-Muslim bias. To counter such an atmosphere, secular political parties will have to go to the grassroots ... Understandably, Muslims are worried because they see in Advani a hardliner. Also, M.M. Joshi and Uma Bharati, entrusted with education and culture, have aroused fears that the history may be rewritten ...
The redeeming feature of the otherwise unedifying scenario is that Vaipayee looks like breaking from the past (and) trying to bottle up the forces of reaction and bias which the BJP had unleashed to build electoral support ... (Source: The Radiance Viewsweekly, April 12-18,1998)
