The ground realities militate against illusions that the BJP can successfully reincarnate as a right-wing version of a modern liberal party. The party's ties with its alter egos in the Sangh Parivar are as firm as ever before, even as the party leadership remains anchored to the belief that the essence of the BJP's appeal is its challenge to the prevailing political ethos in this country.

The BJP's platform today is ostensibly decorated with slogans not of Hindutva but with those that have an unquestionable and pervasive appeal - Suchitha (probity in public life), Suraksha (security), Samarasta (social harmony) and of course, Swadeshi (economic nationalism). The shift in the accent of the BJP's strategy from Hindutva to Suchitha is clearly intended to increase the party's attractiveness to potential supporters who until now might be wary of the abrasive implications of the Hindutva campaign.

... The BJP's successful strategy of painting the "secular" parties as the primary culprits responsible for the perceived decay of the political system also simulates the conditions of an "organic crisis" as once described by the political philosopher Antonio Gramsci, when "social classes become detached from their traditional parties".

Yet a closer scrutiny of the BJP's strategic outlook makes it clear that the BJP's new hardsell of itself as a party for every Indian who wants corruption-free governance has not included a jettisoning of its majoritarian view of Indian politics and society. The BJP's approach to the minorities, particularly the Muslim community, is still resolutely rooted in a worldview that resists the perception of the Indian nation-state as presiding over a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious civil society.

Interestingly, neither ... Vajpayee, denies that Hindutva remains the BJP's weltanschauung ... One essay on Hindutva that figured prominently on one of the BJP's websites on the Internet, Kamal Darshan, proclaimed extravagantly that the future of Bharat is set, Hindutva is here to stay. It is up to the Muslims whether they will be included in the new nationalistic spirit of Bharat. It is up to the government and the Muslim leadership whether they want to increase Hindu fury or work with the Hindu leadership to show that Muslims and the government will consider Hindu sentiments. The era of one-way compromise of Hindus is over"

... The BJP's vision of India is that of a Hindu India, a perception that is sharply at odds with the vision sketched by the Constitution-framers in 1947 who recognised that India would not remain a viable nation-state if it embraced any particular religious, linguistic or ethnic affiliation ..

The secular political parties have not yet effectively refuted the BJP's attempts to portray itself as no longer communal. The real danger in the BJP's political challenge is not so much its mobilisation of Hindu chauvinist sentiment. More disturbing is the threat posed by its majoritarian outlook to the political culture of this country. The BJP is unabashedly canvassing its majoritarian view of the national ethos. It makes clear that minorities will have to get used to living in a Hindu country and according to the Hindu way of life.

Given that the BJP's principal political strategy is still anchored to mobilisation by communal polarisation, the BJP's strategists are not unduly alarmed by their party being labelled communal ... It would therefore be more politically accurate and more effective to define the BJP's challenge as "majoritarian" rather than just "communal". The onus of preserving harmony between the majority and the minorities, according to the fundamental norms of civil society, would obviously rest on the majority rather than the minorities. Thus it is critical that ... secular parties and groups ... recognise that the essence of the BJP's challenge is its espousal of a majoritarian ethos rather than its communal identity. The people of India deserve to know that in the campaign to make India a Hindu nation, what is really at stake is the survival of a pluralist and multicultural civil society in which their dreams and aspirations can find legitimate expression.                                                          (Source: The Hindu, 19 January, 1998)