The BJP Tries Image Engineering Editorial, The Statesman
The BJP realizes that, but here the difficulties of a fundamental ideological reorientation are enormous because it would call into question the very notion of the Sangh Parivar. The RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan has gone on record to say that the BJP is no longer a party with a difference, which is good news, if one goes by the meaning the RSS attaches to the word "difference". But, on the other hand, the Prime Minister still feels obliged to go to Nagpur and look at the memorials to Hedgewar and Golwalkar. To say, at L.K. Advani did, that we are all "political Hindus" means nothing. There is only one way to be a Hindu, that is by being born one. The other problem is that the BJP leadership does not see this attitude as communal, but, at the grassroot level, that is what it boils down to ... The fact that Bangaru Laxman is now the party president is an indication that the party has a shrewder understanding of the "image engineering" that is necessary for survival within the mainstream.
BJP's Dilemma Editorial, The Times of India
The members of the RSS family are in an undefined relationship; there is no formal agreement between them: there are no clauses and sub-clauses by which they are bound to each other. What does bind them is a strong, emotional relationship. In other words, while theoretically the BJP is an independent entity, free to pursue any course it wants, in practice it is constrained by. the RSS's position as its spiritual mentor. The RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, in turn, go all out to support the BJP in successive elections. Indeed, had it not been for the VHIP-inspired Ramjanmabhoomi movement, it is doubtful if the BIP would have come to the forefront of electoral polities, much less gain the strength to form a government.
It is this mutually-dependent and mutually-beneficial relationship that has been threatened by the compulsion of the BIP's coalitional politics ... Indeed, it says something about the transformation in the BJP that the ideologically rigid Advani should today acknowledge that ideology and governance are incompatible ... Hazy ideology has meant unhappy rank and file and bad electoral verdicts. It is a story with a complex script: If the PM is all powerful, can he exist without his party?
Utterly, Ataly BJP Editorial, Indian Express, 29 Aug., 2000
... The other major theme (was) the need of the party to reach out to Muslims as a political constituency. Again, there was no attempt to duck realities and again the message was unequivocal ...
.... This is not the first time that attempts have been , made to bring Muslims within the fold. Before the 1998 General Elections, for instance, when Vajpayee was being projected as India's man of destiny with a liberal face, the BJP organised a Muslim youth conference and fielded six Muslim candidates, five more than it had done in 1996 ...
The BJP's Search for a New Line Editorial, The Hindu, 30 August, 2000
... Given the long history of the BJP's majoritarian approach to politics, the very spirit behind the foundation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the fact that its organisational muscle constitutes those who were drawn into the fold essentially in the course of the campaign dominated by Hindutva slogans; any radical shift in its central theme can hardly be achieved by mere exhortations ... In this context, Laxman's address ... can be of little more than rhetorical significance ... The impression that the BJP and the various other outfits of the Sangh Parivar are anti-minority was not the creation of outsiders; their own activities hitherto and the slogans as well as the statements by functionaries ... including those at the top over a period of time have underlined the revanchist character of the platform. Indeed, the rationale behind advocating a shift ... shows that it was not a call for a change of heart but rather (than) need for the party to expand its base.
... The fact that sections within the Sangh Parivar -. the VHP and the Bajrang Dal in particular ... turning their ire on members of the . Christian community and institutions run by them since the BJP came to power cannot be glossed over. And in most instances when such attacks took place, the BJP's senior leaders were seen condoning such acts ... The new line - that the BJP will now strive to shed its animosity towards the Muslim community - will be received with some scepticism.
Wooing Muslims Editorial, The Hindustan Times
The stagnation of the party's vote ... has seemingly made (the new President) tell the party to woo the Muslims ... The belief, substantiated by Golwalkar's writings, that the Sangh Parivar does not envisage equal status for non-Hindus in the land of its vision ... keeps the minorities away from his party. In fact, if Laxman cares to ascertain how the ordinary members of his party routinely speak about the Muslim 'invaders" and their past atrocities, he will get further evidence of the reasons for the Muslim alienation ..
.. Laxman's ... foray into political philosophy with the call for a convergence of beliefs of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Hedgewar can only be regarded with a sense of bemusement ..: Gandhi was a true proponent of India as a country of all communities living together as equals, an ideal which is not shared by the RSS ... Given such a fundamental difference, there is hardly any scope for closing the gap between Gandhi and Hedgewar.
