I have read with interest Shri V.M. Tarkunde's article "Willing to learn" in your issue of 1st May 1998. I feel that Justice Tarkunde is being over-optimistic about the future conduct of the BJP. He has not taken into consideration that while the BJP has adopted different policies in its various incarnations, its basic purpose, its very raison d'etre, remains unchanged: to promote the long-term objectives and to realise the vision of the RSS, its mother. While replying to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani proudly flaunted their association with the RSS.
What the RSS is and what it is not is to be judged from the writings of its founders Hegdewar and Golwalkar. No BJP leader has ever criticised far less dissociated himself from the ideology propagated by the RSS and contained in Golwalkar's writings.
I agree with Shri V.M. Tarkunde that the BJP faces an existential crisis. It cannot attain power without compromise and its leadership is, therefore, prepared to defer the so called controversial points in its Manifesto. But, to keep the support and morale of the faithful, in the very breath it announces its intention that if through good governance with the help of its Allies in the coalition it is able to muster a Parliamentary majority in future, it shall implement its original agenda.
The RSS has allowed this transitory back-track, only because a BJP-led regime provides an umbrella for promoting the activities and advancing the objectives of the RSS and other Members of the Sangh Parivar. Thus, even the present interlude is to be used for questionable purposes not by the BJP but by the RSS and 100 and odd other organisations in the Sangh Parivar.
The fact is that BJP cannot be treated as a mainstream political party. It has no independent status or autonomous existence. It is nothing but the political front of the RSS. That is why, the secular democrats should not take the cosmetic changes in the physiognomy and the vocabulary of the BJP at their face value.
