National

BJP preparing to return to Hindutva agenda?

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI JUNE 23. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad's return to the Ayodhya issue as a "matter of faith'' which "cannot be decided by a court'' is being seen here as part of the larger game plan of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar to move back, slowly but surely, to the old hard Hindutva stand.

Although for the record the BJP has stated that it was in favour of a settlement of the issue through the court or by mutual agreement, the VHP's `u' turn — after having given an assurance to the Prime Minister that it would accept a court verdict even if it goes against it, is perhaps part of a larger plan to prepare for the post-National Democratic Alliance era politics.

The BJP president, Jana Krishnamurthi, has already made it clear more than once that the shelving of the party's contentious Hindutva issues held good only till 2004 when the tenure of the NDA Government comes to an end. There is also a sizeable opinion within the BJP that it should return to the old Hindutva stance.

There is a view that by 2004, the party leadership may find it difficult to steer the BJP back suddenly to its old ideological moorings which were very much in tune with the Sangh Parivar. And therefore, more recently, the Sangh Parivar outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal are being allowed to keep the old ideology alive — in March there were the Gujarat riots and the VHP drama over `shila daan' in Ayodhya, and now again the VHP has talked about Ayodhya being a "matter of faith'' which cannot be adjudicated by a court.

This influential section of the party has lately been blaming the denial of the hard Hindutva agenda by the BJP since 1998, when it started practising coalition politics at the Centre, for the recurring poll debacles. Loss of the party's identity is seen as the major factor responsible for electoral defeats.

In fact, during the party's national executive committee meeting in Goa in April, this was stated indirectly when the Vajpayee Government's policies were faulted.

Many senior party leaders continue to blame the BJP's downward political graph to the party distancing itself from its old, hard Hindutva ideology. Just as the party was quick to claim political resurgence in Gujarat — through complete communal polarisation — as a result of the communal carnage that occurred there.

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