Arun Shourie’s series of articles in The Indian Express is being seen as a profound and candid analysis of what ails the BJP by a long-time insider. In part one, he writes that the birth of movement or organisation is inspired by an ideal: to undo what is wrong. So, what went wrong with the BJP? Why did it ‘putrefy into a machine that fails to win even elections’? Is it because the leaders surrounded themselves by henchmen and weak men? Here is part one, On the way down:
Four instances, two questions:
•Indira Gandhi is able to block the implementation of the Allahabad High Court judgement by changing — with retrospective effect no less — the law under which it held her guilty of corrupt electoral practices;
•Rajiv Gandhi is able to use his control over three-quarters of the House to block all inquiry into Bofors.
Do these instances testify to the strength of Mrs. Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi? Or to the weakness of the political system?
•Scores and scores of committees and commissions have been set up to reform the civil services; the services have continued exactly as they have been. more
In part 2, The end of ideology, Shourie argues that shifting ideology amounts to nothing more than cliches. As general standards deteriorate, the party becomes a mere electoral machine.
After the others on whom blame may be pinned are exhausted, the leader and.turn on the ideals on which, on the ‘ideology’ for the realisation of which the movement had commenced and the party had been founded. So, one day they lunge for a ‘hard’ formulation — to win back the ‘core constituency’, they reason. The next, they lunge for a ‘soft’ formulation; one day they are stressing ‘our religion’, the next ‘our culture’; one day it is ‘return to basics’, the next ‘changing with the times’; one day they are declaring their faith in our history castigating persecutors of the past and their current heirs and apparitions, the next they are swearing by inclusiveness and geography¿ One day it is ‘reforms’, the next ‘Reforms with a human face’… One day it is ‘peasants’, the next ‘workers’, the third the inclusive ‘toiling masses’. And they are never short of quotations from the original leaders to justify each twist. more
How the party withers away, part 3 of Shourie’s articles looks at the rise of factions and courtiers and how the party eventually ‘loses the esteem of the people’.
This is the crucial factor: the decision to reform or not has come to vest in the hands of the very persons who will be finished were the reform to take place — recall the two examples we encountered at the beginning: the civil service that stymies every commission’s recommendations, and the legislators who do not rectify the manifest lacuna in the law which allows those convicted of murder to continue as members. Hence the paradox: the stronger that the leader and his circle appear, the weaker the organisation. more
And, finally, in his concluding part 4, Ring out the old, ring in the new, Shourie examines the way out of the rot. Should the leader throw out vested interests, like Mrs Gandhi did with the Syndicate in 1969? Should a new princeling revive the original ideals like Rajiv Gandhi did in 1984? Or should ordinary workers risk all in a last-ditch do or die effort?
As the circle narrows, animosities within it become sharper. Rivalries become more intense: for now, all that each has to do is to do two or three in, and he has the top job. Lust is rationalised: “But you have to have fire in the belly. Otherwise you shouldn’t be in this game.”
Insatiable ambition triggers unquenchable greed.
That greed incites unremitting jealousy.
And that compels ruthless maneuvers. more
(pic: cc/Gauravonomics)
