This Article is From Dec 24, 2014

How Modi is Reshaping the BJP

(The writer is a political columnist, a lapsed historian and a committed conservative.)

BJP President Amit Shah was neither being triumphalist nor delusional in claiming that 2014 has been a very good year for the party. The roll that began with Narendra Modi's spectacularly -attended rallies reached a peak with the outright majority the party secured in the summer general election and was signed off with spectacular performances in four Assembly elections.

In October, as the BJP won handsomely in Haryana and emerged as the principal player in Maharashtra, pundits proffered the question: has the Modi momentum tapered off? The parliamentary opposition certainly thought so as it stepped up the disruption in the Winter Session, hoping that its war of multiple cuts was already starting to debilitate the government.

The counting of votes for Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir Assembly elections on December 23 suggested that the Modi magic was still broadly intact.

It would be a folly to see the latest state verdicts in terms of the BJP's inability to accomplish its Mission 44 in J&K. For a party whose best performance was 11 Assembly seats in 2009, the target itself was plain audacious. True, the target wasn't realised, but the BJP ended counting day having swept the Jammu region with 25 seats and securing the highest number of popular votes-a shade higher than that secured by the People's Democratic Party that won the largest number of seats. For a party that was mocked as "outsiders" by a Valley-centric political class, the BJP demonstrated that it was now a player of consequence in J&K.

The BJP didn't win any seats in the Kashmir Valley, but it made its presence felt as never before. The important thing was that the party made a serious attempt to reach out to all the people and all the regions of the state-and without taking the assistance of either the local administration or the para-military forces.

The political significance of the BJP's performance in J&K is immeasurable. At the very least, the future discourse on the "Kashmir problem" will have to factor the BJP as an important 'internal' voice of the state. And if the PDP and BJP arrive at a working settlement to form a coalition government, the consequences will be far-reaching.

With Jharkhand now joining Maharashtra and Haryana in the states that are controlled by the BJP and its allies, it is sufficiently clear that the party has replaced the Congress as the principal national political organisation. This is a great achievement but it brings associated responsibilities.

The Modi-Shah combine has already acted on the party's new role. In a departure from a party that had acquired the self-image of being cadre-based, the BJP has opened up its membership to a wider public. This enlargement hasn't been centred on ideological purity but on a commitment to be a force for good governance. The shift doesn't imply that 'cultural nationalism', the party's existing hallmark, has been given the go-by. It implies that there is an attempt to convert the BJP into an umbrella party that accommodates a rainbow coalition of interests, identities and impulses.

The opening up of the party to embrace Indians that are not naturally prone to political activism has a deep significance. As of now, the strategic weight of the larger Sangh Parivar in the BJP is disproportionate. This is unlikely to change dramatically in the short-term, and more so because the association with the RSS gives the party a sense of discipline, common bonding and coherence. However, as the party steps into new geographical zones, particularly areas where its footfall was superficial, it must undergo a series of adjustments to accommodate diverse cultures.

This is not a novel step. The BJP in Bihar, for example, is increasingly discarding its old trader-landholder-upper caste image; its reach into backward caste communities has multiplied. In West Bengal, where the party is stepping into some of the void created by the decline of the Left, the BJP is fast becoming a natural choice for the lower rungs of bhadralok society. It is even attracting a significant chunk of the Muslim peasantry seeking protection from political witch-hunts of the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Silently and often unobserved, the move towards embracing the broad Indian consensus is altering the character of the BJP. The fringe elements committed to assertive Hindu nationalism are actually being pushed more and more into the margins-but without too much fuss and rancour.

Modi is reshaping the BJP and bringing it in tune with a 21st century outlook. The performance in Jharkhand and J&K will speed up the process considerably.

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