Change the strategy,transcend the rhetorics if you want to build up

 Mahadev

If the current leadership crisis in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala is any indication, the party which was hitherto considered as a political party of disciplined people of the RSS does not seem to be so any more.

With the mud slinging activities and washing their dirty linens in the public of late, the party, which has yet to be reckoned as a respectable political power in the state, is also exposing itself as one not different from their counterparts when the question of  “Kursi” comes.

Infighting in the party has been there for long and to cover it up some cosmetic changes were made recently. Mr P S Sreedharan Pillai was made President of the party while Mr  P P Mukundan was shifted to Chennai.

It gives the impression that the party’s national leadership had not been properly  informed of the Kerala scenario. The party’s base has yet to be expanded beyond the RSS network. There are thousands of Hindus who are neither member of the RSS or the BJP but wanted to support the party. Has this important factor even been realized and worked to towards harnessing their support? Not at all. It does not work as a cadre party like the Communists, at least in the erstwhile Travancore and Cochin states. 

The party in Kerala cannot, at least for some time to come, build up a strong political base with the RSS support alone. But, that does not mean that it should beg for the support of the minorities. It should bring together the Hindus on a common platform and that would also reduce the gap between the RSS and these Hindus. It can slowly penetrate in the psyches of middle class and backward class Hindus if it could stand up and create the image that the party is of them and for them. Mere lip services won’t do.  Majority of the people are in the backward classes who still continue to believe that not only BJP but also the RSS is of the upper caste people.

This stigma has to be removed and for doing so probably it would be ideal to project a leader from the backward class. Elevate him to the president-ship. This requires a change in the mindset.  There are few leaders in the party who have the charisma to attract people through their oratory skills. Even one of them is qualified with the adjective “Junior Mararji” and currently a Vice-President of the party.I think the party should try him as the President till the next party elections and see if he could produce any positive results like Chappel has been experimenting with the Team India.

If the BJP function as a party of the Hindus following the discipline of the Sangh but mutatis mutandis given the socio-economic and political situation in the state. Educate the Hindus about the dangers in store for them of which many of them are really unaware. But while embarking on such strategies, the uplift of the poor should get the emphasis. Look at how the Micro Finance Institution (MFI) launched by the SNDP without any investment from it has clicked.

The communists had won over the middle and lower classes by supporting them in the years of crisis. They have indoctrinated them for over 50 years and still continue to do so and are taking them along blinkered. Hence, for them the unpatriotic and anti-national activities of the communists are irrelevant and even they don’t believe it.  These people are caged and they need to come out after breaking it. For which philosophies, spirituality, nationalist slogans etc., won’t work now. Their needs have to be identified and meeting them will be the first step.

Penetration through such subtle methods and help them and take them along should be the strategy.  Shut down the leadership crisis and the internecine fighting if the leaders are really interested in building up the party in the state. Then they have to act now unitedly. No superficial and cosmetic exercises would  be helpful, as it has been proved at all the elections in the past.

e.o.m.

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