LK Advani – Retired Hurt

For readers of this blog, there is much to celebrate. We always thought that LK Advani was not good enough to lead the Indian government and we said so, even if much of it was in low brow taste. It is time for us to be as gracious in victory as LKA himself is, so here is the high brow…for once

The easiest way to characterise the results of this election would be this…

LK Advani – Retired Hurt.

Which in a sense is good for India. I have nothing personal against LK Advani. I merely hate what he stands for. I have seen that as a person he is more gracious and civil than most leaders that inhabit other parties including the Congress, but a leader is less a human being than a image. What LK Advani stands for represents something anachronistic to the current state of the Indian nation, its polity, its dreams and current requirements.

LK Advani was certainly relevant when the Indian middle class, not the professionals, the trader middle class wanted to feel a sense on achievement in having arrived, and was wanting to stamp its presence in the Indian polity. But that was way back in the late eighties.

Even the Ram JanmaBhoomi issue was a question of Hindu pride, not the pride of the civilised Hindu who had stamped his class all over history and the world eons much earlier, but that of the arriviste, with much of the same profile of the jihad financier, no brains, little education, much money and nothing much to do.

(OK there were some professionals in the US who were charmed by Hindutva then or perhaps still are, but we forgive them for now. )

LK Advani was a polarising point for these culturally illiterate but moneyed emotions, but for the professional Indian, the rising class of today all that is an anachromism. OK the Masjid is down, what next, the Charminar?

If terrorism has India in its shackles today, LK Advani should surely claim credit for it. For having spooked it in the first place and having  mismanaged it in his term as Home Minister.

Enough said, let us speak but little ill of the dead.

What next for the BJP?

I am sure that there will be a clamor to return to the roots, but any sane observer, Narendra Modi being one of them, would understand that the Indian electorate or its people are not going to be impressed by something that impressed their fathers 2 decades back.

And people like the Friends of BJP should stop the party from toeing that silly line again, whatever the cadres say. Or they will get enough Pink  Chaddies to wrap Mount Everest in.

Forget the …..aks of the RSS, forget the Muslim bashing, forget the terrorism and strong India claims, forget the bully line that its workers if not the leaders tend to follow, forget Indian culture and secularism, at least their version of it, all this is so dated and not as popular as the guys like to think.

Notice that the BJP has impressed where it has governed, be it Gujarat or India ( we excuse UP for now) for that matter, we should not forget that
the Vajpayee government was the most activist and far sighted government in the country’s history, next to Narasimha Rao’s of course. The BJP should concentrate on being the rightist alternate to the left leaning Congress government.

There is a saying in the US that when you are poor you are Democratic and once you get rich, you become Republican. India is certainly on the verge of becoming an economic powerhouse in the next ten years, and so the BJP have a legitimate and growing constituency that can fetch it rich rewards. Preaching Hindutva or the glory of Indian culture is not necessary to these people.

With richness will come a sense of pride and belonging to the Indian nation, and that sense will come without coercion or haranguing about Indian culture. Both Hindu and Muslim will be proud, as a nation we will be proud. And the BJP can use that pride to ride to power and even without bothering about Muslim birth rates which they make much ado about.

The Muslim is a reality in today’s India and you do not carry them with you by cursing and stomping on them. Many of them are actually very poor, and kept so by their mullahs and maliks, make them richer legitimately (many of them flourish in illegitmate businesses, a reality) and they will see more reason than the BJP expects of them.

Let the BJP celebrate Indian success than Hindu success and the votes will come. As of Pakistan, that perennial irritant, either it will self destruct or course correction will come in due course. Where is the Punjabi militant today? Did they not hold India to ransom once?

Imagine a party that harps solely on fighting terrorism in Punjab. So silly it would look in the current context. Terrorism is a problem that needs resolution not the Advani brand of harangue but the Chidambaram brand of effective action. Isolate the terrorists from hiding themselves among ordinary people and it will die on its own.

The BJP should for God’s sake forget the RSS based cadre or riding on their strength. Many of the cadres are crude, badly educated and express themselves rather badly and crudely. And are no better than the Muslim enemies they inevitably see around themselves.

More importantly, cadre based parties inevitably die, too much static inertia that they fail to reinvent themselves in tune with the times.

Look at the cadre based Communists, does the BJP want to be in ten years where the Communists are now? The Communists have been losing cadre strength ever since Independence and have always had to hang on someone’s coat tails till now.

Now that Karat has got the stick, pun intended, I am afraid the party will be in the dumps for a long time to come. They certainly deserved no more than 30 seats in the Lok Shabha right from the eighties itself, their time is but gone. If BJP continues to toe the Hindutva line and base itself on its cadres, in ten years time, it will be where the Communist Party is now, limited to 30 seats. Advani’s and the RSS’s long labour of hate would have been in vain.

Let us look at the advantages the BJP currently holds. Leaving aside the Congress the BJP is the only party with the largest recognition and
mass appeal and certainly the right ideas about governance.

Much as the entire world moved Right in the eighties and the nineties, when capitalism was in fashion, the world is moving Left now, thanks not only to Latin America and to Obama. The BJP was unfortunate to get caught in that
stream this time, the Congress was fortunate,  but that need not be the case next time.

The projection of Advani and Modi must stop, they are actually national level liabilities, whatever their respective achievements be.

As I said earlier, the leader is the image and these leaders images are sort of close to rotten that both have tried to make amends. Advani even got to quote Francis of Assisi in his blog, while the party’s faithful were faithfully burning churches and killing Christians in Orissa and elsewhere. And Modi bhai has had enough sense to tone himself down despite his cadres crying hoarse over him.

Yes, the Congress can be accused of riots and emergencies, they have not taken pride in it like the BJP does, to their credit they never attempted to Punjabise India much like the BJP seeks to Gujaratise India.

While the BJP speaks about Gujarat with pride, the cadres if not the leaders tend to concentrate on Godhra successes of rape and pillage. And they expect that to get votes…while your stomach churns. The Congress and the psuedo secularists to use LKA’s terms come out looking morally good simply because the BJP have tried to make themselves the bad boys of Indian politics.

Which is such a sad story because there is a wealth of leadership talent within the BJP. There is so much that they can do for India’ good once they steer clear of Hindutva, which they can of course talk about in the privacy of their homes and their chaddi clad masters.

Next is the grass roots appeal. The Congress has certainly cultivated sanitised imagery right from Independence, their leaders came to be lionised but with moral goodness, whatever their private lives or their corruption be. On the other hand the BJP has always postured with a belligerence that does not go down well with ordinary people.

Whereever and whenever they have had civil people like Vajpayee or even Jaitley for that matter,such leaders have quicky gained mass support and adulation. People have been more than happy, nay anxious to vote for them. I am sure that if Vajpayee had been the party’s face this time, rather than Advani and Modi, the BJP would have won effortlessly. No one likes bullies except in tough times.

Oh, tell Jaitley to pull of that Advaniish frown which he tries to cultivate these days, (it may go well with Chidambaram, for he has to be a task master and is generally seen as tough, but see how close he came to losing his seat, a hard frown is not for Jaitley who is supposed to be the human face of an otherwise inhuman looking party)

Clearly the masses are looking for someone with vote grabbing charisma in addition to good governance, not Narendra Modi style of course, or sour puss RSS types. Either the BJP produces that leader in five years time, a leader with charisma and guile, or Rahul and Priyanka will rule the roost well into the next decade.

Dont blame us the voters for getting sucked into it. Surely they have the looks, the charisma, the advantage of history, and despite the recent moral advantage lost with Rajiv but gained with Sonia, they are well placed to lead India into another Congress century. Even ultra modern America has had a fashion of First Families, the Roosevelts, the Kennedy’s, The Bushes, the Clintons and perhaps the Obama’s too.

India cannot go wrong with dynasty for the next fifty years simply because Sonia has set a fine example of treading but lightly.

Charisma and sauve matters, why bother with sour pusses and fire brimmers when the same can be gained effortlessly and with love is something the BJP brass to should put their mind into, a sauve charismatic leader is an emerging requirement for the BJP. Vacancies, so as to say, are OPEN for this post.

Forget Advani, if you project Modi in 2011 or 2014 you are going to get even lesser seats. This attidute I believe may continue upto eternity. Here is
where the Friends of BJP, which as I noticed in my blog answes to another term so well, and which the people of India have told that party to, can help.

These people are young, idealistic, articulate, have the interests of the nation at heart and are willing to speak up sanely and be counted. Perhaps there is a place in the sun for them, they better prepare for it starting now….

No more mocking of Advani now, the battle is won. Why pour oil into an extinguished fire?

For the BJP, the message is simple short and clear.

Reinvent yourself, get some more charm, and talk about your Muslim peccadilloes in private and private only. And dump LK Advani when he is
more than willing to go. Even Modi bhai better stay in Gujarat where he is more welcome. Find new leaders with charisma and mass appeal and
something original to say than harping back to Hindutva, Pakistan and Hema Malini;)

A new brave world awaits the BJP, only if it is willing to take it. May the Lord make its leaders see some sense or the electorate will surely drum it in. Which is such a pity given the talent that resides within it.

Tags: BJP, FOBJP, LK Advani, Modi, Post Elections, Results