:: Arun Nehru

BJP needs a lighter shade of saffron

By Arun Nehru

Jun 28 : The political honeymoon is over and we are confronted with the issues at hand. Whilst the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) struggle with the "defeat" syndrome, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has to get down to effective governance. Events in Lalgarh, West Bengal, are disturbing but are not restricted to one state. There is little point in the CPI(M) blaming Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamul Congress and the UPA blaming the CPI(M) and its cadres for "excesses", as Maoists and other extreme elements are spread across 10 states, and not just confined to the districts of West Bengal.

In the past six months there has been renewed violence in Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, with security personnel suffering heavy casualties. The problems are well-known, well documented, and anyone who has visited these areas is aware that this is not purely a law and order issue. The images from Lalgarh, of men and women armed with bows and arrows, axes and other weapons, indicate not just the infiltration of Maoists but also extreme poverty.

Though several West Bengal villages have been "cleared" by the security forces, the "Maoist challenge" before the Centre, and the governments of the 10 affected states, has assumed greater urgency. The solution, as we all know, cannot be brought by the "gun" and there is little time for blame game.

Union home minister P. Chidambaram and the Centre acted swiftly to ban the Maoists, but the reaction of the Provisional Central Committee, formed by the CPI(M), is an indicator that they still struggle to accept the reality. Violence must be controlled before anything else is done, but the economic issue can no longer be ignored by either the Central or the state governments in tribal areas across the 10 states.

Imagine the plight of 30,000 refugees in Lalgarh as they struggle to survive, caught as they are between the security forces and the Maoists. The CPI(M) is under siege in West Bengal but the Trinamul Congress and the Congress have a vital role to play in retrieving the situation. Their first priority must be to look into the welfare and rehabilitation of the displaced families which not only suffer from extreme poverty but stand to lose whatever little they have.

Since violence is already spreading to other parts, all political parties will have to pool their resources to fight the Maoists. What we need is a change in attitude towards the tribal population and implement development schemes to deal urgently with poverty.

Political chaos is likely in Jharkhand, but luckily this is not the situation in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa where good governance exists.

The CPI(M) is doing a post-mortem of general elections 2009 and yet it seems determined to shrink from 25 to 10 seats. But given the chaotic situation in West Bengal and Kerala, it will take more than a miracle to revive their political base. The CPI(M) lacks neither integrity nor ability, but they continue to follow a political agenda which all Communist countries abandoned a decade ago. Sadly, the flexibility and political maturity of comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet and former chief minister Jyoti Basu in dealing with political issues does not exist in the CPI(M) of today. It is sad to witness events in Lalgarh where the CPI(M) is paying a very heavy price for promoting their cadres at the expense of governance. The window of opportunity has passed the current CPI(M) leadership and they will find the difference between 65 seats in 2004 and 25 seats in 2009 intimidating. You can well imagine the situation if they are reduced to 10 seats in the next Lok Sabha and lose both West Bengal and Kerala to the Congress-Trinamul Congress combine.

The BJP leaders are busy inflicting wounds on each other. But they must postpone their internal quarrels and take a decision about the future. Change is in the "air" and the leadership of the future has to be determined. The trends of 2004 and 2009 cannot be ignored — between 2004 and 2009, the BJP defeated the Congress in several states but barring Bihar, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, they lost ground in every state during the 2009 parliamentary election, and the gap between the Congress and the BJP widened from 15 seats in 2004 to close to 80 seats in 2009! The Mumbai terror attacks had no impact on the Assembly elections and that was the first indicator that the public mood was changing. A shift of one to three per cent of the electorate is adequate to deliver a decisive verdict in either direction.

Assembly elections are to be held in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana and I would be surprised if the BJP does well in these elections. The BJP has to close ranks, avoid letter bombs, and its senior leaders have to determine the "line" for the future! The minority vote had consolidated against the BJP and its allies in 2004, and drove away the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the All-India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Trinamul Congress. The riots in Orissa terminated the BJP’s alliance with the Biju Janata Dal which swept the polls. It’s clear that the BJP’s "hardline" in 2009 pushed their upper caste base towards the Congress. The BJP will face a serious challenge from the Congress in all the states where the two are locked in a straight fight. The BJP can fight back but it must do so without its several fringe organisations which are a political liability.

Arun Nehru is a former Union minister