Conservative BJP and Liberal Leaders

The BJP sounds conservative in its ideology but its leaders pretend and sound like liberals. This irony is costing the party dearly. The latest insult is by Jaswant Singh through his book.

Jag Suriya writes in The Times of India (19 August 2009)

The Jinnah djinn is out of the BJP bottle, yet again. And the question remains: who's going to put it back? Indeed, does it need to be put back?
Four years after L K Advani faced flak from his partymen for having praised Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Father of Pakistan, for his 'secular' credentials, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh has raised saffron hackles with his new book, Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, in which he has hailed the creator of Pakistan as a 'great man' who has been 'demonised' by India.

In his book - whose launch was conspicuously shunned by his fellow saffronites - Jaswant claims that far from having to be wrested from India, Pakistan was more or less handed over to Jinnah by Congress leaders like Nehru and Sardar Patel. In a TV interview, the former external affairs minister said, "Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian", and went on to add that Indian Muslims have been treated like 'aliens'.

What is perplexing here is not Jaswant's endorsement of Jinnah, or his stirring of the simmering communal cauldron by his reference to the 'alien' treatment meted out to the Muslims in India (an opinion which many share with him, though for very different reasons). What is truly perplexing is the adverse reaction of the sangh parivar - the BJP and the RSS - to Jaswant's assertions.

It is obvious that both these organisations, which supposedly stand for Hindu nationalism, need to be educated - or at least re-educated - in the finer points of realpolitik by their seemingly errant colleague. By simultaneously praising Jinnah and laying the blame for the Partition of the subcontinent on the ineptitude and intransigence of the Congress, Jaswant has with a single master stroke established two very significant rallying points for the BJP, which is in disarray after its disastrous showing in the last polls and its ongoing internal wrangling with former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje.

By holding the Congress responsible for Partition, Jaswant has opened a new flank of attack on the BJP's chief adversary against whom the saffronites have long levelled the charge of pseudo-secularism. If the creation of Pakistan - and the consequent turmoil and strife that it has generated for over 60 years on the subcontinent, including the 'alienation' of Indian Muslims - can be laid at the doorstep of the Congress, its supposed pseudo-secularism will be made clear for all to see. Hold the Congress responsible for Partition and - bingo! - you can blame it for everything: the three wars with Pakistan, the nuclear arms race, the Kashmir problem, Godhra, the post-Godhra riots, the resistible rise of Narendra Modi, the works. It's all the fault of the Congress, which by pressing the button on Partition set the whole infernal machine in motion.

That's one part of Jaswant's two-pronged strategy: make the Congress a scapegoat for the genesis of communalism. The second part was unwittingly stumbled upon by a Congress spokesman who, with heavy sarcasm, described the BJP as the Bharatiya Jinnah Party - little realising that this is precisely what it is and what it has to be. For Jinnah, the so-called founder of Pakistan, could just as easily be called the founder - or father - of the BJP and the rest of the parivar. Because if someone like Jinnah - and his creation of Pakistan - hadn't existed the saffron brigade would have had to invent him in order to find a reason for its own existence. Fanaticism - in whatever form - always thrives on an equal and opposite fanaticism, each feeding on the other.

Without Pakistan, the saffron forces of 'cultural nationalism' would have no ideological leg to stand on. Hats off to Jaswant for being the first person in the parivar to see this patent truth and publicly embrace it. Without Jinnah, there would have been no BJP. No wonder Jaswant's impassioned plea of Mujhe Jinnah doh.