By Girish Nikam

Why has the BJP got itself into, what seems like a bottomless pit? Will the internecine battle within the BJP end in a hurry? What is the real challenge the party faces? These are some of the questions which are staring at the face of the country, as the soap opera continues much to the amusement of its ideological and political rivals and the anger and anguish of its supporters and cadres across the country.
For a party which lays claim to all that is Hindu, including its mythology, the question it should ask itself is has it been following the �Raj Dharma�? Yes, the Raj Dharma that Bhishma prescribed to Yudhistara, following the Mahabharata, as he lay on his bed of arrows.
By the way what is Raj Dharma? The mythology has it that after the Mahabharata war, Yudhistara was so full of remorse about the unprecedented bloodshed during the war, that he decided to take sanyas, instead of accepting the throne. However, after intense persuasion from his brothers, Draupadi, Krishna and Maharishi Ved Vyas, he yielded and accepted the coronation. Krishna however was worried that he could still go back to his original intention of taking sanyas, and therefore persuaded him to meet Bhishma Pitamaha to learn the lessons of good governance.
This lesson which is known as the fundamentals of Raj Dharma, has a few gems which the present lot in the Sangh Parivar, may well, reflect upon. For instance, about Raj Dharma itself, Bhishma says, �Among all Dharmas, Raj Dharma is supreme, as it provides nourishment to people of all varnas (professions). Raj Dharma encompasses all sacrifices�.
Has the BJP really provided �nourishment to people of all varnas�? If it had, it would not still be groping to endear itself to the minorities in this country. What were the �sacrifices� its leaders made? In fact even today its tallest leader, L.K.Advani is unwilling to sacrifice his post, and retire. Even Vajpayee, even after all those six and half years in power, and failing health contested the elections again in 2004 and continued to be virtually a non-attendant member of the Lok Sabha for five years.
For those who are looking at the reason why the BJP has dragged itself into this mess today, it would be worthwhile to ponder about its past. Why was it seen at one time as a �party with a difference� and how it went on to become a �party with differences�, over the period?
How did a party which was known and prided itself for its austerity and high moral ground sink into being a pathetic caricature of itself.
Even as late as 1995, before the party began the march to capture Delhi, it was still a benign party with benign people and benign tastes. It was a party where it was blasphemous to think of it serving anything else than biscuits and an occasional samosa, at its meetings and press conferences. It was a party where its leaders were unaffected by the five star culture and serving drinks or non vegetarian food was unthinkable.
Leaders of the stature of Sundar Singh Bhandari, Khushabhau Thakre, and the younger equally austere and Spartan K.N.Govindacharya were the role models of the pre-1995 generation. They brought in a certain amount of moral authority simply by their life style, which was essentially ruled by their RSS background. Though Vajpayee and L.K.Advani were indeed the tallest leaders, they could not take these stalwarts for granted by any stretch.
The transformation however from the end of 1995, when the party decided to project Vajpayee as the Prime Ministerial candidate at its Bombay Maha sammelan, was so fast that it took every observer�s breath away.
By the time it had tasted its first stint in power between 1998 and 1999, the party was unrecognizable. There was no more talk of collective leadership, which it had prided itself about, as it bombarded the Congress and its sycophantic culture all through the nineteen eighties till mid nineties. The workers and leaders who would sniffle at the Congressmen and their lifestyle, and even mockingly plead with journalists that they cannot match them, underwent dramatic changes in their personality.
Suddenly the tea and lunches hosted by the BJP leaders started becoming more and more elaborate. Requests for off the record meetings, with leaders, which earlier would be held in their party offices are at the most their simple homes, were shifted to star restaurants and hotels. Some of the leaders and ministers even started displaying the costliest imported liquor available in the market and would even offer it in their homes. Lunches and dinners in five star hotels for the media saw some of the most awesome spreads including the most mouth watering non vegetarian delicacies. Some leaders even started flying down some exotic dishes and even cooks from their home states for preparing their local delicacies.
The company which these leaders kept also changed dramatically as they were seen increasingly in the company of money bags, who gladly financed their new lifestyles, resulting in all the concomitant deals, shenanigans and scandals. It is this rapidly changing culture in the party, which did not leave even some of the RSS leaders unscathed. It was probably what he saw that was responsible for Vajpayee making that suggestion to quit and retire after the 1999 elections which brought back the NDA to power, as revealed recently in an interview by his Principal Secretary, Brajesh Mishra.
But as it was his wont, Vajpayee never pushed things beyond a point, whatever may have been his state of mind and disgust about what was happening around him. It was seen in Gujarat when he only went upto a point, but never pressed for the resignation of Modi. In fact he even closed his eyes to the shenanigans of his adopted daughter�s husband. But he was saved from the embarrassment of a huge scandal, only because of the pussy-footedness of his political rivals. They thought it was better to refrain from exposing the scandal, as it would only lead to his exit and the ascendance of Advani to the Prime Ministership. They thought, Vajpayee was the lesser evil politically and also in the larger context of the country.
Meanwhile the competitive sycophancy in the party grew by leaps and bounds, reminding the observers of the days of Indira Gandhi in the Congress. This Competitive sycophancy resulted in powerful coteries being formed around the two leaders, Vajpayee and Advani. Even lesser known and leaders of far lesser stature started encouraging coteries around them, right up to their state and constituency levels. State level leaders soon picked up from their national counterparts, and their lifestyles also changed dramatically.
By the time the second Vajpayee Government faced the electorate in 2004, the party and its leadership as well as its cadre, was imbibed with such a false of power and pelf that they considered themselves invincible.
The process of getting morally corrupted was complete, apart from becoming financially and ethically corrupt. After having reached such pinnacle of moral corruption, it was inevitable that the electoral defeat was simply un-consumable. Sadly, the process did not stop even after the resounding defeat. All the ills which the party had gathered in the previous six and half years of being in power, continues to plague it, both at the Centre and in the States, especially where it rules. Karnataka is a classic example of how deep this malaise has absorbed into its culture.
If the party has to recover from this deep rooted malaise which is afflicting it, it has no other choice but to detoxify itself, and clean itself up. Is there really anyone, including the latest avatar of Bhishma in the form of Mohan Bhagwat capable of this enormous task?
Can the BJP leaders, be it the first, second or third rung, come out of their intoxicated state of mind, and work in unison, without pulling down each other, like frogs in the well? This is the real challenge before the party and its ideological mentor, the RSS and Sangh Parivar. If they are able to succeed, all else will fall in place. But firstly like Yudhistara after the Mahabharata, do we see any remorse among any of its main actors about what state they have brought the party to? Hardly any. No wonder at this point of time, it really looks like a monumental challenge to pull the party out of the deep morass it finds itself in.