BJP playing Mao's dictums on politics & annihilation of enemy

• Posted by Sindhuri G August 29, 2012 - Filed in Society - 1,965 views

  When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way... If the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue until the aim is fully accomplished... It can, therefore, be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed," said Mao. For all its opposition to Mao's ideological/tactical theories, the BJP has chosen to adopt in Parliament, Mao's war-politics.
  
  Incidentally, the Chinese Communist Party, much to the CPI-M's discomfiture, had made the BJP one of its five fraternal parties in India. Though the post-Deng China is making an art of 'pragmatic retreat' from all Mao theses, the BJP, having demanded the PM's head, has ruled out any tactical retreat even if this means, as BJP leaders put it, "majestic isolation", a rephrasing of the old "splendid isolation". The party seems convinced that the final victory shall only be for those who "take an uncompromising position in the war against the corruption of the Congress".
  
  Since another Mao doctrine, "Bombard the headquarters", is not available in "bourgeois India", the BJP has settled for an interim arrangement, "bombard Parliament", with a clarion call to the Congress allies as well as 'the non-complying' BJP allies/non-NDA Opposition, to decide whether they are with the side fighting corruption or against it. This is, of course, reminiscent of George Bush's call to others announcing the war on terror. "A coalition partner must do more than just express sympathy. Over time, it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity... You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror," Bush had said.
  
  BJP's own General, Nitin Gadkari, has taken off for a 17-day family vacation abroad right in the middle of this 'fight to the finish'! That intriguing twist is part of an internal power struggle as a sub-text of 'the war'. Theoretically, the BJP is right to go all out against UPA-II. Just look at the shape of the Congress-led regime. Post its 2009 victory, the UPAII has been behaving like a headless chicken. It has lost its sheen over serial scams, economic/political/administrative mess-ups, electoral reverse in states and partygovernment logjam over Rahul Gandhi.
  
  To top it all, the CAG has, finally, even managed to cloud the Congress' clean face, Manmohan Singh, for, ironically, single-handedly trying to do something that every political party, from the Congress to the BJP to the Left and regional parties, had been collectively blocking, behind the scenes, all these years: introduce competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks by scrapping a system that ensures every party mota maal or chhota maal, as per their proportionate patronage power for coal-seeking corporates!
  
  After all, if BJP manages to bring down the UPA regime and force a mid-term poll, does the Congress have a presentable progress report, election ringtone or a leader's face or capable allies? It is not easy to find many Congress leaders with credible answers. In fact, many privately whisper how UPA-II is going the same way the post-Bofors Rajiv Gandhi regime or the post-scams Narasimha Rao regime had, before they lost the polls.
  
  There is also no visible sign of the Congress leadership working on effective damage control. But BJP's problem is its inability to convert its theoretical advantage into a practical one. After all, the BJP is trying to achieve something that no party has managed during the 52-plus years of Congress rule since Independence: to make a Congress central government or prime minister fall on the floor of Parliament.
  
  In short, the BJP is aiming what the Congress has done with a 99% strike rate: of forcing out or toppling, mid-way, eight out of the nine non-/anti-Congress regimes at the Centre. And the Congress is trying to brave this latest challenge to its staying power (stability plank) by clinically exploiting the contradictions within the larger opposition: the reluctance of many regional parties that need votes of secular and minority sections to team up with the BJP prepoll, to put the poll-wary BSP to neutralise the won't-mindpolls SP, by checkmating Mamata's Bengal confidence with Left's mounting Kolkata/Kerala worries, by tapping BJP's inability to erect a credible anti-corruption plank outside Parliament and by trying to throw the coal-tar back on the BJP too.
  
  While most MPs, including the BJP's, are wary of facing a mid-term poll, the BJP thinks it needs to gamble with "ek dhakka aur do, UPA ko tod do (one more last push to demolish UPA)", before the Congress, waiting to buy time for three more months, trying to change the national discourse from corruption, once the Gujarat elections are over, to the BJP's Modilinked existential agony. So, watch and enjoy the BJPCongress race against time.