Political Resolution

Since the BJP National Executive last met in April 2005, the United Progressive Alliance Government has completed more than a year. It is a period marked by ramshackle governance, incoherence, recklessness and drift.

The UPA was established in May 2004, after the general election, on the basis of anti-BJPism and a warped articulation of secularism. Owing to the circumstances of its origin, negativism is its defining hallmark. It has been unable to transcend the narrow agenda of NDA bashing and minority appeasement. This has resulted in the wilful squandering of the rich inheritance that was bequeathed to the nation by the NDA Government led by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The UPA Government is marked by unending incoherence and conflicting pulls and pressures. Born out of expediency, it is a victim of multiple centres of power. Since no power centre is in a position to prevail, the multiple power centres have evolved into multiple veto centres. There is the overriding veto of the UPA Chairperson and her coterie, the strategic veto of the Left parties, and the blackmail of the tainted ministers. Presiding over this fractious combination is a Prime Minister who does not wield authority even in his own Cabinet.

It is a measure of the Prime Minister’s resultant disorientation that he violated all accepted political norms surrounding the separation of domestic politics from international relations by criticising Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee before the US President. Earlier, in Britain, he undermined national honour and the legacy of the freedom movement by heaping lavish praise on the British Raj. The BJP National Executive condemns these irresponsible statements of the Prime Minister.

The casualty of this disarray is purposeful governance. In attempting to placate its quarrelsome stakeholders, the UPA Government has lurched from one disaster to another. To keep the NDA out of the reckoning at all costs, it presided over the assault on democracy in Goa, Jharkhand and Bihar. It has raised a bogey of conflict between the executive and the judiciary because some of the court judgments were not to its liking. It has misused the office of the Governor for narrow, partisan ends. One of its ministers has charged the Election Commission with caste bias. The UPA Government, in fact, has mounted an assault on the cherished institutions of the country.

Succumbing to sectional blackmail the UPA Government has acquiesced in the subversion of its own Cabinet decisions on disinvestments and it has enacted a charade on the Women’s Reservation Bill. Bowing to dynastic pressure, it has closed cases against those charged with receiving bribes and kickbacks in the Bofors deal. In doling out sops to all the veto centres, the Government has recklessly undertaken mega-populist schemes without a thought to effective implementation. Its ministers have constantly been at loggerheads, with two Cabinet ministers from Bihar openly abusing each other and another minister threatening the use of AK-47s and promising a bloodbath if his demands were not met. In Tamil Nadu, UPA partners like DMK, PMK and MDMK have even organised demonstrations against its own Central Government.

The inability of the UPA Government to take and enforce economic decisions has reduced governance to a farce. The Left has consistently imposed its veto against reforms. At the same time its duplicity is only too evident. It pretends to occupy the opposition space by boycotting the UPA Coordination Committee. At the same time, what it denounces in New Delhi, its Chief Minister espouses in Kolkata. It practices the politics of bluff and sheds crocodile tears for the toiling masses.

The effects of this disarray in governance have been pronounced. The inability to take coherent decisions or take decisions at all has led to national and internal security being compromised and enormous economic hardships for the common man.

MINORITYISM & VOTE BANK POLITICS

The UPA Government’s obsession with vote bank politics has, predictably, degenerated into minorityism. The extension of reservations in education, employment and local government to Muslims in Andhra Pradesh, and the 50 per cent reservation for Muslims in Aligarh Muslim University signal the beginning of a process that will have hideous consequences on national unity. These measures violate the criterion for reservations that were settled by the founding fathers of the Constitution. The Congress and its allies have revived religion-based quotas that nurtured Muslim separatism and led to the creation of Pakistan.

The BJP also rejects as preposterous a surreptitious attempt to introduce Islamic Banking and Islamic Company Law. It is deplorable that neither the Prime Minister nor the UPA Chairperson cared to visit the Ramajanmabhoomi complex after the terrorist attack, so insensitive are they to Hindu sentiment.

The inability of the UPA partners to take a composite view of nationhood is also the basis of the Government’s assault on the school curricula. Using a spurious secular yardstick, the HRD Ministry has initiated a campaign to “detoxify” text-books which in practice amounts to retoxification. The new NCERT text-books have gone to the extent of describing Lord Ram and Lord Krishna as fictional characters. The exercise is directed at vitiating the minds of young Indians and undermining the cultural basis of common citizenship. The BJP and its state governments will resolutely oppose these distortions.

The Government's appeasement of minorities is directed at Muslims alone. When it came to anti-Sikh riots of 1984, the Government showed its lack of sincerity. The ATR on the Nanavati Commission Report is a vivid a example of its unwillingness to prosecute Congress leaders who had a hand in the killings. It is because of NDA pressure in Parliament that a Congress minister was forced to resign.

POLITICS OF FATWAS

It is this overall climate of minority appeasement that has emboldened reactionary clerics into issuing edicts which violate the dignity and human rights of Muslim women. The fatwas are aimed at intimidating women and imposing a regressive social agenda on the entire community. Imrana, an unfortunate rape victim, was issued a fatwa to treat her husband as a son; the tennis star Sania Mirza who has brought glory to India, was instructed by a fatwa to dress according to "Islamic norms"; and another fatwa banned Muslim women from contesting elections and, if they persisted in entering public life, to cover themselves head to toe in a burqa.

It is the aim of these self-appointed guardians of Muslim conduct to keep Muslim women in a state of permanent subordination.

The politics of fatwas is dangerous for Muslim women and Indian society. They complement the move to establish parallel courts and extra-judicial bodies. There is also a move to change the Qazi Act and confer civil powers to Qazis.

The BJP demands that the Government take stern action against all fatwas, extra-judicial tribunals and religious courts. Pending a Uniform Civil Code, the personal laws of all communities must correspond to prevailing ethical norms and uphold gender justice.

ROLE OF BJP

The BJP views the confusion and drift in the governance of the country with concern. The UPA Government has been given a reasonable time to show its mettle. Its abject failure on all fronts demands the BJP go to the people and vigorously mobilise public opinion against the Government.

The forthcoming Bihar Assembly election, in particular, will give the people an opportunity to reject a legacy of shame, scam and scandals, the worst manifestation of UPA politics. This Bihar election has a special significance. It is being held just 8 months after the previous poll because the UPA Government could not tolerate the idea of a popular alternative to Lalu-Rabri misrule, being created under the leadership of Shri Nitish Kumar. The midnight 'coup' of Governor Shri Buta Singh at the instance of the Union Cabinet was evidence to the UPA's undemocratic instincts. The people of Bihar will give a fitting reply to those who forced an unnecessary election on a poor State.

The BJP will continue to play the role of a robust nationalist opposition in Parliament and outside. The BJP is committed to an India First agenda. It is committed to the strengthening of the NDA which is the only viable national alternative to UPA misrule. The BJP will diligently discharge its obligation to voice the concerns of the Indian people and exposing the all-round failures of the UPA Government.