A Chance For Mr Advani

A historic win in Karnataka presents the BJP with a historic opportunity. As the Rambhakts of the North savour their electoral triumph south of the Vindhyas, pseudo-secularists like me contemplate the pleasant possibility of the BJP scoring another victory. For the first time in the brief but tortuous and bloody history of the Bharatiya Janata Party, there is a probability that the beast may not just get a fresh coat of paint, but actually change its primary colours.

Consider the stunning victory in Karnataka. It was not achieved by cranking up the communal temperature, or pledging to implement some divisive Hindutva agenda, or the launching of a mini-Ayodhya agitation to liberate a Sufi shrine in coastal Karnataka and converting it into a place of Hindu pilgrimage. The Congress, interestingly, was defeated through old-fashioned politics—a brilliantly conceived campaign, the building of a broad social coalition, the promise of good governance and a commitment to improve the urban infrastructure in a chaotic frontline state.

When I visited Bangalore two days before the first phase of polling, even BJP-baiters in the garden city were surprised at how calm, responsible and conventional the BJP campaign was turning out to be. Mr Narendra Modi, who addressed a couple of meetings in communally sensitive areas radicalised by RSS mischief, got a pretty ordinary reception.

What does all this mean? Does the conquest of Karnataka, especially the manner in which it was accomplished, suggest that the party of the fixed cowbelt mentality has finally grown up? Are we about to witness the emergence of a centre-right formation of the European persuasion? Karnataka not only opens the way to the South, it is a psychological opening for a party trapped for too long in dangerous Hindutva dogma and 12th century grievances. If the BJP can mount an election victory in a southern state on a plank of good governance, could not the formula be replicated across the rest of the country? Not the Gujarat model but the Karnataka model could become the BJP's election mantra!

Diehard saffronites will argue that this is a pseudo-secularist's trap to de-ideologise God's Own Party; defang it of its unique and potent ideology and render it a pale imitation of the effete Congress. Conspiracy theories aside, the BJP I envisage could retain almost all its ideological and moral force. It can be tough on internal security, it can be tough on law and order, it can be tough on crime, it can be tough on illegal immigration, it can be tough on India's neighbours, it can be tough on trade unions, it can be tough on retaining the country's nuclear option, it can be tough on couples romancing in public parks.... The BJP can still dress itself as a muscular party of the right. The only thing it will have to go easy on is Muslim-bashing and bogus sloganeering. Surely, the sacrifice of a few yatras is a small price for the BJP to pay to become not just the natural party of government but the natural party of good governance.

In the process, Indian democracy will become richer, with the voter enjoying a better, wider choice: A centre-left party (Congress) and a centre-right party (BJP). To me, it looks like a win-win situation for the BJP and the country.

Another hopeful sign. Mr L.K. Advani, the prime minister-in-waiting, is in the twilight of his eventful career. Post-Jinnah spat, post-self-cleansing memoirs, we are seeing a kinder, gentler Advani who would like nothing better than to lead a grand, centrist alliance in the next general election. With the RSS enfeebled and increasingly irrelevant, with its Hindutva warriors in disarray, with a perfect opportunity to rid itself of the ugly "communal" stigma; with, above all, the chance to rule India for an extended period in a time of Congress decline, the BJP has everything to gain and nothing to lose if it moves from exclusive to inclusive politics of the right. Am I building castles in the air?