The BJP As We Knew It

Out of the many random questions that traipse their winding way through the empty corridors of my mind at hazy, lazy  moments, catching me unawares and without any answers is the question- whatever happened to the BJP as we knew it ? is the BJP of the present the same as the party we had waited for , through  the endless years of the UPA, to come to power at the center and lead us out of the maze of  mind boggling corruption, cosy cronyism and deafening silences? or is it  some other variant,  like a genetically modified brinjal, for which one has neither developed a taste nor an appetite?  The question, like a pesky, precocious child doesn't stop there. It carries on to ask- and if what we are now being subjected to is the genetically modified version then will we ever, for five years, five months,five days- ever- be able to see the old lotus- the one we had voted for-  bloom and savor its politics? 

 Much like a mathematics student trying to figure out the proverbial mystery of  X, I try and assemble the  strewn pieces of my  thoughts into a composite whole capable of answering the question. Like most questions in a person's life it soon comes down to the  'I' in the Id, or ,as in this case, the 'we' of a society. If the BJP as we knew it has  , like a truant monsoon, bypassed and cold shouldered us then how much responsibility should we ,the people of a sovereign socialist secular republic, own up to? However, applying oneself to the whole conundrum  becomes too painful a process and one does exactly what one should have  done in the beginning- close the doors to those winding corridors

But as the Sushma Swaraj / Lalit Modi/ Vasundhara Raje/  saga unfolded on television channels  and one witnessed, yet again, the bankruptcy of  morality, propriety, accountability and ownership by politicians and Very Influential People one realized that the dimming and damming of the saffron color has well and truly taken place. The BJP in which its leaders  both distribute and curry favors with those on the wrong side of the law has come a long way from the parent party, the Jan Sangh, founded by  Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. 

Here was a party which had been 'our party' for the longest time ever. It  could have taken the road less traveled but it seemed to have lost its will and way in those yellow woods and opted for the road where the leaves lay well and truly trampled by the GOP, the Congress.

The party in which its tallest leader, also the first non congress prime minister to complete a full term in office, believed in the ideology ,as revealed in his poetry, क़दम मिला कर चलना होगा (we will have to match steps and walk together)is now leaving no stone unturned to ensure that a democratically elected government in Delhi is not able to walk at all. It is another story that the said democratically elected government is also leaving no stone unturned in committing political hara-kiri.This was the party which won only two seats in the general elections of 1984 but still managed to make an impression. Now, the party has 282 seats of its own in the Lok Sabha but is going in the negative where making a positive impression is concerned. 

Did we, the BJP loyalists, wait all these years to see ministers and spokespersons look and behave as  replicas of the Congress ministers and spokespersons? The same bluster, arrogance and , now we know, the same core beliefs. Yes, the Congress, for us, had always been corrupt and arrogant. But for the BJP to behave in the same manner- no less than a body blow. 
One now knows exactly what made Charles Bukowski write, "Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.” (The Most Beautiful Woman  in Town and Other Stories).