Right Word | Ideology As The Glue: Why The BJP Retains While Others Lose Leaders |
Right Word | Ideology As The Glue: Why The BJP Retains While Others Lose Leaders
The core difference between the BJP and the other mainstream parties, when it comes to checking exodus, is ‘ideology’
Seven members of the Rajya Sabha from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recently joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. A large number of leaders from other parties have joined the BJP since 2014.
It raises an important question, which has lessons for the political parties in the Opposition: why are they not able to hold back their leaders, and why, on the other hand, has the BJP never split? Neither has there been any major exodus from the BJP, even though the party remained in opposition for several decades after Independence. This is despite the fact that Congress governments, as well as Congress-led coalition governments at the Centre, targeted the BJP and its earlier avatar, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS).
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The biggest example in recent history is when the Emergency was imposed in 1975–77 and all the prominent BJS leaders were put in jail along with thousands of its workers.
Ideology as the binding force
The core difference between the BJP and the other mainstream parties, when it comes to checking exodus, is ‘ideology’. The Left also had a strong ideological framework, but the institutional misuse of power through the 1960s and 1970s, and its ideological dilution, which made it the ‘B’ team of Congress over the years, ultimately led to its marginalisation.
It is important to remember that when the going was tough for the BJS and the BJP, with Congress, the Left, and a few regional parties dominating the political landscape till the 1980s, it was a strong adherence to ‘ideology’ that kept its leaders and workers together. Winning or losing polls was immaterial to the party. The party workers in the initial decades mostly came after spending several years in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJS and subsequently the BJP.
The difference between the BJP and the other non-left parties is that the former has a well-documented ideology of ‘Integral Humanism’, propounded by its former president and ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya. While other parties have relied on constantly changing ‘election manifestos’ to enhance their appeal to voters, the BJP’s election manifestos are just an outcome of its larger ideological framework. So there is consistency. Right from the day a worker joins the party, there is no place for confusion.
While in other parties personal loyalty takes precedence over the interest of the party, and hence leaders often become unhappy and leave when power is not shared with them, in the BJP, personal loyalty does not matter; competence and, more importantly, adherence to ideology matter the most.
How ideology takes precedence over individuals in the BJP has been demonstrated several times by the party. When Prof. Balraj Madhok, a towering leader and president of the BJS, had ideological differences, he had to leave the BJS. Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh was expelled from the BJP in 2009 following the release of his book Jinnah: India–Partition–Independence, in which he was accused of praising Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and criticising Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. In 2005, BJP President LK Advani had to step down following his visit to Pakistan, where he referred to Jinnah as “secular".
Cadres versus members
We often hear that the BJP is a cadre-based party. That is correct. The rest of the non-left parties are member-based parties. Why is it so? Because of the ideology of the BJP and the absence of ideology in other parties.
Members of a political party are converted into cadres through various training programmes. These training programmes have to be formulated on the basis of an ideology. Once members become cadres, they are consistently motivated to work for the party, whether it is in power or not.
So, for the non-left opposition parties, the members are just a loose bunch of power-hungry workers. No ideology means no training programme and, ultimately, no cadres. Hence, any party which is not in power would lose its leaders and workers, as there is no binding force to keep them motivated. For parties like the BJP, ideology is the binding force; for other parties, power is the binding force.
Challenge for the BJP
However, that also brings up another issue: how will the BJP assimilate leaders and workers coming from other parties into its ideological framework? Also, there is always a possibility of friction between those who have worked hard to build the party and the new entrants, who often seem to be getting the front row in the political theatre.
The BJP has done well so far in balancing this. Leaders like Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma are a classic example. His ideological alignment is reflected not only in words but in practice as well.
Most of the leaders who have come from other parties to the BJP have adjusted well, as the ideological framework they have to follow is absolutely clear from the day they join the party. Most importantly, there is confidence and faith among the common BJP workers that, unlike Congress and other family-driven parties, it is not driven by a particular family generation after generation. Ideology is the navigational system that has kept the BJP a party of workers, run by workers and for workers who belong to the common strata of society. That is why there is a one-way exodus from other parties to the BJP.
The writer is an author and columnist. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.