Coming against the backdrop of a looming general election, Advani’s bid to distance the BJP from the hysterical anti-Americanism unleashed by both the Left and some over-zealous members of his own party is fraught with great political significance. Ever since Prakash Karat sparked off the August crisis and destabilised the UPA government, there has been disquiet in the middle classes and India’s Establishment at the BJP’s inability to connect with those who perceive it as the ruling party-in-waiting. It wasn’t the scholarly objection to the fine print of the Hyde Act and 123 agreement that troubled the BJP’s natural constituency. The anxieties stemmed from the unmistakable impression that the principal opposition party was both indistinguishable from the Left and acting out of cussedness.

The BJP’s perceived hostility to the US has proved beneficial to the Congress. First, it has boosted the image of the prime minister as a dedicated moderniser who is not afraid of taking a tough stand to further India’s national interests. This perception may not carry across the whole country but, as various opinion polls suggest, it has influenced urban India strongly. Second, the belief that reneging on the nuclear agreement at this late stage will lead to a complete erosion of India’s trustworthiness has set off alarm bells in corporate India. Despite heading a government that has faltered over reforms, the fear has triggered a rally of India’s stakeholders behind the government. Their corresponding antipathy to the Left has also rubbed off on the BJP.

Finally — and this is not something the Congress strategists will readily admit — the belief that there is organised Muslim opposition to better relations with the US has triggered a measure of Hindu exasperation. The ‘national interest’ that the Congress has subtly invoked has touched a chord among those who resent sectional blackmail. Predictably, this includes a disproportionate numbers of those naturally well-disposed to the BJP.

An important feature of the kerfuffle over the nuclear agreement is that in the public perception it has translated into a debate on India’s relations with the US. The complexities of the separation of civil and military reactions and the reprocessing tangle are not the stuff of popular discourse. What counts is the middle class belief that good relations with America are inextricably linked to India’s economic growth and global opportunities for Indians. In disabusing the middle class fear that the BJP too is part of the anti-American bandwagon, Advani has neutralised a possible source of political irritation. He hasn’t won new converts for the BJP; he has merely corrected the feeling that the BJP is an unthinking fellow-traveller of the Left. He has done so while persisting with his doubts on the nuclear agreement.

There may well be a shrewd political calculation behind Advani’s signal to guardedly support any government initiative to bolster the Indo-US strategic relationship. The BJP is anxious that the next general election, whenever it is held, is not fought on an agenda that suits the Congress. Making the Left veto of the nuclear agreement the central focus of the coming election campaign offers the Congress an opportunity to parade as the defender of national interests and the authentic voice of Indian nationalism. Such a projection — and the Congress is quite adept at reinventing itself expediently — will in turn make the BJP’s own support base vulnerable to poaching. Not having recovered from its civil war and decimation in Uttar Pradesh, this is a luxury the BJP can ill afford.

If Advani succeeds in tempering the BJP’s bellicosity on the nuclear agreement and disentangles the party from the Left-inspired anti-Americanism he will deny Sonia Gandhi the opportunity to don the mantle of national interest. At the same time he will provide himself the necessary manoeuvrability to shift the discourse into a space of the BJP’s own choosing.

For the BJP, the immediate priority is to position itself appropriately as the party committed to decisive governance, political coherence and a no-nonsense attitude to national and internal security. In other words, the BJP and, for that matter the NDA, must occupy the centre-right space which was unfortunately abdicated as a result of internal convulsions and a preoccupation with abstruse concerns. To appear as a credible alternative, the BJP has to consciously live down its own shambolic record of the past three years.

One of the main elements in a political recovery is decisive and inspiring leadership. At the root of the troubles in the BJP in recent years has been a leadership void, which allowed private agendas to distort the political process. With Atal Bihari Vajpayee assuming a purely ceremonial role, the onus is now on Advani to assume complete charge. The remaining obstacles in the path of his resuming his pre-2005 role have been cleared. The RSS, for example, has signalled the organisation’s phased withdrawal from the day-to-day functioning of the BJP and its confidence in Advani’s leadership. This decision, which may take a little time to fully implement and may even encounter pockets of resistance, will remove the biggest distortion that has crept into the BJP in recent times: the transfer of power from the politician to the non-political pracharaks.

When confronted with the CPM’s threat to keep all nuclear negotiations on hold or face the consequences, the Congress proceeded on the assumption that the BJP was on a self-destructive course and destined to make itself a non-player. Advani has a long way to go before he can be in the driver’s seat, but in effecting a course correction he has put his party back on the uphill road to power.

The writer is a Delhi-based commentator