Cast in words

Seventeen years on,will the BJP realise that it needs a new way?

It may not exactly be equivalent to having it from the horses mouth with or without Liberhan,the horses were always too many but weve just had it from the man chosen by the Sangh to cast the first stone at Ayodhya in 1989. Kameshwar Chaupal is a BJP MLC in Bihar,whose moment in a troublesome history was sealed when his fact of being a Dalit was capitalised on to bolster the BJP/ RSSs claims to an inclusive Hindutva. But what Chaupal has told this newspaper amounts to a much-articulated refrain in the public

debate that the politics of Ayodhya has run its course and is no longer a vote-catcher. Except that,it is uttered now by a low-profile (and thus perhaps down-to-earth?) individual once integrally associated with the Ayodhya agitation and who has reappraised the politics that catapulted the BJP to

national prominence and subsequently handicapped it.

Chaupal says that the BJP should add roti (that is,livelihood) to Ram. While theres an essential truth to this aam aadmi-like rebuke,the more useful thrust of Chaupals complaint points at the present existential dilemma of the BJP than at what should have been done 17 years ago. Of course,the BJP got the script violently wrong then; but is it,post-Liberhan,post-electoral defeat,willing to listen to public opinion and its own Chaupals?

A man who might or might not have belonged to its class of rabble rousers has spoken out about the distance hes travelled from that winter of Hindutva discontent. But his party is yet to make up its mind about the path it henceforth wants to tread a return to its rabble-rousing days or a considered centre-right re-positioning commensurate with the changed political discourse of the country in these 17 years. Either way,the BJP should note that whats felt by people on the outside is also being voiced by many insiders.