The man charting BJP’s revival roadmap

Sahasrabuddhe,likely to be designated the political adviser to the new BJP chief,has been associated with the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini since 1987. Currently its Director General,Sahasrabuddhe has often been involved in designing training modules for “school principals”,“mayors”,“tribal youth” or even “personal assistants to legislators (MPs/MLAs)”. Prior to his joining the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini — its website describes Prabodhini as “India’s only training and research institute for voluntary social workers and elected representatives” — Sahasrabuddhe was an active member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). His contemporaries in the ABVP constitute the who’s who of today’s BJP and RSS. Consider this: Dattatreya Hosabale is the joint general secretary in the RSS; V Satish is the sah sangathan mantri (joint general secretary in central BJP); several others,like Sushil Kumar Modi,hold important positions in states. All of them are Sahasrabuddhe’s contemporaries since his ABVP days. Gadkari,too,cut his political teeth in the ABVP.

In his new role now,Sahasrabuddhe is expected to help Gadkari design a revival roadmap for the party.

The first document,with the stamp of the Gadkari-Sahasrabuddhe duo’s vision,exhorting party workers “to take to social service”,shall be unveiled in the capital on February 11. Gadkari has already said that he expects party workers to lead seva parakalps (service cells) in every Assembly constituency of the country. The document,said to be under preparation,will offer party workers more than 20 options to choose from — including “promoting literacy drive”,“opening of reading rooms in slums”,“water conservation”,“promoting healthcare drive among the poor”,and even “promotion of cooperatives among farmers”.

Asked about the new initiative,Sahasrabuddhe,drawing parallels with the USA of the 80s,says that political parties in India today must not become used to a culture of ‘machine politics’,and running for elections must not be the parties’ sole reason of existence. “We are interested in politics of development via social entrepreneurship,” he told The Indian Express.

While the interface of politics and social entrepreneurship has been the new buzzword in Indian politics — Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi,for instance,is known to have roped in social entrepreneurs for developmental initiatives in his constituency of Amethi — Gadkari is probably the first mainline politician who describes himself as a social entrepreneur. Asked if his party is taking a cue from others,including the Congress,Sahasrabuddhe says: “The BJP president,through this initiative,is taking the idea of politics of development via social entrepreneurship to the entire country. Also,the BJP president has already said anyone doing good work should we welcomed.”

There are more similarities in the approaches of the two mainstream national political parties. If the Congress general secretary has chosen “democratisation of the Indian Youth Congress and the NSUI” as his central project,Sahasrabuddhe,in his Ph D thesis,titled Political Parties as Victims of Populism and Electoral Compulsions: A Quest for

Systemic Solutions (with special reference to India) has interesting observations to make on “democratisation of the Indian political system”.

Sahasrabuddhe,for instance,says that “mandatory holding of elections for party office-bearers under the supervision of Election Commission at least once in every five years”; “mandatory establishment of an internal training,research and development department for every national party”,and “mandatory training for all first-time elected people’s representatives and party office bearers”,among other things,will go a long way in strengthening the party system in the country.

Sahasrabuddhe,however,asserts that his Ph D work is essentially an academic’s perspective on the country’s political system,even as he makes light of the charge of the growing RSS role in the BJP.

“The BJP is the only non-dynasty based national political party in the country in the country today. There are some 50 serious political parties out of the existing 1,000 political parties. Out of those 50,45 are dynasty-based. The five non-dynasty based-parties are the CPM,CPI,the AGP, JD (U) and the BJP. Ours,then,is the only (genuinely) non-dynasty based national political party in the country,” Sahasrabuddhe says.