If you were looking for unexpected insight into the troubles of the BJP, you need look no further than L.K. Advani’s response to the spirited, and on-the-mark, attack on him by Manmohan Singh. His response was a mendacious distinction to the effect that while his attacks on Singh were not personal, Singh’s attacks on him were. But more significant was his claim that he was “hurt”. In using this one little word, Advani unconsciously revealed more about himself and his party: both thrive on a constant play on the theme of victimhood. The minute the Congress ratcheted up the heat on Advani’s record, he retreated into playing victim. Try as much as it can, the BJP struggles to rise above a discourse of victimhood, one that has increasingly less resonance.

In a way Modi’s barb about “buddhi” Congress was also an unconscious tribute to the Congress. It did not occur to Modi to ask why, despite all its problems, the Congress has had such longevity and staying power. Such self-reflection would have been deeply out of character. But more importantly, it leads the BJP to misdiagnose the political challenge its faces. The core challenge can be described as this. The Congress has a lot to answer for. Often those sympathetic to it feel the most let down and betrayed by its hypocrisies, ineptitude and weakness. But most of those who pillory the Congress do so with the sense that the Congress does not live up to its own best ideals. They attack the Congress in the name of an idea of what the Congress should be. It is the ideal of the Congress that makes its realities look sordid. But the same cannot be said of the BJP. The dominant idea that holds it together is not an affirmative one; it is a negative one, powered largely by a politics of resentment. It has no high ideals, only grudges to nurse.

... contd.