Prominent among them are Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and the other is Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who is not. Yet, despite their differences with the BJP over, say, the NRC and NPR, they are willing to side with the BJP in parliament even when the latter is pushing through its pro-Hindu agenda, as in the case of Kashmir.

Their ideological neutrality vis-à-vis Hindutva, therefore, is an asset to the BJP, which may dub them as “useful idiots”, in Lenin’s telling phrase about the Russian liberals of the early 20th century who supported the Bolsheviks as they were not fully aware of the latter’s real, tyrannical objectives.

This ability to pull the wool over the eyes of both the BJP’s allies and acquaintances is clearly an ace in the party’s hands which its opponents such as the Congress and other like-minded outfits do not have. Along with this ace, there is another one up the BJP’s sleeves, which is its ruthless pursuit of power, which is manifested by the so-called resort politics of accommodating potential defectors from other parties in luxury hotels and guest houses prior to their admission to the BJP.

The acquisition of these “assets” from other parties helped in the toppling of the Janata Dal (S)- Congress government in Karnataka by the BJP some time ago and to bring down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh a few days ago. There is speculation that the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra alliance and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led Jharkhand government are next on the BJP’s hit list.

This expansion of the party’s footprint across the land is possible, according to its critics, because of the supposedly enormous “resources” at its command, which is quite beyond the capacity of any of its opponents. However, it is the latter who constitute the party’s most effective aces. If these adversaries of the party had not been at their wit’s end as to how to deal with the BJP, it would not have been riding so high.

A series of blunders have undermined their prospects. These range from the absence of a coherent ideology to crippling internal factionalism. The ideological vacuum is strange considering that adherence to secularism, which its champions claim defines the multicultural “soul” of India, is supposedly their hallmark. As such, these political enemies of the BJP should not be having any difficulty in checkmating it.

Yet, the opposite has happened. The BJP’s genius is that it has turned the secular argument on its head by branding it as an anti-majority outlook that is at odds with the BJP’s “one nation, one people, one culture” dogma. The similarity of this monochromatic doctrine with Nazi Germany’s einvolk, ein Reich, ein fuehrer (one people, one nation, one leader) mantra is obvious. But, for a sizeable section in India, this is exactly what a Hindu nation’s aspirational idea should be.

Of all the aces – the ideological emasculation of critics, the brazen use of freebies to win friends and influence people to destabilize elected governments – it is the replacement of the pluralist concept by an aggressive espousal of Hindu nationalism which has boosted the BJP. One reason why the BJP faces little or no resistance on this path is that majority nationalism appeals to mankind’s atavistic instincts which are difficult to counter if only because their reverse – upholding minority privileges – can be castigated as weak, effeminate, even anti-national.

This is what is happening in India at present and one reason why the BJP is succeeding in propagating this essentially fascistic programme is that there are none on the “secular” side to effectively counter this political thrust. It isn’t only the politicians who lack the intellectual wherewithal to confront the BJP, even the intelligentsia have failed the country in this regard.

The Leftists might have been expected to play a leading role to fill this intellectual vacuity on the non-BJP side, but they have apparently been unable yet to recover from the collapse of their ideology in Europe and its demonic distortions in China and North Korea.

Of the others, outfits like the Samajwadi Party and BSP in north India, and the DMK in the south, are regional organizations with a provincial mindset that has neither an ideology with a pan-Indian appeal nor an ability to make a political impact at the national level. The Congress remains the only party which has the potential to be a national alternative to the BJP. But it is in serious trouble under an interim president who is not in the pink of health.

The party cannot adjust itself to the fact that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which guided its fortunes from before independence, is fading out and is unwilling to make way for others in the party. The uncertainty at the top is compounded by ideological confusion with the Congress trying a version of “soft” secularism in a sad imitation of the BJP in order to win back the lost Hindu votes. The party is also riven by its longstanding malady of groupism which resulted in Jyotiraditya’s departure. The Congress’s pathetic state is another advantage for the BJP. (IPA Service)