Not calling a spade a spade

BY Darius Nakhoonwala| IN Opinion | 01/01/2008

You don¿t say!

Darius Nakhoonwala

First of all, a very happy 2008 to all and, second, apologies for the prolonged absence. Sometimes when too much happens, leader writers all start writing the same things – see how they have all sounded like parrots in re Benazir Bhutto. For analysts/critics like me life becomes very hard when this happens.

But when the BJP wins, the tendency to sing in harmony disappears. With two successive wins under its belt – in Gujarat and in Himachal – it is preening like a peacock in the monsoon. And this has upset all leader writers except of course in The Pioneer which sounds like National Herald used to sound in the old days after Congress victories. Here¿s what it said: "The BJP¿s vote share gone up…One way of looking at the Himachal Pradesh results would be to describe them as a resounding rejection of the Congress. Perhaps a more correct interpretation would be that it is an overwhelming endorsement of the BJP, similar to the mandate given to the party in Gujarat." The paper says it means the rejection of negativist politics. True, but negative in respect of what? Surely there no harm if a party is negative in respect of communalism?

The Hindu merely stated the facts. There was no praise or anything even remotely like that for the BJP. It did grudgingly admit, though, that " For the BJP, the electoral hat-trick could not have come at a better time — with Lal Krishna Advani positioned as the party¿s shadow Prime Minister."

Then it asked the question that everyone has been asking and refusing to answer. Even the Hindu didn¿t. The question is " Just where did the Congress go wrong?" The correct answer is that positions No 1 and 2 in it are occupied by the wrong people. But no one is willing to say that the royal family has no clothes. All that the Hindu said was "…the Congress needs far more than Ms Gandhi¿s helmswomanship. It needs a reformed party organisation, a new unity of purpose, and, above all, a fighting secular spirit that distinguishes it from the BJP…"

Along the same lines, the Telegraph was even more distraught. "The end of 2007 has turned out to be a period for the BJP to crow and the Congress to retire into its usual ¿introspection¿… It is reading in these victories a rejection of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance¿s policies and attitudes… Whatever the worrying hints that lie hidden in the subtext of the BJP¿s list, it is certainly true that the Congress has failed in major ways. Its management skills leave much to be desired, and it has not been able to evolve a decisive language to counter the many variations the BJP plays on an overt and covert Hindutva." Yes, dear, but what about the top management? Should it not be replaced?

The Indian Express had this to say: "…the Congress… must ask some wider questions: in a time when the verdict at the Centre is the sum of verdicts in the states, why does the Congress have such lacklustre state leadership?" And the central leadership is shining, is it?