Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 12:15:27 EST
From: Deepak Srivastava <DXS23@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Dismissal of BJP Ruled States: Strategy ?
 <1992Dec15.222735.9805@news.uiowa.edu> <1992Dec16.133700.3201@lgc.com>

Subject: Dismissal of BJP Ruled States; Strategy ?

PVNR government has finally dismissed state governments of
all BJP ruled states UP, MP, Rajasthan and HP. A blow to
democracy, a lot of political upheaval, possibly mid-term
poles or simply a strategic move ?

After banning RSS and allied organizations in all the states
Rao possibly did not have any other choice. Because recently
the chief-ministers of some BJP ruled states, specially Bhairo
Singh Sakhavat, have declared their intentions of not quitting
their basic memberships of RSS and its allied organizations.
Technically since a chief-minister can not be a member of a
banned organization he or his cabinet has no right to be in the
government. On their part if BJP MPs/chief-ministers/and ministers
cherish their membership in RSS so much they were oblidged to
resign on their own and go for fresh elections. They did not
do so on their own simply because no one want to go to fresh
poles devoid of their finances/perks and facilities of being
in the government till the last moment.

Presently what looks like a blow to the democracy may also
be due to a simple strategic move on the part of Rao and
his secular backers in Congress, leftists and allied parties.
The logic goes as follows.

The UP government is already under the President's rule. This
means that it has to go for fresh poles within next six months.
From BJP's side; the main issue in the coming poles will
obviously be the RJB/BM conflict. The Congress and leftists will
go far preserving secular nature of the constitution/ Rao's economic
policies of the last few years and the in general the comparison
of Rao vs the BJP government performances etc.

The stakes in UP are very high. By repeating its last election's
performance or even by coming close to it BJP and its Hindu fundamentalist
allies will again claim to have the people's mandate for justifying
their action on 6th December when, against the supreme court ruling,
they demolished the Babri Masjid.

Now by dismissing the state governments in BJP ruled Rajasthan, MP and
Himanchal Predesh has democracy really been murdered ? I do not think so,
because the RJB/BM issue and the chalange to the secular nature of the
the constitution is much bigger than what can be decided only by the
people of UP. By dismissing neighboring state governments also and holding
the mid-term poles in all the four states simultaneously Rao has simply
covered the entire north indian span where BJP can claim to have any
significant support on this issue. If with in next couple of weeks the Center
declares fresh elections within these four states, and all the remaining
parties goes along with Rao (which they very well may do so),this will not
be a blow to democracy but the show of democracy at its best. Why ? Because
this is the first time the people in these four states, covering almost
the entire Hindi hartland, will get a chance to vote for BJP exclusively
on its Hindu rightwing approaches to the problems of national interest. This
is the first time political leaders within BJP will know how much real
support they have for their Hindu right-wing ideologies.

Why then only BJP ruled states ? Because BJP and its state governments were
the only ones who from time to time have been claiming that they have a
majority mandate, atleast in the north india, to follow what they have been
following for the last few years.

On the negative side things can still go wrong. Yes, to the BJP's disadvantage
Rao has manage to spread the playing field, but in the process Rao has
tremendously increased the final stakes of the game. The BJP can still counter
by asking all its MPs to resign from the both upper and lower houses of the
parliament. In that case Rao/ his supporters and the President will have no
choice but to go for the mid term poles for the parliament in the entire
country and for the legislative assemblies in the BJP ruled states. The down
side of all this will definitely be a set back to economic reform (Satya Prabha
kar may as well sell his IGF shares :-> or wait a couple of months to buy
some more), and huge economic expenditure on the entire country. The up side
to seeking a public mandate on such a large scale will be that once for all (at
least for some time) BJP/RSS and their Hindu Rigtwing allies may suffer tremen-
dous losses on a national scale. Why am I saying this ? Because to start with
BJP's base and rise in the south, east and west is very weak at this stage.

So for next few weeks let us keep our fingers cross and see which way finally
the wind blows.

regards                       Deepak