The BJP cannot grow unless it breaks free of the RSS. The party must think of a separation plan.

The BJP apologists are free to disagree but the party still remains a work in progress, a very slow work in progress if you please, despite being around in Indian politics for more than three decades. It is yet to be a standalone political entity with enough liberty to make its own free decisions either in matters of organisation or politics. The Congress has been shrinking in terms of presence and credibility but the BJP still has not proved itself to be a viable alternative.

The party’s problems have not so much to do with the political rivals as with its internal dilemma, primarily ideological. Much of it has to do with the party’s umbilical links to its mother organisation and ideological fount, the RSS. The party — the apologists may disagree again — remains a sangh parivar outfit at its core and finds it difficult to get a way to break free.

As the party leaders congregate for the executive meet in Mumbai, they should focus primarily on re-evaluating the party’s association with the sangh parivar and ways to de-link it carefully from the aspects of its ideology which are at odds with a young, aspirational and diverse India. Ranting against the UPA defeats the very purpose of the meet — this could be done later from several other platforms. What the party should do is think hard and chart a course for its own future.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has set the tone for such a process through his act of defiance against party chief Nitin Gadkari, an RSS hand-picked man. Gadkari had to force Sanjay Joshi, an RSS nominee in the BJP, to quit as party general secretary after Modi refused to attend the executive meet in his presence. The rivalry between Modi and Joshi is an old story but the fact that an RSS nominee could be treated this way is interesting.

Whatever his flaws, Modi has the spunk to take on the big guys in Nagpur. This should be a message for others in the party to assert themselves. The Gujarat chief minister realises from his experience in the state that the party cannot grow unless it functions independently of the RSS and its many affiliates, which have the party’s greatest strength and greatest weakness as well.

The party’s twin problems have been leadership and organisation. At both the levels the influence of the RSS is pronounced. The BJP needs to develop it own organisation at the grassroots independent of the shakhas of the extended sangh parivar. At the national level, it needs to develop leaders with no connection to the RSS. The extent of the latter’s involvement can be gauged from the fact that the BJP president is still selected by the wise men in Nagpur and they step in every time there’s a crisis in the party.

There’s a crucial difference between the Gandhi family holding the reins of the Congress and the RSS remote-controlling the BJP. The Gandhis are active players in the party’s affair while the RSS is an external influence on the BJP with no direct accountability. It does not help the party in any way.

Let’s face it. The idea of Hindutva-centric aggressive nationalism is all bunkum. This worldview simply does not go with the idea of India. The country has been rejecting it since the days of India’s independence. The BJP has realised that it cannot peddle Hindutva and national pride for votes. That’s the reason it has gradually shifted from Hindutva to development. It should be encouraged that its chief ministers have delivered on this front and carved out an independent identity for the party. The party must build on this.

There’s nothing called the 'political right' in India, it traditionally meant a party that bats for market-friendly policy. It exists only in the imagination of some intellectuals and idle newspaper debates. The BJP understands that if it has to survive as a political entity it has to take the centrist position, be a party more in the mould of the Congress minus its vices.

The BJP has ample opportunity to do a political course correction. Modi has shown the direction, it is up to other senior leaders to take a call on the way to go. The executive meet provides good scope for some meaningful brainstorming. The party has to be a finished product as quickly as possible.