Sunday, May 24, 2009

RSS: Paleo-conservatism rules


This doesn't come as a surprise. But it'll disappoint those -- a large number of commentators -- who opined that BJP's debacle in Elections-09 might force the party to seriously consider transforming itself from RSS's political wing into a real political party.

“The silver lining in this electoral outcome is the unmistakable play of the national psyche and the emergence of a clear two-party system,” the editorial [in the latest issue of Organizer, RSS's in-house magazine] has said.

“There is no evidence to show that the ideology of the party has failed. There is also no evidence that the Modi campaign or the Varun Gandhi speech damaged its prospects. The BJP actually failed in presenting itself as a better alternative offering stability and a national vision. This has more to do with a mismanaged campaign and organisational weaknesses.”

4 Comments:

  1. harini calamur said...

    paleo - implies evolutionary. and there is nothing about the RSS that is evolutionary. is there a word that implies retrograde :(

    maybe, the reason that the BJP didn't have an agenda was because they had the abatross of Hindutva around their neck. And, unless the economy goes completely South - i don't see a fascist backlash !!

  2. Animesh said...

    Abi: I too have thought about this issue of which way the BJP should go, and at some level, going more to the right seems like the only way to go, since what else _will_ they sell? More at this post of mine.

    P.S. If they had a Meghan McCain, the had a chance :).
    P.P.S. Apologies if this looks like link-spam, but I figured copy-pasting content from my blog would simply make the comments large and unreadable for those who prefer skimming.

  3. Parv Kaushik said...

    i dnt think BJP must move to become a congress B party.. it is commendable tht the party is standing for its ideology and principles even when it knows it might be at the cost of losing national elections... BJP trying to prove its secular credentials and becoming another congress makes no sense...

    BJP retained Varun Gandhi and Modi proves thr is no deviation in the line of its thinking... the only deviation they need to make about thr trajectory is the inclusion of new nd young faces in the party..

    rahul gandhi has successfully transformed the party as a party of young people.. BJP has image problems thanks largely to biased Media and saffron outfits bad karma weightage (read shri ram sene , bajrang dal)

  4. Anonymous said...

    Until the BJP lives under the illusion that the media will give it a speck of a fair deal, it will keep coming second best on the national stage. After all, a party that declares that a certain religions community has first right to nation's resources gets express secular certificate from the whole media! The BJP is just too far behind in this propaganda game and it will not go too far even when it gets rid of its loony fringe.