Thursday, May 28, 2009

Locating BJP's ideology

Locating BJP's ideology

from Agent Provocateur by Kanchan Gupta

10. The issue really is not one of the BJP 'revisiting' its ideology or revising it; it is of internalising that which it lists as its 'philosophy' and extrapolating from it. To jettison either or both would be to give up its distincitve identity, of which some still remains, and become just another party hankering for power, a clone of the Congress but minus its inherent strengths.

By the way, the revamped and redesigned BJP Website has dropped a key feature of the old Website. There used to be an icon on the side-bar by clicking on which you could hear the full version of Vande Mataram. Since those who are responsible forrevamping and redesigning the Website are also the brains behind the mission to 'secularise' the BJP, I can only assume that it was a considered decision to distance the BJP from Vande Mataram and disown the National Song as being part of its identity.

Interestingly, although perhaps not coincidentally, the redesigned RSS Website has also dropped Vande Mataram. I guess nationalism, Hindu, cultural or any which way, is no longer a dirty word only for the 'secularists' but also for our so-called 'nationalists'.