Why fight over a book about the past when you have a whole future to re-write?

Much has been said and debated about the miserable losses that the BJP faced in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Rahul Gandhi’s hurricane campaign in the North took the saffron brigade by surprise and when defeat hit them they reacted like any ordinary men- pointing fingers, squabbling and playing the blame game.

But what one really hoped through it all was that their talks of introspection and serious re-organisation would result in a new face of the BJP, emerging ready to give the Congress a run for its money in another four years. But the recent debacle over Jaswant Singh’s book “Jinnah: India- Partition- Independence” shows a party driven more by religious ideologies, communalism and living in the past rather than facing the concerns of a new India.

Few people in India- the small minority who know and care enough to have an opinion about the long gone political figure- are big fans of Jinnah. Most history books paint him as the opportunistic Muslim who stole away a part of India by riding the wave of the British divide and rule policy. But that is where it ends. It is an opinion about a political figure, held by a generation that is moving on. For the others (and I fear this may well be an overwhelming majority) he is a non-issue. Let us consider a simple scenario- does an opinion on Jinnah in any way matter to the every day lives of the majority in the country today? What is more important to the person who goes to the polling booth on the morning of the election- the candidate’s track record and future capability to reduce prices, build better roads and create more jobs, or his or her opinion on Jinnah? I think the answer is obvious.

This week as the BJP meets in Shimla for its chintan baithak or a brain storming session, it is doing so under a cloud of controversy over what should have been a non-issue. Yes a party has its ideologies and must stand by them, but they need to be prioritized. What should be the priority right now for the BJP- Jaswant Singh’s personal intellectual opinion or what the Congress is going to do them in the next elections? By making an issue over Jaswant Singh’s book the BJP is letting its already depleted reserves of energy and momentum get fragmented. So the question to be asked is- why fight over a book about the past when you have a whole future to re-write and very little time to do so?