From Sangh Parivar to Sleaze Parivar

That aptly characterises the BJP's state after the liquor-and-narcotics-overdose scam that apparently killed Vivek Moitra, a long-standing apparatchik and secretary of Pramod Mahajan, and brought serious charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act against Mahajan's son Rahul.

Coming just four weeks after the murder of Pramod Mahajan, the BJP's foremost second-generation leader, by his brother, the episode gravely undermines the party's credibility. The BJP cannot pretend, as Sushma Swaraj contentiously did, that the champagne-plus-cocaine-overdose mishap was a "family matter" unlinked to the BJP.

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Rahul Mahajan was being projected as his father's political successor and a BJP youth leader. Moitra, a BJP member for 15 years, served former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, and then his brother-in-law-mentor Pramod, as secretary.

Moitra, like Sudhanshu Mittal -- described as a low-level tentwallah -- was part of the cabal that designed Pramod Mahajan's fanciful 2004 "India Shining" campaign. This cabal controlled the huge financial network that Mahajan erected right under Atal Behari Vajpayee's nose, apparently with his approval.

Mahajan, contrary to claims, didn't "modernise" the BJP. He gave it a sleazy, semi-criminal, semi-corporate character.

The BJP-RSS cannot credibly distance themselves from Pramod Mahajan after projecting him as a hero and victim. Mahajan was the principal patron of Rajnath Singh and instrumental in making him party president in January -- with the RSS's blessings.

The RSS didn't approve of Mahajan's lavish lifestyle or penchant for holding party conventions in seven-star hotels. But it was never averse to receiving large sums of money from Mahajan, including generous grants for ideological training.

For all its claims to austerity, the RSS has been fully drawn into the web of personal corruption that engulfs the sangh parivar. Many of its leaders -- not least BJP general secretary Sanjay Joshi -- have been implicated in steamy scandals. Intimate contact with the nitty-gritty of power politics has proved corrosive for the sangh.

Once-rare skirmishes between different parivar organisations and within them have turned into bitter full-scale warfare, often conducted through television channels. Over the past two years, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Bajrang Dal and the BJP have been frequently at each other's throats.

Within the BJP, leaders viciously compete in hatching conspiracies against one another that would put the mafia to shame. Chief Ministerships are secured through blackmail and bribery, with haftas being paid to top party managers.

Ideological disarray is rampant -- witness Advani's bizarre "Jinnah-the-secularist" remarks, which soon led to his dismissal as party president.

However, the BJP has emphatically not stopped being communal. It still remains obsessed with a majoritarian and exclusivist vision of politics in which the Hindus enjoy primacy.

What has changed is a second component of its original orientation -- opposition to foreign capital, emphasis on swadeshi, and commitment to small traders, not industrialists. The BJP now champions corporate-led globalisation and sees itself as a representative of Big Business.

In its primordial instincts, the party remains deeply Islamophobic and hawkish. An instance is Vinay Katiyar's recent shocking offer of rewards to anyone who kills a terrorist in Kashmir. This was no different from Uttar Pradesh minister Haji Yaqoob Qureshi's offer to anyone who kills the Danish cartoonists who insulted Prophet Mohammed. It must be condemned equally strongly.

The RSS isn't happy with the BJP, but it can't dump it. It openly attacks it. RSS organ Organiser has attacked the BJP for its lack of "intellectual honesty" over the recent increase in petroleum products.

The editorial says: "…instead of protesting on the streets by stopping the wheels and adding to public misery… [the] party can walk the talk by asking its state governments to reduce state levies on fuel…" It squarely blames the BJP for the "political farce" in evidence in India.

The sangh parivar's crisis is all-pervasive and grave, and compounded by a lack of political strategy. The BJP has failed to reconcile its elitist social and economic orientation with the compulsion of practical politics, including the need to support the aspirations of the lower strata of society.

It dare not oppose the 27 percent quota for OBCs in Central universities, but its heart is with the anti-quota protestors. It would like more "free-market" policies, but it's not prepared for their consequences, including the suicide of 100,000 farmers over a decade. It leads the parliamentary Opposition, but has no logical basis for its adversarial stance, which is inconsistent, shrill and irresponsible.

What does this mean for the BJP's future? Its crisis is capped by an increasingly bankrupt leadership. Electorally, the party is shrinking. Unlike in the 1990s, when it ruled in close to half of India's major states, and came to national power, it now resembles the Jana Sangh of the 1960s, which was strong mainly in Central and Western India.

The only difference is, the BJP now has some influence in once-peripheral states like Karnataka and Assam, and has strengthened its base among Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand's Adivasis.

However, in the Hindi heartland, the BJP is marginal. In Uttar Pradesh, it faces the prospect of a total rout. In Bihar, it plays second fiddle to the Janata Dal (United). Worse, it is riven by splits in all the six states where it rules. The loss of OBC firebrand Uma Bharati and veteran tribal leader Babulal Marandi is likely to cost it dearly in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.

Today, the BJP behaves as if consumed by a death-wish. Its leaders are their own worst enemies. The party has no positive contribution to make to Indian society or politics. One should shed no tears over its grim, deepening crisis.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.