The fissures between the different factions of the BJP are being felt across the political landscape. The possible break of the BJP into harline and “not so hardline factions” may have long term implications on the politics of South Asia.

The Jaswant Singh episode shows that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is collapsing due to its “internal contradictions” following the Lok Sabha drubbing, the Congress said Saturday. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told IANS: “The whole episode of Jaswant Singh shows that after rejection by the people the BJP is collapsing now because of its internal contradictions.” “The way the party is going into the hands of hardliners will further reduce its base,” he said. BJP collapsing due to internal contradictions: Congress. Hindutan Times

Golwalker is the founder of the RSS facists: Critics that accused Golwalkar of fascism have often pointed to his extreme right-wing and Anti-Muslim bigotry. In his 1939 book, “We, Our Nationhood Defined”, Golwalkar expressed praise of Hitler, saying: To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic Races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”

The RSS is one of the most virulently violent Hindu extremist organizations in South Asia. Under its leader Gowalkar, it was involved in the murder of Mohandas Gandhi. Sardar Patel a member of the Indian National Congress banned the RSS for its communal violence and its predatory tactics against the Muslims. Recently the infighting between the wings of the BJP are bringing out old wounds. The RSS was the fountainhead of the BJP. Both the BJP and the RSS are in search of heroes who could propagate the fascist vision of the party. The RSS is the spiritual icon for Narendar Modi who conducted the pogroms against the Muslims of Gujrat which led to the murder of more than 2000 Muslim in 2004. This article written by Neena Vyas in a liberal Bharati paper called “The Hindu” describes the infighting between the fundamentalist Hindus.

Mr. Lal Krishna Advani the great bigot of the BJP.

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani on Friday said the country’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and arrested its leaders after the assassination of Mahatama Gandhi “under pressure from [Jawaharlal] Nehru.”

At a press conference in Shimla, where the BJP’s three-day ‘chintan baithak’ concluded, party leader Sushma Swaraj quoted Mr. Advani as having said this at a closed door meeting. This was in response to the remark of the expelled BJP leader, Jaswant Singh, questioning the appropriation of Sardar Patel by the Sangh and the BJP as its “icon.” He had pointed out that it was Patel who banned the RSS and put its leaders in jail.

“Slandering Patel”

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel the worst politicians of the Indian National Congress who was a racist and a bigot

…that Mr. Advani’s reported remark amounted to “slandering Patel.”Kerala Chandra, Modern India historian, told The Hindu over phone from Bipan

He said: “To say he did something, only because Nehru asked him to, is slandering Patel, who was very independent-minded. Patel would not have done anything contrary to his conscience and his views.”

Irfan Habib, speaking from Aligarh, was equally categorical about Patel’s views on the RSS’ “violent politics.” “I have read the correspondence between [then RSS chief] Golwalkar and Patel. While he did not hold the RSS guilty of the assassination of Gandhiji, he held it squarely responsible for creating the communal atmosphere that led to the assassination. Patel’s stand against the violent politics of the RSS comes out sharply in his correspondence. Patel was the Home Minister of the country at a very difficult time.”

Professor Chandra also commented on the BJP’s attempt to “appropriate national heroes.”

Bhagat Singh: The RSS tried to make out as if Bhagat Singh was one of their heroes – the BJP used his photographs as they have used those of Gandhiji and B.R. Ambedkar. “But the RSS and the erstwhile Jana Sangh knew that he wrote, “Why I am an atheist.’ At that time they distanced themselves from his writing.

They tried to make out as if Bhagat Singh was one of their heroes – the BJP used his photographs as they have used those of Gandhiji and B.R. Ambedkar. “But the RSS and the erstwhile Jana Sangh knew that he wrote, “Why I am an atheist.’ At that time they distanced themselves from his writing.

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Search for heroes

Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary these are two nations in the main, the Hindus and the Muslims in India.” Speaking at the Hindu Maha Sabha Session held at Ahmedabad in 1937, Mr. Savarkar. Quoted by Dr. Ambedkar in his book “Pakistan

Yet another historian, Mridula Mukherjee, alleged that the RSS and the BJP were “constantly searching for nationalist ancestors for they have none. That was why they attempted to build up Savarkar as a national hero during the National Democratic Alliance regime.”

At that time the party started a ‘yatra’ from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where Savarkar was imprisoned and his portrait unveiled in Parliament during the NDA tenure.

“But if Sardar Patel is the BJP’s icon, as it had asserted he is and gave that as the reason for expelling Jaswant Singh, the party should ponder over this fact: On February 27, 1948, in response to a letter from Nehru, Patel wrote: ‘It clearly emerges that … the RSS was not involved at all [in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination]. It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that [hatched] the conspiracy and saw it through’.” Sardar Patel banned RSS under pressure from Nehru: Advani Neena Vyas

As listed above it is ironic that the Two Nation Theory originated as a result of the parochial writings of major Hindu leaders like Mr. Savarkar, Haldi Ram, Golwaker, Lal Lajpat Rai who were proclaiming that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations and the Muslims should be expunged from the land of the Hindus. When the Muslims saw that the Hindus were targeting them, the Muslims decided to act. The result was Pakistan.

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Jaswant Singh’s book may or may not be historically accurate. And there is also something very peculiar about why Jinnah remains the magnificent obsession of a party that was only born after Partition and the freedom struggle — or maybe that’s exactly why. Perhaps the BJP resents the fact that modern Indian history effectively ends up being the history of the Indian National Congress. That could explain the strange need for the party to claim the legacy of Sardar Patel — a devout Congressman — as its own. …

The BJP today has two problems. It is ideologically adrift and it doesn’t have a leader who can steer it towards clarity or consensus. When it tries to be different from the centrist politics of the Congress, it finds itself trapped by demons of the past. When it tries to be a more modern variation of itself, the party finds that it probably sounds too much like everyone else.

In the end, apart from looking intellectually intolerant, booting out Jaswant Singh hasn’t achieved much. It may have terminated Singh’s political career, but it won’t kickstart the flagging spirit of the BJP.

The tragedy of the Shimla ‘chintan baithak’ is that the party saved its alacrity of response for an issue that is entirely irrelevant. History may be complex, but the future is bleak. The BJP needs to see that before it loses the present. That Jinnah djinn. Barkha Dutt, Hindustan Times, August 21, 2009

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The reaction from Pakistan about the banning of Singh’s book has been equal and opposite o that of the BJP.

ISLAMABAD — Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Secretary-General of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) has flayed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s action to expel India’s former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh for praising Mohammed Ali Jinnah in his book.

“It reflects BJP’s parochial and obscurantist mindset and exposes the hollowness of its secular claims,” Mushahid said.

He said Jaswant has demonstrated intellectual honesty and integrity by absolving Jinnah of the responsibility for the division of India and rightly placed it on Nehru and Patel.

Prominent analyst Prof. Hasan Askari said while the BJP’s visceral hatred towards the founders of Pakistan has been proverbial its action against Jaswant fully exposes its claims of being a secular and democratic party.

Daily Dawn, in editorial comment, said the furore over the book, the ban imposed by the Gujarat state government and, not the least, Mr Singh’s expulsion will be received in some quarters in Pakistan as yet more evidence that India remains congenitally allergic to the idea of Pakistan and that sections of its political establishment have, and never will be able to, come to terms with this country’s existence. The corollary: peace with India is not possible.

The paper, however, compared the attitudes to historical truths in Pakistan and India. Pointing out that the BJP’s over-reaction has been widely flayed in India itself and that voices are being raised in favour of freedom of expression and the need to determine if sacrosanct ‘truths’ stand up to genuine scrutiny, the paper asked: “Can we imagine a similar statement about India’s independence leaders?

“Mr Singh has been treated shabbily, but the whole affair demonstrates that India, or parts thereof, is at least trying to come to terms with the ghosts of partition and assess it in a frank, honest manner. Kheleej Times