At first there was the Sangh Parivar. It was born with the belief that the nation had all along been waiting for it. Building the nation in its own image has therefore been the Parivar's pet passion all along. And national, the most extensively (ab)used keyword in its discourse.

Now we have the extended Sangh Parivar. Or, shall we call it the Sangh Parivar, Inc.? Armed with more than a dozen pre-poll partners and now also with post-poll paying guests, the parivar has today expanded itself into the ruling Hindu Undivided Family of the country.

Members of this expanded Sangh Parivar had gone to the polls with their separate charters. They had however made no secret of their abiding faith in the paterfamilias. For a while, this pre-poll faith however seemed to be giving way to post-poll acrimony and mutual distrust. But then in the true Indian tradition of upholding "family values", trust has returned to the Parivar. And we now have the Parivar's first brainchild. The National Agenda for Governance (NAG)!

Omissions and Commissions: A Twisted Tale

Like most of its brethren, the NAG also suffers from a number of omissions and commissions. The commissions - taken together with their alliance partners like committees, councils and charters - of course clearly outnumber the omissions. We have a commission to review the Constitution of India. A Backward Area Commission for each State of the Union to identify least developed areas. A National Judicial Commission to recommend judicial appointments and draw up a code of ethics for the judiciary. We are also promised a committee to study the feasibility of treating all languages included in Schedule 8 of the Constitution as official languages and a National Security Council to analyse the military, economic and political threats to the nation.

Then we have promises of two national charters - one for children and the other for social justice - and four national policies - a National Water Policy, a National Habitat and Housing Policy, a National Environment Policy and a National Informatics Policy. There are also two Development Banks, one to promote the self-employed and unincorporated sector and the other for women entrepreneurs in the small scale and tiny sectors. And the talk of building national consensus for the creation of a National Reconstruction Corps which incidentally has a very suggestive uncanny resemblance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Yet ironically enough, the omissions are much more celebrated than the commissions. They serve multiple purposes. They lend the sanghis a new-found aura of being self-styled moderates and liberals. They provide the motley crowd of disparate allies with a collective alibi to legitimise the alliance. They also have the power to lull the gullible into a kind of misplaced notion of relief and even complacency.

"NAG"ging Doubts about Hidden Agenda

The omission of the BJP's trademark issues from the NAG has quite understandably created nagging doubts in the public mind about the NAG being merely a deceptive shadow of a hidden agenda. It is however a misnomer to call the real agenda a hidden one - it remains openly spelt out in so many words in the BJP's own manifesto and it also resurfaces again and again in the propaganda and campaigns of the BJP's saffron siblings. It is perhaps worthwhile to pay more serious attention to the BJP's own explanation about its so-called hidden agenda. It says it is currently handicapped by the delicate balance of forces and will wait for a more favourable turn of events before making a real attempt to push through its trademark issues. Till then it will keep alive the issues in its own manifesto. When the BJP itself does not erect any Chinese wall between its party manifesto and governmental agenda, will it not be foolish on the part of the opposition to do so? We should perhaps be thankful to Advani for clearly revealing the continuum between the NAG and the BJP manifesto with his call for organising a national debate on the deceptive ommissions.

There is another major problem with the notion of this so-called hidden agenda. It has focussed public attention on just three specific issues to the neglect and almost exclusion of all that really figures in the NAG. In place of the erstwhile line of a more extensive disapproval and rejection of the BJP, we now have an opposition focussed on certain issues attributed not so much to the BJP as to the RSS. Nothing perhaps wrong with it as long as it makes the opposition more watchful about the RSS. But then this is also the breeding ground for all sorts of liberal illusions about the BJP being essentially different from RSS and even about the `possibility' of saving it from the vicious clutches of the Sangh. In other words, many would now draw the line not at BJP but at RSS. Within the erstwhile anti-BJP opposition we will now perhaps see a pro-BJP anti-RSS line; only to make sure, we will be told, that the BJP does not stray into the hidden agenda in the RSS territory! In fact, we already have certain erstwhile sympathisers of the UF turning into advocates of a `healthy' biparty system -- BJP sans Sangh Parivar and Congress sans Nehru parivar!

Swadeshi:  Nothing "Official" about It!

Now, to take a critical look at what the NAG actually says, let us begin with the much talked about assurance about giving a swadeshi thrust to the reform process. The cornerstone of swadeshi, we are told, is the principle that India shall be built by Indians. Has there ever been a period when India has not really been built by Indians? Indeed, since the days of the indentured Indian labourers to the present period of brain drain and labour migration, Indians have also contributed significantly to the building of several foreign economies.

The point of departure, for the NAG, is however capital and not labour. Where will the investment for building India come from? As for the Indian big business houses, they have made it abundantly clear that "building" the Indian economy is just not their cup of tea. Their priority lies in securing tie-ups with foreign MNCs in the consumer durables sector and improve their respective market shares. As for the state, the NAG's promise and prescription for the public sector is rapid disinvestment and privatisation. The onus for building India's infrastructure in the saffron scheme of swadeshi thus falls on foreign investment! But by now everybody knows that infrastructural sectors are not the most preferred destination for foreign investment. And when FDI does agree to flow into infrastructure, it demands a heavy price, as is being realised in the crucial power sector.

Swadeshi can be made meaningful only through largescale public investment and state intervention. And its success can only be measured in terms of the degree of resistance the nation can put up to the imperialist blueprint of loot and plunder. But such an approach is entirely alien to the NAG's idea of swadeshi. There is no talk of restricting foreign shares in joint ventures and, as the recently tabled interim budget figures revealed, revenue earning through customs is slated to drop considerably, falling way below the projected collection of excise duties on domestic production. The NAG does however indulge in some eminently predictable chatter. We are told that the process of globalisation will be suitably calibrated, its effects carefully analysed and foreign investment diverted from non-priority to core areas! Such empty and vague rhetorics are perhaps the only item beggars are allowed to choose under "calibrated" globalisation!

Saffron Crusade for Unlimited Liberalisation

The economic doctrine of BJP has always revolved around a dubious dichotomy between globalisation and liberalisation. According to the economic ideologues of the Sangh Parivar all that the nation has had so far in the name of domestic economic reforms is only a phony liberalisation: it is now for the BJP to carry out some real reforms! Accelerated disinvestment in the public sector, liberation of Indian corporate houses from all sorts of bureaucratic regulations and an accent on agriculture are the three basic thrusts that would apparently propel the BJP's proposed leap in economic liberalisation, taking the GDP growth rate to 7-8% bracket including a quantum jump in agricultural production.

Economic deregulation, especially deregulation of corporate operations, is nothing new. The process has been going on unabated, and with increasingly greater momentum, for the last thirteen years or so. But the hard Indian reality is that this has not unleashed any economic miracle of mega growth. Exports have remained stagnant, Indian corporate giants have not produced any MNCs from their ranks and the resultant competition that we are witnessing is among MNCs to capture the Indian market and among Indian monopoly houses to secure tie-ups with these MNCs! Accelerated deregulation can only accelerate this process. The new BJP-led dispensation also stands for quickening the process of reversal of earlier reforms carried out in agriculture. The NAG's recipe for a quantum jump in agricultural production refers quite suggestively to "diverse incentives, including tax shelters..."

Three Tears for the Social Sectors

If the infrastructural sector has been left once again at the mercy of foreign investment, there are only three tears for the much talked about social sectors. Once again we have all those lofty proclamations and laudable targets without any hint as to how necessary resources would be mobilised and the programmes implemented. To take just a few examples: "We will create a hunger-free India in the next five years ... We will ensure that potable drinking water is available to all villages in the next five years. We will strive to achieve "Health for All" by diverse programmes." And with a little careful reading it is not difficult to see through the deception of this saffronspeak. Hunger-free India, for example, carries this subtext: the Public Distribution System will be reformed and improved "so as to serve the poor of the poorest". In other words, we are going to see further truncation and dilution of the PDS!

Quite predictably, the NAG does not forget to talk about "the right to work of every citizen" and "total eradication of illiteracy ... to provide education for all." But again, this is all saffronspeak! What is suggested is not any amendment to the Constitution to incorporate the right to work as a fundamental right or mandatory provision of unemployment allowance for the jobless. Instead we are treated to this profound swadeshi wisdom: in agriculture and the self-employed and unincorporated sectors we have "an untapped source with unlimited scope for generation of employment." As for education, the promise is to "implement the constitutional provision of making primary education free and compulsory up to 5th standard." Talking of constitutional provision, Article 45 of the Constitution however actually directed the state to provide for "free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years," and the NAG has surreptitiously scaled it down to 5th standard! And where will the money come from? The NAG does not give a clue to the government's own budgetary or plan commitment to this end. All it says is that the government will "formulate and implement plans to gradually (sic!) increase the governmental and non-governmental (sic!) spending on education up to 6 per cent of the GDP." There is also an empowerment package for women: 33% reservation of seats in Parliament and State Assemblies, free college education for girls, development bank for women entrepreneurs in small-scale and tiny sectors! The working class is also not totally forgotten. Labour will be made "an equal and proud partner in the production of the nation's wealth," the agenda assures! Has India ever produced any wealth without overwhelming contribution from the working class? And what about "equal and proud partnership" in the distribution of the national wealth?

Saffron School of Secularism and Social Justice

Among the agenda's other commitments are a riot-free, civilised, humane and just civil order and a terrorism-free India. "We will truly and genuinely uphold and practise the concept of secularism," declares the agenda. Now in the agenda, the tenets of this genuine secularism are not spelt out beyond the basic principle of non-discrimination on grounds of religion and the so-called Indian tradition of equal respect for all faiths. Let us therefore turn to the BJP's own manifesto for a relatively elaborate explanation. The manifesto makes it clear that BJP's commitment to genuine secularism stems from its belief in Hindutva or cultural nationalism. The latter, in turn, asserts that India existed as a nation long before the ideas of civilization evolved elsewhere, that this "timeless cultural heritage" of our "ageless ancient nation" defines India's "civilizational identity" which is central to all regions, religions and languages of India. The manifesto blames most parties and socio-cultural trends in post-Independence India for rejecting this heritage as something sectarian and lauds the Ram Janambhoomi movement, which according to it was "the biggest mass movement in post-Independence India," for strengthening the foundation of cultural nationalism. So, dear reader, here you have the true saffron context of genuine secularism!

Replacing the Minorities Commission with the Human Rights Commission is another pet BJP demand which finds its due mention in the party's own manifesto but has been left unstated in the NAG. Of late, intellectuals and ideologues of the saffron brigade have launched a vicious propaganda campaign against the Muslim community in India, attributing the latter's quest for preservation of its identity to its lack of educational development. In other words, the whole question of Muslim identity in India and its resistance to the aggressive designs of Hindutva is rooted in ignorance and backwardness! Educated Muslims have no problems with the BJP, claim the Advanis and Vajpayees. No wonder then that the NAG says nothing about protecting the religious and educational institutions of the Muslim community but proclaims its loud commitment to "educational development of the minorities."

The NAG also indicates a saffron approach to social justice. We are promised a National Charter for Social Justice based on the principle of Social Harmony. This again has a root in the Sangh Parivar's ideology. It is called "integral humanism" in the parivar's parlance, even though the NAG only refers cryptically to "our cherished values of humanism." The BJP manifesto is obviously a better guide in this respect. Integral humanism takes the society as an integral whole and precludes contradictions between the society and its components, between the society and the individual. BJP's social justice is then rooted in this notion of a harmonious and conflict-free society. It does not recognise the existence of historically structured class exploitation or institutionalised caste/social oppression. Social justice based on social harmony is thus only a thinly disguised attempt to perpetuate the age-old caste-class domination of the elite and the powerful.

Of Nuclear Weapons and Civilizational Unity

Speaking in Parliament during the debate on his government's formative vote of confidence, Vajpayee claimed that the national agenda of the new regime reflected a clear continuity on the foreign policy front. But it is not difficult to see that the NAG has very casually thrown in at least a couple of distinct hints indicating a shift towards aggressive jingoism. For the first time we now have a government at the Centre openly declaring its intent to induct nuclear weapons. The declaration is made in the section on national security, but its implication for India's foreign policy especially in relation to Pakistan is only too obvious. It goes without saying that an active pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme by India will unleash a disastrous arms race between India and Pakistan with vicious consequences for our economy and domestic peace and communal harmony. But then the saffron doctrine of social engineering and political surgery can thrive precisely on the explosive combination of social harmony and communal tension. These are but two sides of the same Hindutva coin with its aggressive accent on upper caste hegemony.

The NAG is completely oblivious of the real threat posed by the US imperialists and their Western allies to the vital interests of the third world. There is no mention of the dire need to strengthen third world solidarity. What has been emphasised instead is the need to promote and strengthen regional and civilisational grouping. We have already seen how the parivar looks at India's civilisational heritage and identity. We are also aware of the American thesis of clash of civilisations as the decisive feature of contemporary international affairs. The civilisational framework of US foreign policy sees two major "threats" to American/Western domination: China and Islam. India with its Hindu civilisational identity fits brilliantly in this framework as a crucial American ally in Asia. Seen against this backdrop, the invocation of the so-called civilisational factor in the national agenda of the new BJP-led dispensation clearly indicates a greater pro-US tilt in the South Block.

Constitutional Review: The Ultimate Time Bomb

Appointing a commission to review the Constitution of India is perhaps the most far-reaching statement of the sangh parivar's real aims. The BJP leaders know it very well that given the delicate arithmetic in Parliament, they cannot immediately hope to realise many of their cherished ideas and plans. The idea therefore is to make the most of their present stint, consolidate the rightward shift in the polity which has brought the BJP and its allies thus far and set the ball rolling for the next phase. The proposal to review the Constitution in light of the experience of the past 50 years reflects this ambitious saffron gameplan. The sangh parivar is obviously trying to exploit the "deep historic import" of the present juncture - golden jubilee of independence, the impending end of the 20th Century and the BJP's first real brush with power at the Centre - to the hilt. The constitutional amendments BJP would have loved to push through but for its current lack of adequate majority would now acquire greater legitimacy and force as recommendations of a duly appointed commission! It is perhaps the most subversive item on the national agenda. A veritable time bomb for the constitutional republic of India.

There has always been a certain ambivalence in the Gandhian and even Nehruvian tradition of the Congress, the premier political party of the Indian bourgeoisie for almost the entire 20th Century sans its last few years, towards the sangh parivar's ideological agenda. It could be seen in the Gandhian discourse of Ram Rajya, in the consistent anti-Pak anti-China thrust of independent India's foreign policy especially since the 60s, and of course in the blatant capitulation by successive Congress governments at the Centre in the 80s and 90s to the aggressive politics of Hindutva. Behind the so-called moderate mask of Vajpayee, the leaders of the sangh parivar are now bent upon reaping a quick bumper harvest of this chronic ambivalence and capitulation. Through all that it has said or left unsaid, the National Agenda of Governance has dropped enough hints about the BJP's gameplan. It will be suicidal to misread this document as just another delightfully vague assortment of pious platitudes. It is not.

Dipankar Bhattacharya