उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत - Arise Awake and Stop not till the goal is reached

One out of 130 fortnights available for Battle 2014 is gone. The Blogs, Articles, Columns of all those disappointed at 2009 hustings pour out frustrations and lamentations. There are conspiracy galores, thread bare analyses of the defeat and sane advices for future, of which some are for party and some party neutral advices – probably doubting the ability of the party to recover. This is the time to go back to scriptures or writings of great leaders. There are striking parallels between the thinking of the nationalists termed extremists of the Congress of late 19th and early 20th century and the Hindutva movement of late 20th and early 21st century. Shri Aurobindo, one of the foremost thinkers of nationalism during the intersection of 19th and 20th centuries in his article “A Task Unaccomplished” in Karma Yogin (exactly a hundred years ago on 3rd July 1909) says: “No policy can be successful which does not take into view the end to be attained and the amount and nature of the effort needed to effect it...To place before himself a great object and then to shrink in the name of expediency from the expenditure and sacrifice called for in its pursuit is not prudence but ineptitude. If you will be prudent, be prudent from the beginning. Fix your object low and creep towards it. But if you fix your object in the skies, it will not do to crawl on the ground and because your eyes are sometimes lifted towards the ideal imagine you are progressing while you murmur to those behind, “Yes, yes, our ideal is in the skies because that is the place for ideals, but we are on the ground and the ground is our proper place of motion. Let us creep, let us creep.” Such inconsistency will only dishearten the nation, unnerve its strength and confuse its intelligence. You must either bring down your ideal to the ground or find wings or aeroplane to lift you to the skies. There is no middle course.” (page 92 and 93 of “The complete works of Sri Aurobindo Volume VIII”)
This nicely sums up the predicament of BJP today. Having set out on ideals which enthralled the whole set of people who attained youth during the period 1989 (Starting with the palampur resolution) till 1999, the compromises made thereafter towards its ideological pursuits neither thrilled those who were enamoured by its ideology nor those who were enamoured by its idealism. There was not only a disillusionment amongst its core followers but also amongst those who though were ideologically opposed but who were favourably disposed on account of its honest articulation. What is the need of the hour?

1. Restore credibility on what you stand for. Synthesise ideology with issues of governance.
   
2. Do not discard any of the basic issues forming the core of the ideology.
   
3. Counter media biases by institutional mechanisms.
   
4. There shall be a tireless striving for stretching the Arm towards perfection.
   
5. Know that your USP is being different and not in being perceived different – because perceptions can change when the mask goes off.
   
6. Connecting to people is different from connecting to communities.
   
7. Consensus should be evolved to take decisions and not to postpone decisions.
   
8. Democratic functioning is not an antithesis to discipline.
   
9. Those who ride on the shoulders of the workers, supporters should think that those who carry them are pall bearers and not palanquin bearers.
   
10. There is more to politics than power, there is more to power than elections, there is more to elections than psephology and there is more to psephology than statistics.
    

Each of these require elaboration and over the weeks, fortnights, months and years these are to be deliberated and discussed thoroughly because the future of BJP is too serious to be left to politicians alone.