(Ashok Malik is a columnist and writer living in Delhi)Personalities and personality clashes make for captivating theatre. As such, the denial of a BJP nomination to
Jaswant Singh in Barmer has invited attention to his predicament- his battle with Vasundhara Raje, Rajasthan chief minister, his proximity to LK Advani, and his relative distance from Narendra Modi. While all of this is true, it would be unfair not to see the Jaswant issue in its wider context - that of generational transformation. (
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In 2014 the BJP is going through a clean-sheet redesign. This is reflected in names and faces of candidates, of course, but is also indicative of new demographics, concerns and constituencies, and a new identity for the party.
For better or worse, these are gambles the party has taken. This attempt, fronted by Narendra Modi, may or may not work - but it was inevitable. A drastic shake-up could not be postponed indefinitely.
In the context of Jaswant and Rajasthan,
Vasundhara Raje has taken a local gamble of her own. In giving the Barmer nomination to a Jat defector from the Congress, she has calculated the Jat votes she won in the 2013 assembly election can be sustained. This means a change in the traditional social composition of the BJP. If Vasundhara wean away Jats from the Congress without significantly alienating the Rajputs, the BJP could be unbeatable for the foreseeable future. This is the real bet and the real decision in Rajasthan; Jaswant is only a side story.
If the above argument is correct, then it would stand to reason that Jaswant, the patrician Rajput, would not have got the Barmer candidacy even if he'd been 56, rather than 76. So is the age issue not a factor at all?
To be honest, a clear-cut answer is difficult. Jaswant's age went against him in a party increasingly run by people 15-20 years younger. His caste went against him because the people running the party - in addition to being 15-20 years younger - also drew an electoral blueprint that was different from the blueprint of Jaswant's generation. This would stand to reason. A new generation of leaders is not just a younger version of an earlier generation - it remoulds the party in its own image.
Clean-sheet redesigns are not unknown in Indian political parties. They have usually been accompanied by generational shifts. One example is that of the Congress under Indira Gandhi in 1969. In 1980, when the Congress came back to power after three years in the wilderness, it was Sanjay Gandhi's group - represented by a Pranab Mukherjee as Finance Minister, a Kamal Nath as first-time MP, an AR Antulay in Maharashtra, an R Gundu Rao in Bangalore or an Arjun Singh in Madhya Pradesh - who gave the party a fresh wind.
In the mid-1980s, Rajiv Gandhi promoted the likes of Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh and Ahmed Patel. In the late 1980s, it was Advani, though much older himself, who empowered a series of 40-somethings in the BJP.
Is there a common thread to these generational shifts? They seem to occur when a party is down in the dumps after a bad defeat - or when a strong leader can make changes because he or she seems to have the popular appeal. The Congress after 1977 and the BJP after the defeat of 1984 fell in the former category; Indira in 1969 was and possibly Modi in 2014 is in the latter category.
It is clear the Congress also needs a generational shift. It could have accomplished this in the past 10 years, when it was entrenched in office, especially after the victory of 2009. It wasted the moment.
In 2004, when it came back to office, it gave a clutch of geriatrics - K Natwar Singh, Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil - key ministerial jobs even though it knew these people would not be relevant five years down the line and would have no stake in the following election.
In 2014, the BJP wanted to minimise chances of that problem. Hence Jaswant, and others of his vintage, have had to retire hurt.
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