Playing the waiting game: The BJP, Hindutva, and the margins of the nation

In this chapter, I offer a preliminary ethnographic and media examination of the ways,and the extent to which, the BJP has been able to (and still is) negotiating its status in the region. I want to suggest that this status has been accomplished by honing a self sufficient and dynamically structured political machine and by the adoption of an agenda that transcends religious, social and cultural boundaries. But an analysis of their momentary success must be tempered by realities on the ground that highlight complexities with regard to the national-regional dynamic. In order to understand these developments, I present an analysis of two aspects of the BJP’s approach: its utilisation of key alliances that have emerged in reaction to the failures of regional and central governments, and its projection of itself as a secular party that encompasses but also moves beyond exclusively ‘Hindu’ sentiments. This paper highlights this double-think –the situational/regional differences in political self-presentation that demonstrate the malleability of their ideology while at the same time managing the BJP’s complex relationship with the RSS.