It is not unknown for a political party to make a 180-degree turn to meet an altered context. What L.K. Advani is trying to do to the Bharatiya Janata Party regarding the Indo-US nuclear deal is more profound than that. He is attempting a 360-degree turn. After the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) precipitated a political crisis by announcing his party’s hostility to the deal, the BJP surprised everybody by taking a position that nearly echoed the CPI(M)’s shrill anti-Americanism. The implications of this for the BJP were profound. It meant that it had vacated the platform of nationalism and national interest for the Congress to occupy. The BJP had thus dropped one of its strongest cards. It also meant that the BJP was going back on its earlier stance on the United States of America. When the National Democratic Alliance was in power, under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian foreign policy had come to acquire a pronounced pro-US tilt. The BJP took pride in this and the NDA drew some amount of kudos for this in the relevant quarters. The sudden recourse to anti-Americanism on the part of the BJP was thus somewhat inexplicable.

Mr Advani is now making a valiant effort to pick up the pieces, and to take his party back to its original pro-US position. It is not yet clear if he will succeed since unity is not, at the moment, the BJP’s strong suit. But his attempt is important for the BJP, and also for its wider political ramifications. If the BJP follows the lead provided by Mr Advani, it will have an opportunity to reclaim the ground of nationalism that it vacated for the Congress. Mr Advani has not suggested that he is fully convinced about the need and the benefits of the nuclear deal, but he has successfully differentiated his position and that of the BJP from the extreme hostility of the CPI(M). One immediate fallout of this shift will be a further marginalization of the CPI(M) and the Left. For the BJP, as Mr Advani has been quick to grasp, even an unintended congruence with the Left is akin to the kiss of death. Similarly, without nationalism, BJP can only ideologically hobble along. Thus, on the success of Mr Advani’s efforts to make a 360-degree turn depends the BJP’s refashioning of itself as the principal opponent of the Congress if elections were to be held in the near future. Mr Advani has once again begun to count in Indian politics.