BJP TODAY

May 1--15, 2003 - Vol. 12, No. 09

Four-day workshop of BJP organizing Secretaries
Addressing Mind and Body
By our Staff Reporter

A four-day workshop of the BJP organizing secretaries was held at New Delhi from April 15 to 19, 2003 as a preliminary exercise to infuse new ideas and concepts of organization and other skills. The aim of the workshop was to assemble all the organizing secretaries at one venue and evolve a strategy for contesting the four Assembly elections later this year and the General Elections for the Lok Sabha in 2004.

This workshop was inaugurated by party vice president Shri Bal Apte who is in charge of Training. He underlined the objectives of the workshop and stressed the need for maintaining the identity of 'the party with a difference'. He added that the organizing secretaries had to play a major role in this task. Shri Apte expressed the hope that the organizing secretaries would be able to achieve this, as they knew how to even swim against the current. The role of the organizing secretaries, he added, was to operate with a missionary zeal bereft of any desire for power or pelf.

Senior BJP leader Shri J. P. Mathur, who was also present on the occasion, compared an organizing secretary with a catalyst which helps in a chemical reaction but never changes its own character in the process.

Party general secretary Shri Sanjay Joshi gave a detailed description of the responsibilities and role of the organizing secretaries in a political party like the BJP. Giving examples from epics and scriptures he laid emphasis on maintaining the purity of character and behaviour. He said that an organizing secretary was not just a post but a big responsibility Shri Joshi asked all the participating delegates to draw inspiration from personalities like Lord Krishna and Mahatma Gandhi.

Day one ended with a useful session on 'modern communication tools and Internet'.

The delegates also had an opportunity to interact with Sar Karyavaha of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh Mohan Rao Bhagwat. Shri Bhagwat said that Hindutva had occupied the centre stage of politics today and even diehard communists like Buddhadeb Battacharya could be heard saying that they too were Hindus. He asserted that Hindutva was by no means a religion but a way of life and an identity of this nation. He also compared Hindutva with the lofty ideals of Humanism.

If the ideology and thoughts dominated the first four sessions, then the following four sessions were completely informative, innovative and objective. Shri Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Director-General of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, Mumbai, informed the delegates about the importance of social work and the role of NGOs in framing public opinion.

For the first time, personality development and psychological aspects were dealt with in this workshop. Dr. Harish Shetty and Smt. Aruna Kolgud from Mumbai spoke on these issues which the delegates enjoyed immensely.

Regular sessions on Yoga was also an important feature of this workshop. A team of Yoga experts from 'Swami Vivekanand Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Banglore' was present to help the delegates and provided personal counselling to each and every participant. These Yoga sessions were very popular among the delegates as it helped them understand ailments that affected them and the importance of maintaining sound general health.

Day three brought an opportunity to receive valuable guidance from Sah Sar Karyavah of RSS Shri Madan Das Devi. In this session, he clearly pointed out the expectations from an organizing secretary. He said: "Our job is to cement and build the base and this requires wholehearted effort which includes regular communication, mutual trust and credibility of character."

Madan Dasji emphasized that working as an organizing secretary was a mission and only positive thinking and unselfish behaviour could do justice to this missionary work. "How to talk, where to talk and where to remain silent is an art and while working in the political field one should always maintain patience while speaking", Shri Devi quipped.

There was another session for the delegates addressed by the Deputy Prime Minister Shri Lal Krishna Advani. He described politics as a sticky and a slippery ground where the risk of getting lured by vices of power was high. Therefore words and speech left little impact on a common party worker but good character and honest behaviour did. Advaniji told the delegates that history had given the BJP a great responsibility. Already disappointed by the performance of the Congress regimes if the people became disappointed again, it would have serious repercussions for the country.

Comparing politics with the game of cricket, the Deputy Prime Minister said: "The BJP is now bowling. Nobody can get us out. Only hit-wicket can get us out." The word discipline also became the focus of his speech and he added: "Our philosophy of idealism ensures that we are the party with a difference but this requires sincere, honest and dedicated efforts."

The four-day workshop, attended by 152 delegates from all over India, concluded on a positive note. The BJP President Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu in his valedictory address gave a slogan of making "a powerful and prosperous India." He also wanted the organizing secretaries to ensure the participation of all sections of the society including the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and the minorities in party work. Giving an image of "mini India" to the BJP and making it a "Sarvagrahi and Sarvasparshi" party was another appeal made to the delegates by him.

Taking a dig at pseudo-secularists, Shri Naidu said that there was no need to get panicky by what they said as their job was to make mindless criticism. "Instead, we should feel proud about the ideology and philosophy of Hindutva or Cultural Nationalism", he said.

Setting the goal of winning 300 seats in the next general elections and keeping the four assembly elections in mind, Shri Venkaiah Naidu asked the organizing secretaries to make sure that nearly 10,000 whole-timers, completely dedicated to the cause of the party, were recruited soon. With this message to the organizing secretaries from the party president, the workshop was declared closed.