Shades of Saffron: From BJS to BJP

With six national and 64 state registered political parties while nearly 2,597 unrecognized political parties, India may be able to claim the title of country with the most political parties. This enormous number leads one to infer that groups were driven to find new parties, adding to their continuously growing tally, due to the diversity of viewpoints and approaches to many governance and public policy concerns.

Beginning of a New Ideology

Lacking any clearly distinct policy approach, when a few political parties attempted to more strongly oppose the power of the Congress post-independence, they were unable to offer any clear political alternative. Following the Congress party’s Avadi session, socialists were no longer relevant and communists were perplexed. This left a gap that the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS), the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) earlier incarnation (?), successfully filled. As we are celebrating 107^th birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal today, let’s see how far we have come from BJS’s ‘integral humanism’ to BJP’s ‘cultural nationalism’.

The Journey

This particular ideological stream’s trajectory is exceptional in many respects. Three significant aspects of its journey stand out; its distinctive ideological imprint, the gradual increase in organisational strength, and its permanent imprint on state and federal governance.

In 1951, when about 200 delegates had come together Delhi to announce the formation of the BJS, they were clear about their objectives. The two most defining characteristics that set the BJS apart from others were the centrality of ‘cultural nationalism’ and the ‘mixed economy’ as opposed to the Nehruvian socialist model.

On Minority

BJS had never opposed equal rights to Muslims and other minorities. They condemned the use of minorities as vote banks in order to please them, completely ignoring more important matters like their socio-economic development. This vote-bank politics was also known as “minority-ism,” a term L K Advani popularised. The Jan Sangh had stated this in its first manifesto, which was made public prior to the general elections of 1952:

“… the rebuilding of Bharat on the basis of Bharatiya Sanskriti and maryada as a political, social, and economic democracy, granting equal opportunity and liberty to all individuals in order to make her a prosperous, powerful, and united nation, progressive, modern, and enlightened.”

Cultural Nationalism

This primacy of Indian culture persisted as expected during the tenure of the BJP. Although its focal point was the Ram Mandir Movement, it was not limited to that. Both the BJS- BJP were aware of the symbolic significance of grassroots change. The abolition of Article 370 remained a top objective for both the parties. In order to emphasise symbolism, a BJP MP made sure that Parliamentary sessions always began with the National Song and ended with the National Anthem. The erection of a war memorial in the heart of the national capital or the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ programme, two recent efforts of the Modi government, highlighted the persistence of the distinctive theme of ‘cultural nationalism’.

The Transition

The transition from Jan Sangh to BJP proved two things. Firstly, even when individuals in other democracies are hurriedly composing their obituaries, ideology and idealism nevertheless serve as a distinctive characteristic. This includes the fact that, unlike in the past, discussing the need to preserve the interests of the Hindu majority group is no longer considered wrong. Today, groups that would normally be reluctant to use the label Hindu are striving to show how much they revere its symbols.

Secondly, the BJP has avoided the inclination to pander to the crowd ever since its BJS days. The Jan Sangh Legislature Party in Rajasthan, which had eight members, had a vertical split in 1952 when six of its members rebelled against the party’s decision to back a crucial land reform measure. However, the party went ahead even at that expense.

The journey of Jan Sangh to BJP stands out for its well-articulated ‘Nation First’ politics amid a divided society where identity concerns are unceasingly tapped by regional and community-based parties utilising a dynast as a mascot. Understanding the Jan Sangh’s 1957 platform will help one better understand the BJP today. According to their manifesto,

“Jan Sangh aims at strengthening the forces of nationalism and unity to checkmate the separatist forces from within and the forces of aggression from without,
along with safeguarding democracy.”

What do you think? Does the objective remains same for the BJP today?