The Bharatiya Janata
"Indian People's Party"; BJP ) is one
of the two major parties in the
Indian political system, the other
being the Indian National Congress.
Established in 1980, it is India's
second largest political party in
terms of representation in
parliament and in the various state
assemblies.
The BJP's roots lie in the Bharatiya
Jana Sangh, formed in 1951 by
Syama Prasad Mookerjee. For the
1977 general elections, the Jana
Sangh merged with several parties to
form the Janata Party to defeat
the incumbent Congress party.
Following Janata's dissolution in 1980,
the rank and file of the erstwhile
Jana Sangh reconvened as the
Bharatiya Janata Party. Although
initially unsuccessful, winning only
two seats in the 1984 general
election, the BJP soon grew in
strength on the wave of the Ram
Janmabhoomi movement, and came to
power in several states. Following a
series of increasingly better
performances at the national
elections, the party was invited to
form the government in 1996, albeit
only for 13 days.
From 1998 to 2004, the BJP-led
National Democratic Alliance (NDA),
a coalition of several parties, formed
the national government. Headed by
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
it was the first non-Congress
government to last a full term in
office. Since its surprising defeat in
the 2004 general elections, the BJP
has been the principal opposition
party in parliament. The party is
currently directly in power in five
states, including Gujarat, whose
Chief Minister Narendra Modi is the
NDA's prime-ministerial candidate
for the upcoming 2014 general
election .
The BJP designates its official
ideology and central philosophy to be
"integral humanism ", based upon a
1965 book by Deendayal Upadhyaya .
Labelled as right-wing and " Hindu
nationalist", the party advocates
social conservatism , self-reliance as
outlined by the Swadeshi movement,
and a foreign policy centred on
nationalist principles. Key issues for
the BJP include the abrogation of
the special constitutional status to
Jammu and Kashmir ( Article 370 ),
building a Ram temple in Ayodhya
and the implementation of a uniform
civil code for all Indians. However,
the NDA government pursued none
of these controversial issues and
implemented a largely- neoliberal
economic policy in favour of
globalisation.
History
Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1951–77)
Main article: Bharatiya Jana Sangh
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, popularly
known as the Jana Sangh, was
founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee
in 1951 in response to the secular
politics of the dominant Congress
party. Widely regarded to be the
political arm of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a
voluntary Hindu nationalist
organisation, its aims included the
protection of India's "Hindu"
cultural identity, and what it
perceived to be the appeasement of
Muslims and Pakistan by the
Congress and Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru.
The first major campaign of the
Jana Sangh was an agitation
demanding the complete integration
of Jammu and Kashmir into India.
Mookerjee was arrested for violating
orders preventing him from leading
the protest in Kashmir, and died in
jail a few months later, of a heart
attack. The leadership of the
organization devolved onto Deendayal
Upadhyaya , and eventually next-
generation leaders such as Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani.
However, the vast majority of the
party workers, including Upadhyaya,
were still adherents of the RSS.
Despite the momentum gained
through the Kashmir agitation, the
Jana Sangh won just three Lok
Sabha seats in the first general
elections in 1952. It maintained a
minor presence in parliament until
1967. During this period, a uniform
civil code for all Indians, banning
the killing of cows, and abolishing
the special status given to Jammu
and Kashmir were among the main
points on the party's agenda.
After nationwide assembly elections
in 1967, the party entered into a
coalition with several other parties,
including the Swatantra Party and
the socialists, and formed
governments in various states across
the Hindi heartland. This marked the
first time that the Jana Sangh had
held political office, albeit within a
coalition. The constraints of coalition
politics also caused the shelving of
the Sangh's more radical agenda.
Janata Party (1977–80)
Main article: Janata Party
In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
imposed a state of emergency over
the country. The Jana Sangh took
part in the widespread protest that
followed, and thousands of its
members joined the host of other
agitators in jails across the country.
In 1977, the emergency was
rescinded and general elections were
held. The Jana Sangh merged with
parties from across the political
spectrum, including the Socialist
Party, the Congress and the
Bharatiya Lok Dal to form the
Janata Party, which contested the
election with its main agenda being
the defeat of Indira Gandhi.
The Janata Party won a huge
majority in 1977 and formed the
government with Morarji Desai as
prime minister. Vajpayee, who had
become the leader of the Jana
Sangh after Upadhyaya's death in
1967, was appointed Minister of
External Affairs in the new
government. However, disagreements
over the sharing of power between
the various factions of the new
party plagued the Janata
government, and after two and a
half years in power Desai resigned
from his position. This precipitated
the disintegration of the Janata
Party. After a brief period of
coalition rule, general elections were
held in 1980.BJP (1980–present)
Formation and early days
One of the new parties that
emerged from the breakup of the
Janata Party in 1980 was the
Bharatiya Janata Party. Although
technically distinct from the Jana
Sangh, the bulk of its rank and file
were identical to its predecessor, and
Vajpayee was appointed its first
president. Historian Ramachandra
Guha writes that despite the
factional wars within the Janata
government, its period in power saw
a rise in support for the RSS,
marked by a wave of communal
violence in the early 1980s.
Despite this rise in support, the BJP
initially moderated the Hindu
nationalist stance of its predecessor,
in order to gain a wider appeal. This
strategy was unsuccessful, as the
BJP won only two Lok Sabha seats in
the elections of 1984. The
assassination of Indira Gandhi a few
months prior to the election also
contributed to the low tally, as the
Congress won a record number of
seats.
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