In 1977, when the state of Emergency that Indira Gandhi had imposed was over, people having different political ideologies came together. Thus was born Janata Party of which Jan Sangh was a major constituent. Several senior Jan Sangh leaders became the leading lights of the newly founded party and later became ministers in the cabinet headed by Moraraji Desai. Over the years, friction developed and some politicians in the party started saying that the leaders who owed allegiance to Jan Sangh earlier should renounce the membership of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Dual membership, which referred to the membership of the RSS and the Janata Party, became the trigger for this political conflict. Soon, things came to such a pass that it was openly said by many Janata Party leaders that dual membership was not a correct thing. They said that those who were in Janata Party should either be in the party or the RSS.
The simultaneous membership of both the organisations was not something to be condoned. This led to a good number of Janata Party members, who were also RSS cadres, to walk out and revive Jan Sangh under the name and style of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 6, 1980. Since then, the party has only grown from strength to strength, giving two Prime Ministers, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. If we look back at the BJP’s journey of last 41 years, we find that it had won only two seats in the Lok Sabha when it faced the first general elections.
In 2019, it scored an all-time best performance of winning 303 seats in the Lok Sabha, a gain of 301 from its first electoral battle. The RSS, its ideological mentor, it is said by its admirers, has the best placement cell in the world. This is not something that can be easily disputed as indeed all top positions in India are occupied by RSS members. Be it President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President Venkiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi or chief ministers of several BJPruled states, they all are RSS members. The leaders who had founded it in 1980, Atal and Lal Krishna Advani, saw it growing exponentially in the last four decades. It is grudgingly admitted by RSS-haters that despite the severe handicap of heading a coalition government, Atal’s tenures as PM were marked by good and strong governance. .
This is saying a lot as he was easily held hostage by mercurial J Jayalalitha, the unchallenged leader of Tamil Nadu, who had 30 MPs supporting the Vajpayee government. And some others like Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference who had only four Lok Sabha MPs at that time. Yet, it enabled him to have his son, Omar Abdullah, made a Minister of State at the Centre under Vajpayee. With 303 Lok Sabha MPs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has it far easier as compared to Atal who spent a lot of energy satisfying the coalition partners. It is sometimes said that Atal’s commitment to RSS ideology was perhaps lesser than that of Modi as he did not do much about Ram Mandir or Article 370. Perhaps that is an unfair assessment of two leaders in two different eras, with entirely different ecosystems.
In August 2019, after coming to power a little over two months earlier on May 30, Modi could do away with 35 A and render 370 ineffectual as he had a clear majority in the Lok Sabha and do effective floor management in the Rajya Sabha. The number of BJP MPs during Vajpayee’s times at the helm was perhaps half as compared to MPs the BJP has today. Sidestepping contentious issues was the only choice Vajpayee had to rise to power. But it does not mean that he had wavered on views the BJP held regarding issues which did not find favour with the coalition partners. In 2014-15, the BJP compromised with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed to form a government in Jammu and Kashmir. But it was not a one-way affair as Mufti also had to jettison much of the ideological shenanigans to partner the BJP.
When the BJP celebrated its foundation day on Tuesday, the party has already achieved many of its stated objectives. Be it effectively doing away with Article 370, or laying the foundation of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. The pandemic may have slowed down the BJP from getting some of its agenda points implemented, but it has not jettisoned them. The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and a bill on population control may be unpopular decisions at some level. Yet is is unlikely that the opposition to these meaures was reason enough to deter the BJP. Right now, legislative assembly elections are underway in five states of India. In Assam, West Bengal and Kerala, party is fighting the ruling parties there with a vengeance, so to say. In Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the BJP is not in a leading position but who knows what can happen in future.
