Most thinking, writing, research and scholarship on the Bharatiya Janata Party obsesses about its Hindutva ideology, the parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the BJP’s election strategies. The 40th anniversary of the BJP is an occasion to think deeper about the meteoric rise of this party.
Hindu nationalists had been around since Independence in both politics and society. But the turning point of 1980 was crucial, because it’s this avatar of Hindutva that has now become so wildly successful that it mirrors the Congress hegemony of yore.
The Congress party likes to be proud of its legacy, of being a 135-year-old party. This historical heft exists only in the imagination of its supporters, because the Congress has been transformed so many times that nobody really sees it as the party of Gandhi or even Nehru anymore.
If you were an anti-Congress person in 1980, it would have been very depressing to see Indira Gandhi getting voted back to power just three years after the humiliating defeat in 1977.
It would have been even more depressing if you were a Hindu nationalist, because even the main opposition, Janata Party, didn’t want you. The secular socialists challenging Indira Gandhi under a coalition decided no one could be a Denver of both the Janata Party and the RSS. Choose one. The Hindu nationalists were out, forced to form their own new party, a fresh start after all these decades of being around in Indian politics but not really going anywhere. They still wanted to lay claim to the Janata legacy, so they called it the Bharatiya Janata Party. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the founding president.
The Congress and other opposition parties today are not doing half as badly as the BJP was in the 1980s. It may thus be useful to take a closer look at what the BJP did right to reach where it has.
Convert ideological cause into mass movement: The single biggest factor in the rise of the BJP was the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The party did not immediately succeed — it gained power at the Centre for the first time only in 1996. But the Mandir movement took the party’s ideology from the fringes to the masses.
The Congress and other opposition parties today worry a lot about ideology as Hindutva becomes dominant. The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, arguably the biggest political movement in post-Independent India, is a good example of what ideological success takes. Some of the other major disruptions in Indian politics have also happened due to public movements and mass mobilisation, most recently the 2011 Jan Lokpal movement.
National first, states will follow: Throughout the 1980s, the BJP was a fledgling party, winning a few seats here and there in various elections. But it was the nationwide Ram Janmabhoomi campaign that lifted the BJP’s fortunes in national as well as state elections.
This is in contrast to the approach the opposition has taken today, seeing state elections as the way to gaining power in Delhi. Creating a national narrative and campaigning around it to win Lok Sabha elections does not necessarily need state politics. Narendra Modi in 2014 and 2019 once again showed how national elections don’t have to be a mere sum of the states. To succeed nationally, think national. States will follow.
Also read: How is Modi’s BJP different from the one founded by Advani-Vajpayee 40 years ago?
Institution building: Lal Krishna Advani built this new party from scratch. He created a new, second rung of leadership, some of whom are still around (Rajnath Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Kalyan Singh, Narendra Modi). By building leaders, processes, institutional systems, Advani created a foundation on which the tall building stands today.
Who in the Congress party, or even most other parties, is trying to do long-term institution building?
The right face: L.K. Advani stood aside and let Atal Bihari Vajpayee take centre stage, because Vajpayee was relatively the more moderate and acceptable face of the BJP for coalition-building and gaining power. As an orator, Vajpayee was far superior, and thus the right face for the public.
This was despite Advani playing a bigger role in building the BJP and taking the party to the masses through the Mandir movement. Contrast this with the Congress, which isn’t willing to even try a non-Gandhi as its face, no matter how much the Gandhi family fails at the job.
Balance ideology and strategy: The BJP has been clear about both furthering its ideology and winning elections. There is no contradiction between the two. Furthering the ideological cause needs power. And gaining power may need tactical compromises with ideology.
So when the BJP was founded in 1980, it adopted both Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s “integral humanism” and Gandhian socialism as its dual principles.
Since 1980, it has oscillated between a hardline approach and a moderate approach. This oscillation sometimes seems like desperation, doing whatever it takes to win power.
But seen as a whole, it seems to be a well-designed strategy. A moderate position helps the BJP gain new followers, supporters, and voters. And once it has gained their support, the BJP brings back its hardline Hindutva stance. The formula repeats on a loop. The Mandir movement was preceded and followed by a ‘moderate’ approach. Modi the ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ did a development-only campaign in 2014.
This alternating approach helps achieve both objectives: ideology and power.
The Congress and other opposition parties often see a contradiction between ideology and power. They think they can’t win elections because their commitment to secularism isn’t selling, and some of them think they should junk secularism. But the alternating strategy of the BJP provides a good model.
Also read: Why can’t the opposition tell people to do things from their balconies?
Guard ideological space: There are many secular parties in India, but there is only one Hindutva party. The Shiv Sena is not really a Hindutva party anymore, but even when it was, it was the only one and the BJP allied with it. The BJP has ensured in its 40 years of politics that there are no Hindutva splinter groups. Having been on the fringes of power, it knows the importance of ideological consolidation. All Hindutva forces are together, from the BJP to the Bajrang Dal.
The Congress, by contrast, allowed itself to be splintered again, thus fragmenting secular politics. This fragmentation did not happen for ideological reasons but for the inability of the Congress high command to accommodate the aspirations of local leaders amid factional in-fighting. Most recently, the Congress’s refusal to promise a Rajya Sabha seat to Jyotiraditya Scindia led to his exit. The BJP doesn’t make such mistakes and when it does (Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti), it rectifies them.
Accommodate caste: The BJP used the Bofors sentiment to piggyback on the popularity of then prime minister V.P. Singh, with the larger aim of defeating the Congress. But when V.P. Singh announced OBC reservations by implementing the Mandal Commission report, the BJP opposed it. Exploiting the anti-reservation sentiment, the BJP was able to break away the upper caste supporters of the Congress. Simultaneously, the BJP worked on the OBCs. Today, the BJP has a prime minister from an OBC community. RSS member K.N. Govindacharya worked on the OBC project.
By contrast, the Congress allowed itself to be uprooted by the rise of the OBC movement and has to date not been able to figure out the caste strategy. Most of the top national leaders of the Congress party are still upper caste, with notable exceptions in some states: Ashok Gehlot, Siddaramaiah, and Bhupesh Baghel.
A re-invention of caste strategies in different ways is the need of the hour in all parties. The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) are struggling to reconcile the Yadav vote-bank with other castes. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is limited to its Jatav vote. How the BJP can be an upper caste-dominated party and still woo OBCs, even Dalits and tribals, is a model to study.
Propose to oppose: L.K. Advani always spoke of the BJP as an alternative model, and alternative vision. It wasn’t simply anti-Congressism (the failed Janata Party and Janata Dal experiments had little other than anti-Congressism going for them). The BJP’s successes have come through proposing rather than opposing. Even a negative campaign like demolishing a historical mosque was articulated through a positive-sounding proposal of building a mosque elsewhere. Narendra Modi proposed a different model of governance and development (no matter what you think of it), and did not limit himself to opposing the UPA-2.
The Congress and much of the opposition today come across as having no positive agenda other than anti-Modism. It may do well to look at the history of the BJP to see why positive campaigning works best.
The author is contributing editor to ThePrint. Views are personal.
The print look like the private property of congress .
A good example of false journalism .
नमस्ते,
मेरा नाम गौतम मन्ना, सायन मुंबई में रहता हूँ जन्म से| मेरे परिवार में कुल ५ सदस्य है| मेरी माँ, भाई, बहन, पत्नी और में| हमारे घर में सिर्फ में और मेरा भाई कमाने वाले थे लेकिन हमारी कंपनी ने हमे काम से निकाल दिया यह कहके की हमारे पास अभी पैसे नहीं है तुमको देने के लिए और ना ही हमारी फेब्रुअरी और मार्च की सैलरी दी|
अभी इस लॉकडाउन में जो भी हमारी बची कुची सेविंग थी वो भी ख़त्म हो गयी है हमारे पास बहुत ही कम राशन बचा है खाने के लिए और ना ही हम माँ की दवाई खरीद पा रहे है, यहाँ तक की में अपनी पत्नी को पौष्टिक आहार भी नहीं दे पा रहा हूँ जो की गर्भवती हैं|
हम अभी डरे हुए है की अब हम क्या खायेंगे…..!
में राशन की दुकान में भी गया था फ्री राशन लाने लेकिन हमे राशन नहीं मिल पाया क्यूंकि हमने राशन कार्ड को नवीकरण नहीं कराया था और अब वो राशन कार्ड वैध नहीं रहा ऐसा राशन दुकान वाले ने कहा, मेरे अलावा ऐसे बहुत सारे लोग थे जो राशन की दुकान पे खड़े थे और उन्होंने भी राशन कार्ड को नवीकरण नहीं कराया था और फिर उन्हें भी फ्री राशन नहीं मिला|
अभी ऐसी अवस्था में हम क्या करे हमे कुछ भी समझ में नहीं आ रहा हैं|
में और मेरे परिवार के सारे सदस्य और वो सारे लोग जो राशन की दुकान पे खड़े थे राशन लेने के लिए – क्या भारतीय नहीं हैं? क्या हमे राशन नहीं मिलना चाहिए क्यूंकि हमारे पास वैध राशन कार्ड या राशन कार्ड ही नहीं है ?
में सिर्फ अपने या अपने परिवार की बात नहीं कर रहा हूँ हमारे जैसे कई ऐसे घर है जिनके पास पैसे बिल्कुल ख़त्म हो चुके है और वो लोगो से भिख मांग रहे है की अनाज दे दो|
ऐसी अवस्था में आपको नहीं लगता क्या भारत सरकार को इन लोगो को भी राशन देना चाहिए जब तक यह लॉकडाउन ख़त्म नहीं होता???
नाम – गौतम मन्ना
पत्ता – ३०४, ट्रांजिट कैंप ईमारत ९, प्रतीक्षा नगर रोड, सायन ईस्ट, मुंबई – ४०००२२.
मोबाइल – ९०२९२६०११८
Never read his articles before. But he does come across as a person yearning for the glorious yesteryear’s of the secular congress rule when life was peaceful, amazing bonhomie existed amongst Hindus and Muslims and India was a land of milk and honey.
He does make a few good points that made me stop and think – particularly liked his points on “balancing ideology and strategy “and “propose to oppose“. Valid points, particularly the second one as I strongly feel that the opposition takes on tenuous, indefensible points purely because they want to be seen as anti-Modi and without a thought put into what the right path is. If you don’t know where you want to go, don’t expect me to follow you, just because the current guy is perhaps even going in the wrong direction! Show me the path and convince me that it is indeed the right path and I can consider your solution.
Unsolicited advice on ‘How Congress could rise from the dead’ though relevant at Easter time, is becoming rather Repetitive and Boring.
Either the author(s) {a bunch of frustrated lovers nursing an utopian image of a long lost beloved} are self hypnotized by their own intellectual capacity or have such a low opinion of the current leadership of their beloved party that like a dumb child (PAPPU?) they need to repeat the same thing N times to hopefully register it partially !
Happy Easter and Good luck.
In the name of secularism, Congress was essentially an anti-hindu party and that was shown from 2004-2014. They wanted to bring a law which would punish the majority community (hindus) in any communal riots. It was not about punishing the criminals or people who instigated the riots but only the hindus. Thats Congress for you. So like minority reservations, where in J&K even though muslims are majority or in NE where christians are majority, the seats would still be reserved for muslims & christians respectively even though they are majority in those states. You think hindus are stupid?
Agreed, the Congress Party has made Hindus extremely angry. How could they be so anti-Hindu, when Hindus make up 80% of the population?
The Congress Party wants India to be an Islamic state. The Congress Party needs to get out of India and move to Pakistan!
it seems shivam is taking anti depressants now…he seems to b better. For once he has avoided ranting his own ideological poison & tried to do some kind of analysis. At least it was an attempt. 10/10 for that effort.
The congress had the hindutva flavour in the party since inception to the time of Indira Gandhi. The Muslims were appeased by taking care of the few leaders of the community along with the mullas. The majority Hindus did not feel ignored during this time. But the whole scenario changed when the Sikhs were massacred by congressmen and later the Shah Bhano case came up. The later events helped the Wavering hindus slowly consolidate under BJP. They found it to be the only party willing to stick its head out for them.
Why any political party made for and how can it be relevant ? Untill and unless it addresses people problems and it maintain people connect. Congress failed on both and it seems honest only on two points –1) Nehru/Gandhi family will always be chief of acongress. 2) Congress will never speak against any Muslim misdeed and always supress Hindus in any situations.
Now you can understand why a ingress sidelined. Tosy in Technology era a small village boy can get information frommgoogale and see twits of each one. Eg. Such common man awaiting a harsh twit like ‘Chokidar Chor Hai’ aginst Tablaghi Jamat and Muslims who are even not co operating in fight against Corona. They are daily misbehaving with amedicual staffs and Police irespective of Congress-BjP ruled ststes. But Congress, Rahul , Soniya, Priyanaka has not guts to supress such elements in order to save nation.
Then what is the option. However BJP performance will be, people has no option to follow PM Modi and BJP strongly.
Then where is the need to anylize this much ??
You need to understand no Congress cannot make people fool for more time..
Why any political party made for and how can it be relevant ? Untill and unless it addresses people problems and it maintain people connect. Congress failed on both and it seems honest only on two points –1) Nehru/Gandhi family will always be chief of acongress. 2) Congress will never speak against any Muslim misdeed and always supress Hindus in any situations.
Now you can understand why a ingress sidelined. Tosy in Technology era a small village boy can get information frommgoogale and see twits of each one. Eg. Such common man awaiting a harsh twit like ‘Chokidar Chor Hai’ aginst Tablaghi Jamat and Muslims who are even not co operating in fight against Corona. They are daily misbehaving with amedicual staffs and Police irespective of Congress-BjP ruled ststes. But Congress, Rahul , Soniya, Priyanaka has not guts to supress such elements in order to save nation.
Then what is the option. However BJP performance will be, people has no option to follow PM Modi and BJP strongly.
Then where is the need to anylize this much ??
You need to understand no Congress cannot make people fool for more time.
The author seems to attribute the success of BJP solely to the destruction of Ayodhya mosque. Indian public have been extremely generous and well disposed to Congress long after it became a corrupt and criminal party and destroyed Indian economy. Indira and Sanjay were common criminals and the Congress still worships them. Congress was returned to power in 2009 even after their weak response to Mumbai massacre. The reality is the patience of the Indian public has finally run out. There are a number of reasons for the rise of BJP and Ram JanvaBhumi is only one of them. If Congress were to come up with one policy platform which could improve their electoral fortunes, I suggest they adopt UCC. This is a platform every liberal should support (Indian liberals belong to another species) and is truly secular. They could meet Muslim and other minority leaders and read the riot act to them. Support UCC and help India move into 20th century. This is a way for the Muslims to demonstrate their common humanity and good faith. I am not sure Congress has the guts
Move into 21st Century. This is 21st Century and the last Century was 20th Century.
Powerful article indeed.
How about Congress doesn’t have a big force on the ground like RSS for BJP. Political parties come and go but ideological parties remain when the core group has long term plan and strategy to see that it continues to grow no matter. In this sense BJP was really formed in 1925 and core group of upper caste was formed before 2000 years. In that sense BJP is the oldest party in the world and only the form has been changing.
As long as Sonia is alive, Congress has no chance. She still dreams of her son becoming the PM of the country even though most Indians think he is not fit for the job.
The writer is clueless when he quotes ShivsSena is not really a Hindutva Party, Why is Shivam afraid to state that most of the parties and alliances are opportunistic to attain power.
Difficult to believe that this article is from Shivam! BJP has managed to consolidate the majority community as a single vote bank. This has ensured that Congress can no longer play its usual strategies of divide on caste and religious lines and come to power. This apart, after a long gap of 10 years, BJP discovered Modi and in turn he discovered Amit Shah. Together they took BJP to the highest levels in last 6 years. Yet BJP has to reach to many part of India, particularly in the East and the South as well as develop regional leaders. One such exception is Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra but overall, BJP has a major leadership deficit at states level. In addition, at the central level, BJP is seriously short on skill sets and many of its leaders particularly from UP may be worth dropping. BJP needs to worry for post Modi era as well and groom a lot of potential leaders who will form a core of the top team. In fact, BJP should not bother to compare itself with Congress anymore but set its own standards and achieve them. It should work on a model of a single national party with some regional parties at the state level as the political map of India in years to come. Most of the long pending political agenda of BJP RSS is already finished by Modi Shah. Now Modi should lay out a plan for a strong and powerful India in next 20 years and set the country on a sustained growth path by removing all the cobwebs of Nehru Indira socialist era.
BJP is the real secular party. Believe me, it is indeed.
Congress isthe most communal party, even more than TMC, believeme.
Congress needs to do only one thing: Dump Sonia / Rahul / Priyanka and held free and fair election for the Congress President. All other learnings will follow.
“Shoe I am ” is a megalomaniac with a obsession of resurrecting Congress and Congress has sense to ignore his stupidity.
Why have you not even touched the Congress Corruption on which Ppl started sliding away from it?
Why are you not highlighting Mod’s Development success in Gujarat?
Why do you think the 2nd layer in Congress was not there – PC, AhmedPatel, Tharoor, Gehlot, Kamal Nath, Siddaramaiah, Chavan – they are more famous and been in thick of things than anyone else in Janata.
Thank you Shivam. I am now under control.
The author has so many wonderful suggestions for the Congress party and the rest of the opposition, that it’s a shame he is wasting his life writing articles that only earn him opprobrium. Its time he makes a career change as a consultant to all his favourite political parties. It will not only help him make a real difference but also reduce his heartburn as his fantastic ideas decimate the current ruling party.
Not surprisingly, Shivam misses the elephant in the room. Congress party is disappearing because its core leadership hates Hindus. The party is led by a Christian family under close counseling from a Muslim, all of whom are determined to erase the Hindu civilization and the Hindu community. Their strategy is simple: keep the Muslims and christians together, break up Hindus, promote rampant Christian and Muslim conversion of Hindus and help Maoists create anarchy in the countryside. Hindus are now waking up to this game. Unless the Congress party adopts a pro- Hindu leadership and a Hindutva constituency, it has no future. You can take this simple message to your political masters: India has been and will be a Hindu Rashtra. Other religions are welcome to live as equals citizens. But if you keep using fraudulent secularism to attack Hindu society and Hindu identity, you will be crushed. You can take this message to your jihadi and evangelical friends as well. Samjhe?
You have kept finger on the exact point sir. That’s their overt and covert agenda to divide and rule the country and erase the Hindu civilization and identity of India.
That’s it. How long this anti muslim , anti Christian rhetoric will help keep the socially opposing castes together is anybody’s guess.
Caste differences have been resolved since 2014. Congress Party hates Hindus, and no Hindu will vote for these pseudosecular parties like Congress, TMC, BSP/SP, RJD etc.
The Congress Party will be killed once the nationwide NRC is conducted, and the Congress’s vote bank is disenfranchised (you know which people I am referring to).
Also, the Congress Party is responsible for dividing Hindus on the basis of caste! BJP units all Hindus, irrespective of caste!
Well done, this is beautifully written!
A very nicely written article. Good comparision between the two party models currently in India. One thing what I believe can be an improvement to expressing our views on an independent platform is, why is the article written as a suggestion to the Congress and not as an independent comparision between 2 models. Though you have made a comparision only throughout the article, the name of the article ‘8 things the Congress could learn from 40 years of the BJP’, shows a bit of your inclination towards one party, the pity state of Congress. It’s just a suggestion from a reader.
@shivam Vij: Sometimes you take so much side of Congress, it feels like you are on Congress payroll. Nothing wrong, but not sure if that can be called journalism, just like that guy who shouts every night on television.
Your Comment on ARNAB ?
Can not believe my eyes. An article by this man without any accusation against Mod. Wonder.
I would say the accusation is subtle. The article suggests that only ideology has helped BJP win and totally ignores the governance. Also, Hindu consolidation has not happened to trample upon others but only as an outcome of being suppressed over the years.
Having mastered the art and science of politics – and realpolitik – the ruling party might now wish to create a model of governance and fostering economic development that other parties feel the need to emulate.
Agreed.
Economics does not win elections in India.
You and Your ilk vote for a party (Congress) which blocks free market economic reform in India’s labor and land markets. The Congress Party killed India’s manufacturing sector with Section V-B of the Industrial Disputes Act, which has killed large scale manufacturing in India.
The BJP is trying to carry out labor reform and land acquisition reform to boost manufacturing since 2014, but the Congress Party has opposed it.
Those who support the Congress Party are anti-national, since the Congress Party is socialistic, blocks factor market reforms that are beneficial for industrialization, and does blatant and offensive Muslim appeasement.