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The Bharatiya Janata Party of India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Dennis Austin  and
Peter Lyon
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Extract

Observers of The Indian Political Scene Have Been puzzled by the performance and prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest opposition group in the central legislature in New Delhi, and forms the government in four northern states, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The elements of opposition and government have taken new shape; and the rise of the BJP, say critics, constitutes a challenge not simply to Congress but to the Nehru-established state and its secular democratic inheritance. Its leaders couch their appeal in relation to the religious sentiments of the Hindu majority of India and they talk not only of roti but Ram — the bread of life itself. ‘Away with the “pseudo-secularism” of Western values: India must rediscover its past.’ Such is the simple message of the Hindutva party and its allies. It is an old theme but opponents and supporters alike believe that the 119 seats which the BJP now has in the Lok Sabha (India's lower house) give the demand for fundamental reform a new political force.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1993 , pp. 36 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1993

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References

1 Sunday Observer, New Delhi, 15–21 December 1991.

2 ibid.

3 ibid.

4 ibid.

5 ibid.

6 Rama, the hero of one of the two great Indian epics, a figure both human and divine. According to Rajni Kothari, nationalism has ‘nationalized’ the Hindu pantheon: ‘local deities and local rituals are gradually being replaced by what may be called universalized Hinduisn; idols like Durga and Ghanesh are first “nationalized” and than propagated to replace what used to be local festivals around local deities’. Quoted in Morris Jones, W. H., ‘Thinking about Indian Polities’, Review Article, Political Studies, 1992, p. 345.Google Scholar

7 Too much so for those who think that Hinduism has imposed too passive an acceptance of social divisions. One can truly say of ever Hindu new‐born child: ‘Full soon the soul shall have her earthly freight, and custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.’.

8 Times of India, 15 March 1992, reports of the Sarnath conference.

9 ibid.

10 e.g. ‘The problem today is that of the Byzantine nature of Congress politics where every move seemingly has greater relevance to the party's internal politics than to a recovery of its national role’, Times of India, 17 March 1992.

11 The Chief Minister in Bihar, Lallo Prasad Yadav, remains loyal to the Janata Dal leader, V. P. Singh; Ajit Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Ramakrishna Hedge (ex‐Chief Minister in Karnataka) conspire against the former prime minister. In Orissa – where Congress was almost destroyed in the recent state assembly elections, winning only 10 of the 147 seats against 123 for Janata Dal – the JD party boss and Chief Minister, Biju Patnaik, now talks of forming an anti‐BJP alliance. For a good account of these disputes, see Frontline, Madras, 6 December 1991, Vol. 8, No. 24.

12 The Commission had been appointed in 1978; its report was submitted to parliament early in 1982 and shelved by successive Congress governments. The report called for 27% of jobs in government service to be reserved for castes whose members were ‘socially or educationally backward’, a substantial increase over earlier quotas. There were violent, often tragic, protests by higher caste groups. Bihar is a strife‐torn state of some 60 million – caste Hindus 60%, scheduled castes 15%, Muslims 14%, Tribals 8.6%, Christians 1 %.

13 For a brief assessment of the evidence, see Austin, D. and Gupta, A., ‘The Hand, the Lotus and the Wheel’, Round Table, issue 132, 01 1992.Google Scholar

14 Taken together, UP and Bihar, at the heart of the Hindu north, return 132 of the 543 members of the Lok Sabha. In local parlance, Congress (I) lost the Ram (Hindu) vote to the BJP in UP and the Man(dal) backward caste vote to the Janata Dal in Bihar.

15 e.g. Kerala where 22% of the population is Christian, almost 20% Muslim. Scheduled caste Hindus number about 8 %. At the other end of the country, West Bengal clings to its Marxist past, although the BJP has a strong minority position.

16 Statesman, 15 March 1992, cf. Times of India, 17 March: ‘The party's dilemma was made plain: while veterans like Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mrs Vijaya Raja Scindia and Mr Sikander Bakht praised the budget, the party president, Dr Murli Monohar Joshi, chose to denounce it.’.

17 At its own conference at Lucknow in March, 1992, the RSS called for a new movement on behalf of ‘Hindu manufactures’, including ‘all‐India toothpaste, soaps and shampoos’. As The Times observed, ‘the BJP top brass will have to keep a close eye on their own consumption. If Mr Joshi or Mr Vajpayee is caught wearing a Japanese watch or using an imported pen or sipping a “banned” soft drink… he had better have a good story ready. Greater men have slipped on a bar of soap’ (16 March 1992).

18 ‘Can the BJP's Rama, in addition to a thousand temples, also provide roti – not romali‐roti but just plain dal‐roti?’ Letter to the authors from Professor Anirudha Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

19 ‘Aurangzeb demolished the Viveswara temple at Benares in 1669 – replacing it with a mosque – and the beautiful Keshava Deva temple at Mathura.’ Percival Spear, India, Michigan, 1972, p. 143.

20 Advani was arrested in Bihar in November 1990 after his march to Ayodhya. It was then that the BJP withdrew its support for V. P. Singh and brought about the downfall of the government.

21 In Uttar Pradesh, for example, the challenge has come from an alliance of the politically discontented – Muslims, scheduled castes, Congress, Marxists and local parties. The initiative was taken at the end of 1991 by the Samajwadi Janta Party under Mulayam Singh Yadav, the former Chief Minister. ‘My party and those prepared to join with us have to work for Hindu‐Muslim unity. The Ayodhya controversy has to be solved through negotiations… As far as killings and so on in riots and communal rancour, I have no doubt that the BJP has a hand in them. It is assuming fascist forms… All attempts should be made to unite secular forces to fight the BJP government’ (Frontline, 20 Dec. 1991).

22 Naipaul's, V. S. phrase in India: A Million Mutinies Now, London, Heinemann, 1990, p. 517.Google Scholar

23 For a full discussion, see Peter, Lyon, ‘South Asia and the Geostrategies of the 1990s’, Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 1, 1992.Google Scholar

24 Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 2, London, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 97.