Come October 21, a unique journey of patriotism-centric politics, started on this day in 1951, will be completing 75 long years. The day marks the founding of Bharatiya Jana Sangh by Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
BJS came into existence at a conference held at the Raghomal Kanya Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Delhi. The rectangular saffron flag was accepted as its standard and a ‘deepak’ inscribed on it was declared its election symbol.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had not only blessed this new political party but also had spared some of its eminent pracharaks for this new entity. The establishment of the BJS was important for multiple reasons. It was a political party which had patriotism at the centre of its scheme of things. In the pre-independence era, the Congress had become synonymous with patriotism, not post-1947. This was because most symbols of patriotism were cultural, and when culture came into the discussion, the Hindu way was bound to dominate. Because of this reason the Congress accepted truncating of ‘Vande Mataram’ in 1937, which previously had not been objected to by the Muslims.
Post-independence, this approach continued. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed President Rajendra Prasad’s participation in the inauguration ceremony of the re-built Somnath temple. It was the same perverse mindset that prompted Nehru to go ahead with the Nehru-Liaquat pact which was, according to Mookerjee, indifferent to the interests of Hindus in Pakistan. The story behind the Congress not introducing a uniform civil code—in spite of a constitutional mandate and several Supreme Court rulings—or not abrogating Article 370 is the same which is ‘not to hurt Muslim sentiments’ even at the cost of unity and integrity of the country.
Successive Congress governments, accustomed as they were to pander to sectarian pressure; carried this further with a law protecting migrants from Bangladesh. The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 brought by Indira Gandhi was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005 . However, bent on protecting the vote bank, the Manmohan Singh government tried to circumvent the court verdict and issued an order recreating a setup similar to the old Act where the complainant/State—and not the accused—had to face the burden of proving that the migrant is not an Indian citizen.
After Indira, it was Rajiv Gandhi’s turn to compromise at the cost of justice for vote-bank politics. In order to overturn the court verdict in the Shah Bano Begum case, he introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act. This Act restricted a husband's financial liability to the iddat period and shifted long-term maintenance obligations to relatives or the Waqf Board. This was a blatant rejection of the Shah Bano judgement. Later, PM Narasimha Rao introduced the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 aimed at placating Muslims.
The BJS, and later the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been the only pan-India forces that have challenged the politics of appeasement by the Congress. Besides, of the 2,800-odd registered political parties in India, the BJP is a rare one that does not go by dynastic rule at the top. Also, with most political parties adopting left-of-centre ideology and wearing so-called progressivism on their sleeves, BJS-BJP stood out as the first major ideological and organisational voice for cultural nationalism and civilisational identity in post-independence India.
As against socialistic economic approaches of others, BJS-BJP adopted integral humanism and presented a more holistic, integrationist thought as its distinct ideology. It provided a socio-economic framework that balanced individual dignity, societal harmony and cultural roots against both Western capitalism and State socialism.
BJS-BJP established that even without adopting socialist ideology, one can take an egalitarian policy perspective, thereby shedding the tag of being Rightist. A case in point is the BJS’s stand on the Land Ceiling Acts. In 1960, when a variation of the legislation was introduced in the Rajasthan Assembly, the national BJS leadership decided to support it. But when five out of six BJS MLAs wanted to oppose the Bill, the party showed them the door. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was the sole member who supported the Bill and continued with the party’s policy. Later, it was the same Shekhawat who conceived the idea of the landmark Antyodaya scheme, a pioneering poverty alleviation programme for the rural poor.
The tenures of both BJP Prime Ministers have been exceptional on governance. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, first and foremost, established that non-Congress governments can also complete full terms. Besides, courageously moving ahead with Pokhran-II; teaching Pakistan a tough lesson at Kargil; passing the historic Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002; seamlessly carving out Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand; undertaking Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for enhancing school enrolment were the landmark success stories of the Vajpayee regime.
The Narendra Modi government has created a record of sorts on other fronts. His era remains singular for its application of cultural nationalism in global relations. It was under his regime that India became an exporter of defence products for the first time, including the Brahmos missile. It was Modi who mooted and implemented new ideas like the International Solar Alliance and a Global Traditional Medicine Centre at Jamnagar, Gujarat. On domestic governance, the accmplishments include building digital public infrastructure through Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-mobile trinity, introducing Goods and Services Tax and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, abrogating Article 370, criminalising triple talaq, passing the Women's Reservation Bill, and replacing colonial-era criminal laws with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Looking back, one can say that post-independence Congress enjoyed power without any overarching ambition for civilisational advancement. No wonder, by 1957, people started exclaiming that the ‘gora sahib’ has been replaced by the ‘kala sahib’. The lack of drive to shape up an aspirational society made the Congress brand of governance largely status-quo- oriented. BJP governments were able to shake that and bring in a new idiom of governance. No small achievement this!
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe | President, Asiatic Society of Mumbai, and member, National Executive Committee, BJP
(Views are personal)
(vinays57@gmail.com)