The BJP has transformed the Indian political ecosystem into a ‘BJP System’, resembling the ‘Congress System’ of the past. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee opined in 1952 that one-party dominance would push towards a ‘malevolent dictatorship’. Unlike the ‘Congress System’, the ‘BJP System’ is less inclusive, less accommodating, and less liberal. This illiberalism and social exclusivity of the ‘BJP System’ would be detrimental to the progress of not only the party but the nation as well. To find a solution to this predicament and look forward confidently, the BJP must look back into its past ideological pronouncements and reclaim its past liberal hues.
The Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 as a conservative-liberal alternative to the socialist-leaning Indian National Congress. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, president of the Hindu Mahasabha since 1944, stood for an inclusive party. He believed the Hindu Mahasabha should no longer be restricted to Hindus alone. Mookerjee stated that the Hindu Mahasabha could abandon its communal composition and “reorient its policy and throw its doors open to any citizen, irrespective of religion, who may be willing to accept its economic and political program.”
But the Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha met in Delhi on November 6–7, 1948, and decided to restrict the party’s membership only to Hindus. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee resigned from the Hindu Mahasabha in protest against this decision. He stated that “if the majority community itself retains its political exclusiveness, it would inevitably encourage the growth of communal political organisations representing the interests of various minority groups within the country itself, leading to highly prejudicial results.”
It is crystal clear that Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, patriarch of the Jana Sangh and the BJP, stood for a party accommodating all Indian citizens irrespective of caste and religion. It was declared that the Jana Sangh would strive to ensure full protection and equal citizenship rights for all minorities. He argued that the Congress could only look after Muslims with police and guns, but the Jana Sangh would see to their interests with ‘love and sincerity of purpose’. The early leadership of the Jana Sangh did have minority representation. Its first president of Madras State was Dr V K John, a devout Roman Catholic. Its secretary in Jammu and Kashmir was Shaikh Abdul Rehman.
Bruce D Graham, in his Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1990), wrote that the party’s first manifesto gave an important indication as to where the party was trying to place itself in relation to other groups. “As far as economic and social issues were concerned, it was for adopting a liberal rather than a conservative approach, envisaging reforms where they would enhance the independence and freedom of producers but assuming a restricted role for the State in the regulation of economic life. It declared itself for economic and administrative decentralisation.”
The party’s manifesto stated its faith in equal rights for all Indian citizens irrespective of caste, creed and community, and declared that it would not recognise minorities and majorities based on religion. The Central Working Committee of the Jana Sangh declared in 1965 that there should be no political bargaining with Indian Muslims, and they must be guaranteed all constitutional rights due to them in the secular State.
“The BJP emerged as a new party in 1980 out of the debris of the Janata Party. It had a new name, a new party symbol, and a new start, but it retained the Jana Sangh DNA,” writes Nalin Mehta in The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party. The BJP has to reinvigorate its Jana Sangh DNA.
Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya, president of the Jana Sangh in 1967–68, presented ‘Integral Humanism’ in 1964. He explained the essence of the equations emerging from the thought of integral humanism through a ‘cube’. Principles of individualism and socialism enshrined in Western philosophy provided the backdrop for Integral Humanism. Upadhyaya presented the cube of integration of individual and society, based on the equations emerging from the four principles of Shiksha, Karma, Yogakshema, and Yagya that pave the path for attaining the four objectives of life: Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha. The BJP adopted Integral Humanism as its ideology in 1985.
“The ideal of the Indian State has been Dharma Rajya. Tolerance of and respect for all faiths and creeds is an essential feature of the Indian State. Freedom of worship and conscience is guaranteed to all, and the State does not discriminate against anyone on the grounds of religion either in the formulation of policy or in its implementation. It is a non-sectarian State and not a Theocracy,” Upadhyaya wrote in his Integral Humanism: An Analysis of Some Basic Elements. The BJP has to strive for Upadhyaya’s concept of Dharma Rajya.
Upadhyaya advocated individual freedom. He argued that freedom is a natural urge for both the individual and the nation. “Non-interference by the State in natural interests of individual and society constitutes political freedom. The condition in which society contributes to the individual’s natural progress is social freedom. Like democracy, freedom too is indivisible. Without political freedom, it is impossible to have the other two freedoms.” Upadhyaya’s ideological pronouncements are reminders for the BJP. The party is at the peak of its glory and invincibility today. Now the BJP has to rise and live out the true meaning of its creed, as enunciated by its founding fathers—Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and Pt Deendayal Upadhyaya.
Faisal C K
Under Secretary (Law) to the Government of Kerala