Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
South Asia Bulletin, Vol. XIV No. 1 (1994)
The BJP: Political Mobilization for Hindutva
Manini Chatterjee
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been re-
garded, both by its supporters and adversaries, as
the most striking phenomenon in the Indian politi-
cal scene over the last few years. From a mere two
seats in the Lok Sabha in the 1984 elections, the
party managed to become the main opposition fol-
lowing the 199 1 general elections. More important,
the BJP’s open advocacy of Hzndutva (the move-
ment for Hindu self-assertion and nationhood) and
the support this has gained among important sec-
tions of the people and the establishment has
threatened the secular basis of the Indian Republic
as never before since Independence in 1947. The
BJP’s ascendancy on the Indian political scene has
led many to assume that it possessed a clear-cut
ideology and charted out a well thought out strat-
egy of growth which enabled it rapidly to expand
its base. The BJP leadership has been credited with
uncommon political acumen and clarity of purpose.
However, a detailed chronological study of the
BJP’s rise and an analysis of the factors that helped
it belie such an assumption. The BJP has been
through different phases and its leaders have spo-
ken in many voices. This cannot be dismissed
merely as a tactic to camouflage its real intentions.
One of the reasons for this is that the BJP, to a
large degree, has been a party in the making. Ever
since its formation in 1980, the party has tried out
different methods to become the “national alterna-
tive” and finally achieved some measure of success
only after obliterating its independence as a politi-
cal entity to become an appendage of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) combine. The rapid
gains it has achieved by this association, thus, may
also prove to be its nemesis. But before predicting
the future, one must have a clear understanding of
the past. For the purposes of this article, the study
is confined to the BJP and does not include a de-
14
Published by Duke University Press
tailed look at its predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana
Sangh (1959-77).
Since its formation in 1980, the BJP has already
gone through three broad phases and is now in its
fourth phase. The first phase, under the president-
ship of Atal Behari Vajpayee, was from 1980 to
1986. The second phase can be dated from the time
La1 Krishna Advani became president in 1986 to the
general elections of 1989. The third phase, which in
turn can be sub-divided into two or three distinct
sub-phases, goes up to November 1993 when the
BJP faced a big setback in the assembly elections in
four northern states. The BJP has since entered the
fourth phase. It must be noted that these phases are
not water-tight compartments and do not indicate
basic shifts in the BJP’s character and outlook. The
BJP was and remains a right wing party whose ap-
parent flexibility and dynamism is actually aimed at
preventing any radical onslaught on the power
structure of the present system while using the
space provided by the bourgeois democratic system
to further a reactionary agenda. This article, how-
ever, concentrates on the phased trajectory of the
BJP’s growth; the various factors that helped it,
such as the maneuvering within the framework of
“opposition” politics, the mass mobilization on the
Ramjanmabhumi/Babri Masjid issue by the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) and RSS, the compromising
role towards Hindu communalism played by the
Indian state under Congress (I) rule; and the social
forces that formed the BJP’s expanded base.
Seeking A Fresh Identity: 1980-1986
On the eve of the 1977 general elections, the
Bharatiya Jana Sangh merged itself into the Janata
Party which swept to power on the strength of the
anti-Emergency wave. The “Janata experiment” did
not last long because of the basic contradictions be-
tween its constituents, manifested in ugly personal
bickering and faction fighting. The differences ac-
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
quired an ideological color with a number of Janata
leaders from the socialist stream focusing their bat-
tle on the erstwhile Jana Sangh contingent over
what became known as the “dual membership” is-
sue. It was feared that the Jana Sangh contingent,
with its more disciplined organization and ideologi-
cal (RSS) moorings, would use the Janata platform
to increase its strength, infiltrate the state appara-
tus and further its ideological motives. The anti-
Jana Sangh group maintained that the erstwhile
Jana Sanghis continued to be guided by the RSS
and they could not be members of both the Janata
Party and the RSS. The Jana Sanghis, then as now,
insisted that the RSS was a “cultural” organization
and belonging to the RSS did not conflict with their
political identity. This was a specious plea because
the influence of the supra-political RSS was evident
and the Jana Sanghis never merged their identity
completely in the Janata. The Jana Sangh group left
the Janata Party and after the 1980 elections, which
saw the return of Indira Gandhi to power, they
formed the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Significantly, they did not reconstitute the old
Jana Sangh but formed a new party which retained
much of the Jana Sangh legacy but tried to expand
upon it and appear as something new. The new
BJP, under Atal Behari Vajpayee who had culti-
vated the image of a “liberal statesman” (enhanced
by his stint as foreign minister in the Janata gov-
ernment), tried to fashion itself as a broadly centrist
party, inspired both by its “nationalist” Jana Sangh-
RSS legacy and the more encompassing politics of
Jayaprakash Narayan. The attempt was to show the
BJP as having evolved from the narrow and stri-
dent “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” politics of the Jana
Sangh to become a more mature and benign forma-
tion which would use its organizational and behav-
ioral distinctness (from the rest of the non-left
opposition parties whose politics was often marked
by petty personal squabbles and fragmentation) to
occupy the anti-Congress space.
In later years, Advani has often asserted that he
should not be credited with having brought the BJP
closer to the RSS. The very formation of the BJP,
brought on by the dual membership issue, meant
that the BJP and the RSS were inextricably linked.
But the record shows that the BJP, in its initial
years, consciously moved away from the RSS and
tried to project itself as an independent party, many
of whose members may have been molded and in-
spired by the RSS but not controlled or even guided
by it. Vajpayee instead emphasized “Gandhian so-
cialism” and exhorted party cadres to concentrate
on Sangathan, Sangharsh and Sanrachna (organiza-
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Published by Duke University Press
tion, struggle and constructive work) to build the
party. At the same time, he pursued the politics of
alliances and formed the National Democratic Alli-
ance (NDA) with Charan Singhs Lok Dal which
failed to create much impact in the opposition scene.
The BJP’s “moderate” phase has often been attrib-
uted to Vajpayee’s personality but this is a facile ar-
gument. Like other opposition parties who were
demoralized by their short-lived victory and the re-
turn of Congress (I) t o power, the BJP was still
floundering and seeking an identity. From experi-
ence it had learnt that despite efforts to become a
fervent nationalist party on the claims of champion-
ing “Hindu” interests, the Jana Sangh had failed to
make much headway in its quarter century of exis-
tence except as part of opposition combines. BJP
members, particularly those from RSS backgrounds,
may have harbored nebulous notions of a Hindu
rashtra but it was remote from the day-to-day poli-
tics in which a functioning political party is im-
mersed. In any case, the upper caste, power-seeking
Hindu elite, which formed the backbone of the Ne-
hruvian establishment, was secure in a secular state,
and unmoved by the communal rhetoric of the Jana
Sangh. Since the Jana Sangh had miserably failed to
become the ruling class alternative to the Congress,
the BJP thought it would try a different tactic,
pushing communal issues and its RSS links to the
background.
The BJP formally started changing course after
Advani became party president in 1986, but the real
turning point was the general elections held in the
aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in De-
cember 1984. A badly mauled BJP won only two
seats in the Lok Sabha. I t was not just the igno-
minious defeat but the reasons behind it that set the
BJP leadership thinking. While the BJP was trying
to shed its Jana Sangh past, the Congress (I) under
India Gandhi had started flirting with the “Hindu”
vote, which first became evident in the Jammu elec-
tions in 1983. She was also accommodating towards
the Ekatmata yagna launched by the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad, the organization’s first attempt at mass
mobilization by mixing the heady brew of national-
ism and Hindutva. T h e tentative moves made by
Indira Gandhi became the central motif of Rajiv
Gandhi’s election campaign when he won an un-
precedented mandate by raising the specter of na-
tional disintegration at the hands of minority
secessionism. T h e focus was on Sikh extremism in
Punjab and the assassination of his mother by her
Sikh bodyguards. T h e killing of thousands of Sikhs
in Delhi and other north Indian cities in November
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
that year formed the grotesque background to the
Congress (1)’selection campaign.
While opposition parties tried to dismiss the
1984 verdict as abnormal and attributed it to the
“sympathy wave,” the BJP realized it reflected
something more fundamental. It indicated that the
elusive “Hindu vote” which they had been chasing
since Independence and given up as lost, was actu-
ally in the making. However, instead of it being ac-
quired by a Hindu party, it was being usurped by
the Congress (I). The “Hindu vote” did not mean
that all those under this broad category (85 percent
of the population) were suddenly communalized.
What it indicated, however, was the intensification
of the crisis faced by the ruling class following the
slow disintegration of the Nehruvian enterprise to
build a quasi-socialist, liberal, humane socio-
economic order with secularism as one of the pri-
mary bases of the Indian republic. The growing
failure of the Indian State to provide hope or stabil-
ity, manifest in a “million mutinies” including
threats of secessionism, is a complex question but
suffice it to say that sections of the ruling elite were
ready to use the stridency and authoritarianism of
Hindu nationalism as a fallback to retain their slip-
ping hegemony.
The 1984 verdict had an immediate fall out on
the BJP. The party set up a committee under gen-
eral secretary Krishan La1 Sharma to study the
causes of defeat on the basis of a questionnaire sent
to party members. The answers were only to be ex-
pected. Most party members felt that the main rea-
son for the defeat was that the BJP had lost its
earlier Hindu identity and it now must try to re-
furbish this and organizationally come closer to the
RSS. At the organizational level, a major lesson of
the 1984 elections was that the BJP could not take
RSS support for granted. Though there is no abso-
lute proof, it is commonly believed that RSS cadres
voted for the Congress (I) in 1984 and played a
crucial role in Rajiv Gandhi’s victory. There may
not have been any formal directive to do so, but the
strident “nation in danger” theme of the campaign
is certain to have struck a chord not only among
sympathizers but also among active RSS cadres.
The RSS, time and again, had made it clear that it
was more interested in reaching the goal of Hindu
rashtra rather than the vehicle by which it reached
that goal. In fact, but for Jawaharlal Nehru’s deep
suspicion of the RSS brand of nationalism, the RSS
would have readily joined hands with the Congress
rather than help the Hindu Mahasabha leader,
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, set up the Jana Sangh in
1950-51.’ The crux of the general secretary’s re-
16
Published by Duke University Press
port, though not in as many words, was that the
BJP must acquire a distinct identity and get back to
the RSS fold. It was against this background that
Advani took over as party president at the BJP’s
plenary session in New Delhi in May 1986.
A Two-Track Strategy: 1986-1989
By the time the plenary session was held, the
party leadership had already decided to retrace its
steps. At the end of the three-day session, an exul-
tant Vijayaraje Scindia who had always championed
the “Hindu” group, said, “We must try to imbibe
the spirit of sacrifice that the Jana Sanghis used to
have. W e are taking a new path or rather rediscov-
ering the old p a t h (The Telegraph, May 13, 1986).
T o signal the new path, the BJP decided to empha-
size three demands from its old agenda: abrogation
of Article 570 which recognizes Jammu and
Kashmir’s special status; the replacement of the Mi-
norities Commission by a “Human Rights Commis-
sion” and Uniform Civil Code. All three had been
mentioned in the BJP statements from the outset,
but now they received a new emphasis. The party
also brought back Deendayal Upadhyaya’s woolly
concept of “integral humanism” to the forefront and
pushed “Gandhian socialism” to the background.
Both these terms have little substance in terms of
actual policy but are more in the nature of key
words which denote a special meaning to the rank
and file. “Gandhian socialism” denoted the BJP’s
efforts to distance itself from the past and become
part of the mainstream while “integral humanism”
was a signal that it was going back to its roots.
But more than any of these demands, two crucial
decisions taken by the Rajiv Gandhi government
helped the BJP immensely in its efforts at becoming
a party of Hindu nationalism. These were the gov-
ernment’s decision to overturn the Supreme Court
verdict on the Shah Ban0 case by adopting the
Muslim Women’s (Protection of Rights on Di-
vorce) Bill in May 1986 and the opening of the dis-
puted Ramjanmabhumi temple at Ayodhya for
public worship in February the same year. The Ra-
jiv Gandhi government’s capitulation to the funda-
mentalists in the Muslim community on the Shah
Ban0 issue caused widespread outrage. The BJP
seized upon this to show that successive Congress
governments and the rest of the political establish-
ment had consistently “pandered to the Muslim
minority in order to gain block votes. In 1986, the
Muslim Women’s Bill provided much more ammu-
nition to the BJP than the RamjanmabhumVBabri
Masjid issue. In fact, right up to 1989, the BJP did
not formally support the temple agitation move-
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
ment. Two months after the Faizabad court order
allowing public worship at the disputed temple,
when asked about the party’s stand on the issue,
Advani merely said, “We have never spoken earlier
but we feel the court has given a judgment and you
should abide by it and if you appeal to a higher
court, it is a different matter. An appeal has been
made” (Interview in The Telegraph, April, 1986).
Contrast this with his post-1989 stance that the
Ayodhya dispute should be solved through nego-
tiation or legislation not through “litigation.”
The year 1986 was thus crucial for the BJP and
the Hindutva forces as a whole. The 1984 elections
had shown the effectiveness of intertwining na-
tionalism and religious identity but the problem
before the BJP was that Congress had reaped the
advantages by targeting the Sikh minority. Advani
later admitted that “in the 1984 elections, in large
parts of north India which are more directly con-
cerned with the happenings in Punjab, the Con-
gress party played the so-called Hindu card. But I
would describe it not as a Hindu card but an anti-
Sikh card. In the mood prevailing at the time, it cer-
tainly hurt us. Our stand and physical exertions to
save the Sikhs hurt us electorally” (Interview in The
Telegraph, May 4, 1989). In general, the refusal of
the Hzndutva forces to use Sikh extremism as the
basis to forge Hindu nationalism stems from two
reasons. The primary reason is that Hindutva ideo-
logues have always considered Sikhs to be part of
the Hindu brotherhood and do not harbor the
pathological antipathy towards the Sikhs that they
do towards the Muslims (and Christians and com-
munists). This ideological position was further in-
tensified during the Partition riots when Sikhs were
seen as the protectors against the Muslim enemies.
Since the Partition has been the most emotive influ-
ence on the minds of the present BJP/RSS leader-
ship in north India, they have refrained from taking
anti-Sikh positions, the main reason that there were
no communal riots in Punjab even in the worse
days of terrorism. (This pro-Sikh attitude may not
hold true for the younger cadres and the Hindutva
forces’ sympathetic attitude towards other “Hindu”
minorities-Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, e t c . - c a n n o t be
taken for granted for all times to come). And so in
1986, when the BJP was groping for an issue that
would enable it to take up the communal cause, Ra-
jiv Gandhi offered them two potent issues on a plat-
ter.
While the Muslim Women’s Bill provided am-
munition to Advani in his battle against “minority-
ism,” it was the Ramjanmabhumi issue which was to
enable the Hindutva forces, including the BJP, to
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Published by Duke University Press
mount its biggest challenge to the Indian republic.
But though the BJP had taken up the Ramjanma-
bhumi issue in 1984 and the whole temple
“liberation” movement received a major fillip in
1986, the BJP did not openly identify itself with it
till June 1989. Why?
Because from 1987 onwards, a more important
development consumed the Indian political scene-
the V.P. Singh phenomenon. In early 1987, the
country was rocked by the “Bofors scandal”-the
revelations that the Swedish armaments company,
Bofors, had paid kickbacks at the highest levels of
the Indian government to secure the sale of howit-
zers to India. Bofors and other scandals symbolized
the corruption and callousness that had become a
characteristic of the ruling class in India and Rajiv
Gandhi, initially hailed as “Mr. Clean,” rapidly lost
his popularity. V.P. Singh who quit the Rajiv Gan-
dhi government and led the crusade against cor-
ruption, soon became the rallying point for
opposition politics. T h e BJP, the party closest to
the (particularly lower) middle class, was quick to
see the potential of V.P. Singh and the need to latch
on to him. Advani commended V.P. Singh as a man
“who had built up over the last two years a remark-
able image of honesty and straightforwardness”
(Hindustun Times, April 18, 1987). Sensing the
growing anti-Congress (I) mood in the country, the
BJP made fervent efforts to be part of the main-
stream opposition under V.P. Singh. At a time
when the rest of the non-left parties were suspicious
of V.P. Singhs ascendancy, the BJP started assidu-
ously wooing him and at its national executive
meeting in Delhi from July 24-26, formally took the
decision to extend full support to V.P. Singh’s cam-
paign against the government.
But the BJP’s bid to climb on to the opposition
bandwagon was resolutely resisted by the Left par-
ties led by the CPI(M) general secretary, E.M.S.
Namboodiripad. The Left launched a sustained
campaign warning the rest of the opposition of the
real communal nature of the BJP and its links with
the RSS and made it clear that they would not be
part of any “all-opposition” unity. T h e CPI(M) and
CPI both moved towards a two-pronged strategy-
the need to fight against the Congress (I) and iso-
late the BJP. The Janata experience had shown how
the Hindu communal forces took advantage of anti-
Congress discontent by becoming the party of a
combined opposition and then using this legitimacy
(and in 1977 state power) to carry out its own
agenda. A left-versus-BJP battle became the most
important feature of the remaining half of 1987 and
most of 1988. In statement after statement, the BJP
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
accused the Left of trying to sabotage opposition
unity and of being closet supporters of the Con-
gress (I). V.P. Singhs comment at this stage that
leftists were his “natural allies” angered the BJP but
it continued its efforts to be part of the opposition
combine. At the national executive meeting in
Jodhpur from October 10-18, 1987, the entire focus
was on the Left’s attempts to keep the BJP out of a
joint opposition front. The BJP accused the CPI(M)
of diverting the country’s attention from corruption
to communalism to help the Congress (I). The na-
tional executive meeting at Cochin (January 1-3,
1988) again focused on the Indian communists’
“record of betrayal” to national causes and the need
to stop them from hijacking the V.P. Singh-led
movement. The party’s plenary session at Agra in
April 1988 debated whether to accept V.P. Singh as
leader or concentrate on independent activity. It
kept the issue open with party leaders still keen on
being part of an opposition front and therefore re-
maining publicly aloof from the Ramjanmabhumi
campaign being carried out by the VHP. In June
1988, V.P. Singh won the by-election to Parliament
from the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat. Advani hailed
the result “as an important milestone which has
brought cheers and hope to the people desiring
change of government in Delhi” (Hindustun Times,
June 26, 1988). In the same round of elections, the
BJP lost the by-election in the Pali constituency in
Rajasthan because of the failure of seat adjustments
with the Lok Dal, teaching them an important les-
son. Despite “grassroots” work in its strongholds, a
divided opposition helped the Congress (I).
Towards the end of 1988, the BJP realized that
it could not be part of an opposition front and
started making a virtue of its isolation. At the time,
the discussions in the non-Congress parties re-
volved around three formulae of unity: merger, alli-
ance and seat adjustments. The BJP from the outset
was not keen on merger having decided to retain its
own identity. But it would have liked to be part of
the alliance of non-Left parties which was formed
under the label of National Front. The Left played a
major role in keeping the BJP out of an opposition
front. At the time, V.P. Singh was willing to lean
towards the Left (despite opposition from many in
his own ranks) not only because the CPI(M) led
three state governments but also to enhance his
overall image as the man of the masses. But despite
the efforts of the Left, it could not succeed in com-
pletely isolating the BJP. Having failed to became
part of a front, the BJP leadership for the first time
started criticizing the rest of the opposition parties
for their continuous bickering and portrayed itself
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Published by Duke University Press
as a party with a difference. At the national execu-
tive meeting in Ahmedabad in October 1988, the
main theme was “opposition credibility is more im-
portant than opposition unity.” It decided to carry
out its independent election preparations and
identified Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal
Pradesh and Delhi as its strongholds. It asked its
workers to start preparing for elections and be
ready for the bitter bargaining for seats in the seat
adjustment talks which would become inevitable as
elections drew near. The BJP knew that despite the
pressures of the Left, the National Front could not
afford to refuse adjustments with the BJP in its
strongholds.
While the BJP leadership was busy wooing the
opposition and refraining from commenting on
Ramjanmabhumi, the RSS and VHP were ferment-
ing communal passions in villages and towns
throughout the country. By early 1989, the BJP
leadership had decided to emphasize its “distinct-
ness,” confident that the grassroots work done by
the RSS affiliates and the compulsions of the oppo-
sition parties to have seat adjustments with it
would pay dividends in the elections. The main rea-
son for this shift from 1987-88 though was the
continuing squabbles in the non-Left opposition. By
the middle of 1988, the BJP was no longer sure that
a V.P. Singh-led combine would sweep to victory
and BJP leaders privately admitted that even if it
managed to win, the government would not last
long and the “1989-90 election would only be an
interim election” (The Tehgruph, June 20, 1989). It
was this understanding that finally made the BJP
take off the veil of moderation it had donned be-
tween 1986-1989 even after taking the decision to
go back to the RSS fold. The veil came off at the
crucial national executive meeting at Palampur held
in June 1989 when the BJP formally adopted the
resolution demanding that the government hand
over the disputed Ramjanmabhumi temple to “the
Hindus” and decided to forge an alliance with the
rabidly communal Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. The
BJP had thus cleverly worked at two tactics-
remaining a part of the anti-Congress opposition
till the elections and yet carving out, though the
mass mobilization of the RSS-VHP, a base of its
own. In the 1989 elections, the BJP was hailed as
the “real winner” of the elections but the victory
had much to do with the anti-Congress (I) mood
that could be garnered because of the seat adjust-
ments between the Janata Dal-led National Front
and BJP in the northern belt. The 1989 elections
provided the launching pad for the BJP to make fur-
ther gains in the months to come.
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
Naked Hindutva: 1990-93
In the first few months of the minority V.P.
Singh government that both the BJP and the Left
parties supported from outside, the BJP tried to be-
have in a “responsible” manner and did not raise
contentious issues including the Ramjanma-
bhumi/Babri Masjid question. The main reason for
this was the assembly elections in March where the
BJP managed to secure majorities on its own in two
states and in coalition with the Janata Dal in Ra-
jasthan and Gujarat. By then, however, the VHP-
led sudhus and sunts having tasted victory by forcing
the Rajiv Gandhi government to allow shilunyus at
the disputed site in Ayodhya, had decided to carry
on the movement regardless of the BJP’s compul-
sions. The VHP-controlled Ramjanmabhumi Mukti
Sangharsh Samiti initially announced that it would
start construction of the temple from the shilunyus
site in February. Atal Behari Vajpayee and Jaswant
Singh, two leaders who still sported the “moderate”
label, issued an appeal urging them not to take a
confrontationist posture in view of the deteriorat-
ing situation in Kashmir. The VHP, after talks with
the prime minister, decided to give the government
four months to work out a solution.
But, as the bickering within the Janata Dal gov-
ernment became more intense, the BJP started dis-
tancing itself from the government and allied itself
more closely with the Ramjanmabhumi agitation.
In June, the VHP announced its plans to start tem-
ple construction from October 30, 1990 and Advani
in an interview to the RSS mouthpiece Punchjanyu
warned of the “biggest mass movement in history”
if the government adopted a confrontationist atti-
tude towards the kur sevuks of the VHP. At the na-
tional executive meeting in Madras in July 1990,
the BJP leadership asked its members to prepare for
a snap poll.
But the real provocation that made the BJP
wholly immerse itself in the Ramjanmabhumi issue
was V.P. Singh’s decision to implement the Mandal
Commission recommendations, reserving 27 per-
cent of government jobs for the backward castes.
Though it cautiously welcomed the decision and
only asked for the inclusion of the economic
criteria, the party’s rank and file were virulently
opposed to it. A BJP Member of Parliament, Dr J.K.
Jain, went on a hunger strike to protest the Mandal
decision and despite censure from Atal Behari
Vajpayee continued the fast with the backing of the
RSS. By September 1990, when the anti-reservation
movement led by upper caste students was setting
the country aflame, the entire RSS combine decided
to unleash the Ramjanmabhumi movement with all
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Published by Duke University Press
the strength at its command. The pronouncements
of various figures from this combine indicated a
concerted strategy. On September 5, the VHP
general secretary Ashok Singhal told the press in
Calcutta that the BJP would definitely withdraw
support to the National Front government if it
opposed the construction of the temple. On
September 10, the BJP all-India joint secretary
Giriraj Kishore said the same thing in
Bhubaneswar. On September 9, the BJP national
executive member Dr Jay Dubashi in a letter to
Advani demanded withdrawal of support while the
seven-member election strategy committee under
S.S. Bhandari unanimously recommended that the
Hindu card be played aggressively. On September
12, Advani announced to a packed press conference
his decision to undertake a 10,000 kilometer ruth
yatru from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya to
mobilize mass support against the “pseudo-secular-
ism” of all other political parties and in support of
building the temple where the Babri Masjid stood.
The ruth yutru demolished any dividing line that
may have still existed between the BJP as a separate
political entity and the RSS and VHP wedded to the
project of destroying secular India and replacing it
with a fascistic Hindu rushtru. The ruth yutru, as the
timing shows, was a direct response to the Mandal
decision which threatened the very basis of the
Hindutvu project. The upper castes and urban mid-
dle classes who formed the core of the BJP base
were angered by the party’s equivocal stand on the
Mandal issue. But at a more basic level, caste con-
flict was anathema to the RSS. Right from its in-
ception in 1925, the RSS has sought to gloss over
the deep intra-Hindu conflicts that threaten its up-
per caste base by marking out the Muslim as the
other, the enemy. The entire Ramjanmabhumi
movement acquired a new urgency followed the
Mandal decision and the rising consciousness
among the Dalits and backward castes that was
slowly gaining ground.
The air-conditioned DCM Toyota converted
into a tacky celluloid-inspired ruth and sporting the
BJP’s election symbol of a lotus was the most bra-
zen mixing of religion and politics that India has
ever seen. It was a turning point not only for the
BJP and the Hindutvu forces, but for India’s polity
as a whole. From the BJP’s point of view, the ruth
yutru was a stupendous success. It transformed Ad-
vani from a sober politician into a mass leader, ca-
pable of involving passion and frenzy. Thousands of
men and women in the villages and small towns of
north India lined the roads to see the ruth and
seemed wonder-struck at this new avatar of an
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
avenging Lord Ram. But the most vociferous and
visible section throughout the route of the ruth
yatra were the youth, sporting saffron scarves and
headbands, carrying trishuls and letting out wild
shrieks of “Jai Shri Ram” and assorted slogans di-
rected against the Muslim minority. It was these
militant, frenzied and fanatical boys and men who
formed the Bajrang Dal squads in the guise of kar
sevaks who attacked the Babri Masjid first on Octo-
ber 50, 1990 and finally pulled it down on Decem-
ber 6, 1992.
The groundwork for the success of the ruth yatra
had been done by the RSS and VHP. For over five
decades, the RSS and its numerous affiliates have
operated extensively in civil society and quietly
spread their tentacles in large parts of the country.
In the guise of “cultural” and “character-building’’
work, the RSS has managed to spread its ideology
to the extent of making it part of the common sense
of the urban and semi-urban lower middle and
middle classes. But the years 1988-90 were specially
significant. As mentioned earlier, the growing sense
of a pervasive crisis was making the RSS appeal,
with its macho Hindutva, much more attractive.
The RSS succeeded in using this ideological advan-
tage through organizational expansion. In 1989, the
RSS celebrated the birth centenary of its founder,
Keshavrao Baliram Hedgewar, throughout the
country. Though no official figures were main-
tained, the RSS estimated that it reached around
200,000 villages during the course of the year. RSS
activists were also the main force behind the VHP’s
ram shila campaign, the worship of bricks at the lo-
cal level before dispatching them to Ayodhya for
the building of the temple. According to VHP fig-
ures, shih pujas took place in 297,705 places and
close to 110 million people participated. The money
collected through the sale of coupons, priced at Rs
1.25, Rs 5, and Rs 10 amounted to Rs. 82,951,000.
The RSS activists vastly increased the “contact
places” (a contact place is any area where one or
two swayamsevaks managed to spread propaganda,
increase people’s awareness and sympathy) during
the course of these two campaigns and sought to
consolidate these gains by converting the contact
places into shakhas, the new-found sympathizers
into full-fledged activists. It was these RSS activists
and newly converted sympathizers (more of whom
joined the Bajrang Dal than the more disciplined
RSS) who were so visible throughout Advani’s rath
yatra.
But it would be incorrect to see the ruth yatra
simply as an extension of the RSS-VHP influence.
While the RSS/VHP may have provided the body
20
Published by Duke University Press
and the brawn, it was Advani who gave a face to the
movement. The decision of the BJP openly to asso-
ciate itself with the Ramjanmabhumi campaign
from the rath yatra onwards has a curious dialec-
tic-it gave the whole Hindutva campaign a certain
legitimacy while at the same time robbing the BJP
of its own legitimacy as a political party. This di-
chotomy continues to operate today. Till the ruth
yatra, the Hindutva forces despite their spread re-
mained essentially a fringe phenomenon, an ille-
gitimate attempt to subvert the secular state. But
once the BJP president, a respected member of Par-
liament and still a crucial ally of the government of
India in New Delhi, headed the campaign, it ceased
(in the eyes of large sections of the people) to be an
illegal, anti-democratic, anti-constitutional move-
ment. This crucial legitimacy bestowed by the BJP
and Advani upon the movement was in turn bol-
stered by the legitimacy lent to the party by the
ruling establishment.
Nowhere was this more evident than during the
historic Lok Sabha debate on November 7, 1990
when V.P. Singh sought a vote of confidence and
the fundamental issue of secularism was debated.
On October 23, Advani was arrested by the Laloo
Prasad Yadav government in Bihar leading to the
BJP’s withdrawal of support from the National
Front government and its subsequent fall. During
the November 7 debate, Lal Krishna Advani who
had, for the first time in Indian history, brought
down an elected government by pitting his version
of religion against the Indian state, on an issue
which had not been part of the understanding with
the Janata Dal at any stage before or after the 1989
election, was not held responsible for this betrayal.
Instead, he received a hero’s ovation not just from
his “Jai Shri Ram” chanting partymen but even
from members of the Congress(1) and the breaka-
way Janata Dal which was to form the rump
Chandra Shekhar government. The two main
speakers of the day, Rajiv Gandhi and Chandra
Shekhar, trained their guns on V.P. Singh and there
was not a word of condemnation for the irreparable
damage inflicted by the BJP on India’s secular re-
public. In their eagerness to get rid of V.P. Singh,
they relieved the BJP of the onus of spearheading
the most reactionary onslaught on the nation’s
secularism and democracy.
The attitude of the ruling establishment in Par-
liament found an echo outside: Advani was feted by
big businessmen in Calcutta and elsewhere. The re-
ception he received from the elite, prompted as it
was by a subliminal fear of “mandalization,” em-
boldened the BJP to become more and more ag-
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
gressive. Visiting Ayodhya on November 19, Ad-
vani said neither the paramilitary forces nor the
government “could guarantee the security of Mus-
lims. They would be secure only in a Hindu society
and a Hindu Raj” (Times of India, November 20,
1990). Oblivious of the frenzy and hatred and
bloody riots that the Ramjanmabhumi campaign
was evoking, Advani continued to maintain that his
was a political mission to renew a waning
“nationalism.” In an interview after the ruth yatra,
Advani dismissed as peripheral the belligerence of
the youth filled with anti-Muslim hatred that had
been such a central aspect of his rathyatra. He said,
“In such a big mass movement, if you highlight
these stray aspects, you are not doing justice to the
movement. I regard it as most significant that in
Ayodhya itself, no one touched the other 35
mosques...here was a situation where lakhs of peo-
ple, very passionate, very devoted, very committed
to the cause, descend on one small town and noth-
ing happens. What does it show-that basically
there is no anti-Muslim mood, there is no anti-
mosque mood” (The Telegraph, February 14, 1991).
Advani also maintained at the time that if he had
been allowed to reach Ayodhya on October SO, the
kar sevaks would not have touched the Babri Masjid
or planted the saffron flag. Less than two years
later on December 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid was
demolished in the presence of a galaxy of RSS, VHP
and BJP leaders including L.K. Advani.
Having taken the decision to plunge fully into
the movement, there was no going back for the
BJP. In March 199 1, Advani undertook a j a n jaga-
ran abhzjan in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh to
mobilize people to attend the VHP’s Boat Club rally
on April 4. Again, the same scenes of frenzy and ha-
tred were in evidence everywhere as the kasbas of
Uttar Pradesh, the crucial link between the rural
hinterland and the townships, became saffron
strongholds. In the climate of drift that was the
hallmark of the Chandra Shekhar regime, the Hin-
dutva forces gained further strength. The April 4
rally where the BJP top brass shared the dais with
an assortment of sants and sadhus including the
shrill Sadhvi Rithambara marked yet another step
in the BJP’s by-now-complete identification with
the Hindutva project. The general elections of 1991
were fought by the RSS-VHP-BJP as a combined
entity with Rithambara’s venomous speeches
forming a key feature of the campaign. Given the
steady erosion of the Congress(I), for long the natu-
ral party of the ruling class, and the divisions
among the opposition parties, the success of the
BJP in the elections was only to be expected. In fact
21
Published by Duke University Press
had Rajiv Gandhi not been assassinated in the
midst of the elections, the BJP might well have in-
creased its tally beyond 119 seats. The BJP’s real
gain was the victory in Uttar Pradesh, electorally
the most crucial state, but it was a double-edged
victory.
From the time it adopted the Palampur resolu-
tion in 1989, the BJP was interested in using the
Ramjanmabhumi agitation as a means of mass
mobilization to attain political power. The RSS-
BJP-VHP leadership, it would appear, saw a parallel
between the denouement of the agitation and inch-
ing towards power at the Center. Just as the agita-
tion was a step-by-step build-up, from the opening
of the gates, the shilanyas, the construction of the
outer gates, etc., towards the ultimate demolition of
the mosque and the building of the temple, the
BJP’s electoral gains would be a gradual accretion
till it gained power at the Center. The 1989 election
was the first stage in that scenario. However, the
victory in Uttar Pradesh upset this scheme. It
meant that the BJP could no longer be a purely agi-
tational force pressuring the government to take
steps to hand over the site to the Ramjanmabhumi
nyas. The BJP was in a position where it had to fur-
ther the movement not through agitation but by
governmental intervention. The fact that it won in
Lucknow but not in New Delhi eventually proved
to be the party’s biggest disadvantage. More impor-
tant, having unleashed a mass movement, the RSS-
BJP leadership could no longer retain complete
control of it. They were not able to dictate the pace
of the movement which had acquired an autono-
mous momentum by the entry of non-VHP sadhus
at the apex level and the influx of non-RSS cadres
at the mass level. It is significant that after the 1991
general elections, the BJP did not conduct any
movement at the mass level on the Ramjanma-
bhumi issue. It even refused to enter into direct
talks with the Narasimha Rao government on the
plea that it was a subject being handled by the sadhu
samaj. The Hindu religious establishment (insofar
as the VHP-led but not controlled movement can
be termed as such) were not willing to subordinate
their movement to the larger political interest of
the BJP. Though the BJP tried to leave its own im-
print upon the movement (by focusing on “pseudo-
secularism,” “minorityism,” etc.), it failed to modu-
late, direct or control it. But having taken the
plunge and become for all purposes a single-issue
party, the BJP had no choice but to go along with
it. While the Uttar Pradesh government had to
concede more and more ground in Ayodhya, the
other three state governments also had to sacrifice
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
the role of governance to the dictates of a mass
movement. On December 6, 1992 when thousands
of kar sevaks descended on Ayodhya, the leaders had
long surrendered all capacity to lead.
After the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the
dismissal of BJP-led state governments, the BJP en-
tered a state of drift. Its attempts at mobilizing
public opinion against the bill to separate religion
from politics failed to make headway. The party’s
state units, carried away by the leadership’s total
obsession with the Ayodhya issue, had neglected
the functioning of the state governments. At a more
basic level, the BJP had failed to produce policies
that could address the deep malaise in the socio-
economic system. In its strongholds, the BJP only
managed to be a tactical alternative to the Con-
gress(I), capitalizing on the people’s anger with the
incumbent government. But on coming to power, it
had nothing to offer that could address the underly-
ing causes of the discontent. Following the demoli-
tion of the Babri Masjid, it had no potent symbol to
rally the people around. Bereft of a theme that could
gloss over its lack of governance or bridge intra-
Hindu differences that were once again coming to
the fore, the BJP failed to get a majority in all the
four state governments it had ruled before the
demolition of the Babri Masjid.
An Uncertain Future
The November 1993 verdict has been the big-
gest setback since the BJP decided to carve out a
distinct identity and support base in 1986. It has
shown that the BJP cannot be trusted with govern-
ance, that the RSS ideology has failed to make
lasting inroads beyond a certain caste/class periph-
ery and that its organizational discipline cannot
stand up to the exigencies of bourgeois parliamen-
tary politics. The BJP, for the moment, has reached
a plateau and is still in the process of coming to
terms with its defeat and its consequences. But is it
a plateau from whkre it will descend or can it once
more serve as a base camp for a renewed and suc-
cessful assertion of Hindutva? While it is difficult to
predict the future path it takes, any underestimation
of the capacity of the Hindutva forces would be ex-
tremely facile.
As the above article has shown, the BJP has been
very adept at combining its status as a political
party within a functioning quasi-liberal democracy
with its role in a wider extra-parliamentary and ex-
tra-constitutional mass movement that threatens
this very democracy. But the BJP’s flexibility is not
so much its special attribute as a reflection of the
changing impulses within India’s ruling establish-
22
Published by Duke University Press
ment. At every stage of the Ramjanmabhumi agita-
tion, the government of India compromised and
helped it along. It was behind the opening of the
locks to the Babri mosque complex, it allowed the
shilanyas, it allowed the periodic kar seva, it stood
aside to allow the demolition and finally allowed
the rebuilding of a makeshift temple at the site thus
legitimizing the entire movement including the
demolition.
Barring the farcical arrests of a handful of lead-
ers and an equally farcical ban on the VHP, the
government failed to take any action against those
who demolished the mosque or those who went on
a killing spree. This is in sharp contrast to the bru-
tal use of state power unleashed time and again to
crush ethnic, regional, caste/class and minority
community challenges to the Indian state. The cen-
tral government’s attitude cannot be seen in isola-
tion. Important sections of the establishment have
displayed a certain softness towards the Hindutva
forces. This is revealed by the spate of senior retired
military men and bureaucrats joining the BJP, the
pronouncements of sections of the judiciary, and the
role played by the police and administration at the
height of the movement in Uttar Pradesh. By
championing the cause of the “Hindu majority,” the
BJP has automatically acquired the mantle of being
“nationalist” even if terrorist methods are employed
to further this brand of nationalism. The BJP lead-
ers, by virtue of belonging to the dominant
caste/class, are much more acceptable to the estab-
lishment and make full use of this.
The rapid gains made by the BJP in the 1989-91
period were also a result of the new social forces
that the party managed to attract. It is myopic to
see the BJP, like its predecessor the Jana Sangh, as
primarily a party of petty traders. The backbone of
the BJP has been the newly emerging middle class
in the small towns mushrooming all across the
country. This class includes the petty shopkeeper,
the local college and school teacher, the provincial
civil service officer, the district court lawyer, the
licensed medical practitioner. This class by nature
is insecure-jealous of the cosmopolitan English-
speaking elite and fearful of a mass upsurge from
below which could radically alter the status quo. It is
this class whose chronic insecurity can be manipu-
lated by right wing forces that provided the base
for the R W B J P . The numerical expansion of this
class in the decade of the eighties increased the
BJP’s support base in a big way. But in addition to
this class, there were two important accretions to
the BJP’s base. For the first time, sections of the
cosmopolitan, largely English-speaking and privi-
 Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
leged elite were impressed by the “sophistication” of
Advani and saw substance in his campaign against
“pseudo-secularism.” These sections may not have
been numerically significant but exert a dispropor-
tionate influence in the making of public opinion.
But much more important was a big swathe of
the rural mass who were moved by the religious
appeal of the Ramjanmabhumi campaign. Advani
himself spelt out the difference between the varying
responses his rathyatra evoked. In an interview, he
said, “I used to watch the people who came to see
the rath. I used to tell Pramod (Mahajan): watch
them-the elderly people, there is a piety and re-
ligiosity in their eyes. And in the 40 and below
group, there is a sense of elation, that pent-up feel-
ing that I was ignored for so long, at least there is
someone speaking for me now. So there is a relig-
ious Hindu and a political Hindu” (Times of India,
November 20, 1990).
The “religious Hindu” remained with the BJP
for the duration of the Ramjanmabhumi campaign
and appears to have deserted the party following
the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The “political
Hindu,” or the class of people who came to the BJP
because of the sense of insecurity accentuated by
the Mandal decision, is a shifting base. The new
economic reforms of the Narasimha Rao govern-
ment have, for the moment, given a sense of unlim-
ited opportunity to sections of the middle class and
petty trading and entrepreneurial class. The back-
ward castes and Dalits are being politicized to a
point where they can see through the inherent up-
per caste bias of the Hindutva forces. The Hindutva
base, for the moment, is shrinking. But the Hin-
dutva movement has not run its course. The BJP
has to operate within this contradictory parameter.
Unlike the RSS or VHP the BJP has to survive
as a political entity and therefore needs to fashion
its politics to shifting mass moods. Therefore, the
2s
Published by Duke University Press
immediate reaction from a powerful section in the
party after the November verdict was to
“mandalise” Hindutva-i.e., coopt the backward
castes into their fold. But this is difficult to imple-
ment and has already led to differences within the
BJP-RSS. For one, the BJP remains at heart a status
quo party which is incapable of carrying out radical
changes to empower the Dalits and backwards. The
second reason is the inherent contradiction between
its upper caste base and the new seekers of power.
Only in moments of extreme communal polariza-
tion can the BJP hope to override the caste contra-
dictions within Hindu society.
If the pattern followed by the BJP in the past 14
years of its existence is any indication, it will once
again resort to a two-track policy. It will try to op-
erate as a normal political party-taking up specific
issues against government policies, inching its way
back towards a larger opposition fold, cooperating
closely with the establishment on “national” issues
(such as Kashmir). At the same time, the BJP is un-
likely to risk distancing itself from the RSS. In the
present fluid situation in the country, it would be
premature to write off the immense potential the
Hindutva forces still possess and the BJP is aware of
this. The Hindutva forces thrive in a situation of
growing crisis. The economic policies of the gov-
ernment are bound, sooner or later, to result in a
many-sided crisis. If the left and secular forces fail
to channelize this discontent, the Hindutva forces
aided by the ruling establishment may once again
be pushed to the forefront. The BJP will again find
its own voice in the political arena and Parliament.
The future course of the BJP thus depends on the
degree and nature of the impending crisis.
Note
1. For details on this period, see Walter K . Andersen and
Shridhar D. Darnle, The Brothrhood in Sufron, Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1987.