5. Chapter 1 :
Chapter 2 :
Chapter 3 :
Chapter 4 :
Chapter 5 :
Chapter 6 :
Chapter 7 :
Chapter 8 :
Chapter 9 :
Chapter 10 :
Chapter 11 :
Chapter 12 :
Chapter 13 :
Chapter 14 :
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
From the Lamp to the Lotus
Rising Through the Ranks
Ideology: The Soul
The Tradition and Institution of Pravaas and Yatras
Shah’s Pravaas: Expanding the Footprints
The Journey: From 10 to 10 Crores
Reaching out to Every Booth
The Culture of Samvad
Modernising While Retaining the Essence
Read and Reflect
Shah’s ‘Mission UP’
At the Peak of Success
The Bridge
2019 and Challenges
Endnotes
Amit Shah’s Quotes
Selected Videos Links with QR Codes
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
6. I
FOREWORD
n public life continuously for the last four decades, Amit Shah has risen
today to become the national president of the world’s largest political
party. He also comes forth as the principle troubleshooter of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi who has successfully run a full majority government for the
last five years. Everyone knows the Amit Shah of national politics, but there
is perhaps hardly anyone who can definitively claim that they know
everything about him.
Starting from the early years of his political career to being elected
member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) in 2017, Shah has never lost an
election; it reflects his electoral and organisational acumen and tenacity. Over
the years, he has also emerged as a master in contesting elections and in
making others contest as well. Amit Shah’s unique capacity for strategising
elections is well recognised, but few know that electoral politics is only one
dimension of his personality.
Shah is also among those few leaders who like to break the status-quo and
to reject outdated methods of doing things. He has always come across as
quick to devise and to adopt new ways, displaying phenomenal organisational
abilities and an adept at crisis management. Amit Shah’s life cannot be bound
in a single tome, but one can certainly get an insight into a number of
unknown dimensions of his life from this book.
The first thing that one perhaps needs to learn from Amit Shah is how to
convert challenges into opportunities. He resolutely converted a very difficult
phase in his life into one that became a life-transforming period. There was a
time when, as we know, Shah faced police cases, had to leave Gujarat as an
exile on the order of the court and was compelled to live a cloistered
existence in Delhi. On the one hand, he was separated from his family, on the
7. other, he had to stay put in a new city, with people he did not know,
constantly doing the rounds of courts and unable to talk freely over the
phone, apprehensive that his calls were being monitored. Anyone else in his
shoes would have given up in despair and may have left politics altogether,
but not Shah. I have seen him face several crisis situations. Not only did Shah
work on each case with his lawyers meticulously, but he himself went into
details of each one of them and like an adroit lawyer planned every move. In
these trying times, one never saw him fatigued and worried, instead, he
always exuded a quiet confidence.
The most interesting aspect of Amit Shah’s life during this phase of trial
and tribulations was that he converted the compulsion of having to live in
Delhi in exile into an occasion for strengthening the various dimensions of
his life. Anyone who has the ability to convert a crisis into an opportunity and
does not fear struggle can never be defeated. Amit Shah repeatedly
demonstrated this indomitable ability.
Initially, the Delhi-based ‘Lutyen’s caucus’ saw Amit Shah as merely
Narendra Modi’s man Friday. They saw Shah as the key person who could
lead them to Modi. They never really tried to know Shah beyond this. Only
when he performed the historic electoral feat of winning 73 seats for the BJP
from Uttar Pradesh did they want to know him better. Those in the corridors
of power began wondering who he was and where he had come from. All
agreed that had Uttar Pradesh not seen such a result, one would not see a
stable Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
Whenever the ‘Lutyen’s consensus’ perceives someone who can weave
electoral victories from the grass roots and on difficult terrains, their
inquisitiveness increases. Everyone wanted to know someone who knew
Amit Shah. The inquisitiveness increased manifold, once Shah became the
national president of the BJP—everybody now wanted to connect with him.
But there were few who really knew Shah, and Shah himself met very few
people. Even in the national team that he put together to run the party, there
were very few who were widely known faces. Those in the corridors of
power in Delhi often find it difficult to evaluate such a personality and
8. despite trying their best, they could neither really understand Amit Shah nor
could they get through to him.
In the meanwhile, Shah had already started leaving his imprint on
national politics. Under his organisational leadership, the party began
winning a series of elections. The more he continued to emerge as a strong
and skilful strategist, the greater was the interest in him.
Amit Shah also established himself as a powerful orator and a section of
the national media in Delhi saw in him a leader who could resolutely and
convincingly riposte to their questions. Shah has never cared for criticism and
pays scant attention to advices proffered by the ‘Lutyen’s elite’. He did not
alter his style of functioning and was thus promptly labelled as arrogant. He
was patronisingly advised that since ‘You are president of the party, meet
people, meet party people freely and take everyone along.’ But Shah neither
changed his style of working nor did he alter his way of thinking and went on
to make the BJP the world’s largest party, a record.
Through the media and other mediums, he successfully communicated
with people. From Jammu and Kashmir in the north to Tripura in the
northeast, he ensured the BJP’s victory, while in Goa he outsmarted the
Congress. Ironically, when the BJP formed the government in Goa despite
having fewer seats, it was said by some that Amit Shah resorted to wrong
methods, while in Karnataka, despite being the largest party when the BJP
could not form a government, these same people exclaimed that Amit Shah
failed in forming a government. Shah, of course, is unmoved by such
criticisms. This attitude of his continues to be a mystery to the ‘Delhi class’.
Some may seem to know him but nobody actually does. It is for this, if not
for anything else, that a book on Amit Shah was much required.
Shah has adopted an innovative approach to electioneering. When it
comes to the selection of candidates, he emphasises winnability and pursues
scientific analysis. He has not given space to the culture of recommendations
and nepotism in the selection process. It was a difficult and risk-filled path
for him. But then Shah is known for altering tactics and to face challenges
9. head-on. To stick to his conviction and to do politics on his terms and in his
way is Shah’s trademark. He knows only too well that there is a great danger
in such an approach since a slight setback leads people to open up fronts
against him. What sets Amit Shah apart from many others is his insistence on
continuing on his chosen path without caring for such eventualities.
For those who know very little about Amit Shah but are interested in
knowing about him, this book will definitely be a helpful source. It will
certainly prove to be a valuable and detailed work which sheds light on his
political life, his political journey and his role in the BJP, from the party’s
early days to its present unfoldment.
—Rajat Sharma
Editor-in-Chief and Chairman, India TV
10. A
INTRODUCTION
renewed interest in the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) was perceived to be
growing around June 2013 when Narendra Modi was declared the chief of
the party’s election campaign for the 2014 general elections. In the days
and months to come, Modi would weave an impressive and dominant
narrative that would give rise to a strong and compelling emotion for change.
This would eventually grow into a massive wave that would sweep away the
Congress dispensation which had ruled India for a decade from 2004 to 2014.
Since May 2014, worldwide interest both in the Narendra Modi-led
government and the party—BJP—has kept growing. Interestingly, as we have
discussed in the pages of this book, both the government led by Modi and the
party led by Amit Shah have continued in their respective trajectories of
activities, innovation, performance and results and yet have been linked and
coordinated in their functioning.
The party that had systemically initiated, supported, sustained and upheld
the electoral struggle and narrative for India in 2014 did not recede into
complacency after the massive victory. Interestingly and fascinatingly, the
BJP, after its victory in 2014, launched itself on a mission of expansion, of
restructuring and of widening its activities and outreach. It directed itself into
sustained creative political programmes that eventually saw it, by 2018,
forming governments or being part of governments in twenty-one Indian
states that covers 70 per cent of India’s population. Its political narrative
became the dominant one with its political presence becoming pan-Indian.
This phase also saw the BJP decisively break out of the false stereotype of
being a ‘Hindi heartland party’—a stereotype that was imposed on it to suit a
certain political angle and motive.
11. This phase had also been a very creative one for the BJP, seeing as the
party achieved many landmarks, some of which actually redefined the
manner and dimension of the functioning of political parties while restating
their roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis society and polity.
Despite the near constant pressures and exigencies of a continuous cycle
of elections, the BJP has, from 2014 to the present, displayed a distinct effort
at evolving beyond the matrix and framework of being a mere electoral
machine or a political entity which comes to life and takes to action only
when elections are round the corner. In this, it has left far behind other
political formations—formations which are either family governed, dynasty
driven and election-oriented entities with no political creativity and scope for
expansion such as Rahul Gandhi-led Congress or those which are
increasingly faced with a shrinking membership base, ideological confusion
and depleting electoral footprints like the communist parties in India today.
Some of the milestones that have been reached in this phase have had a
great impact on the party as a whole. The BJP’s emergence as the largest
political party in the world through a unique membership drive, the creative
and imaginative countrywide training initiative for workers of the party, the
restructuring of the party and imparting it a modernised work ambience and
support system, its ideological self-renewal, its nationwide outreach, its
various dimensions and layers, its innovative and effective booth outreach
programme, enrolling young and dynamic workers from all strata of society
and from across the country as Vistaraks, the successful celebrations of
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya’s centenary through a series of innovative
political initiatives, the streamlining of the party’s functioning into
departments and projects, the massive victory in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in March
2017, the inroads and victories across the entire stretch of India's Northeast,
the resounding victory in Tripura and the cycle of electoral victories in
general across the country, the historic Yatra against political violence in
Kerala, the Yatra for the Tricolour and in remembrance of freedom fighters
are some of the many milestones that have defined the BJP’s journey from
the summer of 2014.
12. It is a journey which has distinctly energised the party’s overall approach
to its own political activities and programmes and has galvanised its rank and
file. It has begun to alter mindsets by articulating the contours of a different
political discourse. One of the greatest successes of the BJP during this phase
has been in its role as the bridge between its government at the centre and in
the states and the people at large. A bridge that reads and interprets emotions,
aspirations, reactions and hopes of the people and conveys it to its formation
in power—the government at the centre—and a conveyor belt which
successfully, creatively and continuously disseminates the vision of
transformative governance that Narendra Modi has articulated and acted upon
in these last four years that he has been in power.
Since 2014, the BJP has presented itself as an organism which is active
among people, which is active in itself through its various organs and units
and which is proactive in trying to continuously re-invent itself. These have
been years packed with creative and result-oriented action, years which have,
in a sense, seen the party evolve to a new level. It is only the hard-boiled
cynics or the diehard political adversaries who will refuse to see or
acknowledge the changes and the leap forward.
As a party, the BJP too has a narrative since the summer of 2014. There is
a story to record and recount. With the increasing interest in the BJP and an
increasing curiosity in its working, structure, philosophy, electoral and
expansion strategies, more and more scholars, commentators, observers and
wannabe authors have been focusing on the party and its trajectory since
2014.
The discussion has veered round to how the BJP wins, how the party
functions, how its president Amit Shah directs it, how its physical and
ideological structures are in the process of receiving fresh doses of energy
and direction and how Shah has turned it into a vast and disciplined machine
that is winning elections after elections while emerging as the centre of
Indian politics. Some of these readings have been shallow, perfunctory and
have succeeded to just scratch the surface while lacking any real
understanding of the fundamental changes that the party is witnessing today.
13. They have failed to grasp altogether the deeper raison d’être behind the effort
to upgrade and impart greater stability to the organs and units of the principal
edifice of the party. Some readings have been of a more serious nature; the
best narrator of the rise of the BJP during this period is perhaps Shah himself
and his programmes that speak for themselves.
However, most of the readings and narratives that have emerged have
been based on speculations, surmises and assumptions. The writers or
commentators have never had access to actual information, or even if they
had they never had access to the deeper details and the full information. At
times, when Shah himself spoke of these publicly—which was not often—
one could get an idea of the party’s workings, otherwise most of it was
speculative. A number of these reading attempted to fit the party and Shah
into predetermined moulds and stereotypes, often with an express political
and ideological motive and at times out of plain inability to understand the
workings of the mind which was driving such a varied change and expansion.
Closely following Shah’s presidency of the BJP for the last four years, we
often felt the need to come up with a narrative of these years relying on
authentic sources, material and information. The idea was to record the story
of these years so that it becomes an authentic source for any future evaluation
of the years when the BJP was headed by Shah.
Any present or future reading and evaluation of the BJP will have to base
itself on the years 2014 to 2019 and closely examine the party and its
trajectory during this crucial phase. It is crucial because it gives us an insight
into how the party conducted and drove itself while supporting a full majority
government at the centre for the first time in its history. While many
narratives have emerged, it was important for one more to emerge, one that
would be largely recounted from the inside.
We have had the opportunity of being at the ringside and having an inside
view of the organisational transformation, of the many activities that Shah
had initiated since taking over. We were closely involved in the activities of
some of the departments; we had the occasion to closely monitor Shah’s
14. countrywide tours and sitting through his meetings and also of participating
in some election activities. In short, we were within the system and yet on the
margins of it and this gave us a view, and at the same time enabled us to step
back and step in whenever it was needed to balance our reading and
understanding of the process. In fact, it was while closely following extended
Vistrit (a countrywide tour undertaken in 2017) and recording and
documenting it in great detail that we realised the magnitude of his planning
and the detailed and minute attention that he gave to every aspect of the
party’s functioning, its details and its result-oriented actions. In this entire
effort at an extended samvad that Shah undertook, we realised that the BJP
was, once again, passing through a crucial period of its history. It was a
period, therefore, which had to be documented.
In our attempt to sketch the trajectory of the BJP in these four crucial
years, we were often reminded of the likes of Craig Baxter, the first historian
to narrate the rise and growth of the Jana Sangh with a dispassionate and yet
sympathetic approach and of those who had helped and assisted him, all our
first generation leaders of the party, like the iconic Pandit Deendayal
Upadhyaya himself, L.K. Advani, J.P. Mathur and K.R. Malkani. Our effort
in recording the rise and growth of the BJP in these four years is somewhat
similar to what Baxter did over fifty years ago. It is an authentic and yet not a
hagiographic reading of Shah’s presidency of the party.
We too were helped and encouraged by a number of leaders of our
generations, who understood the importance and centrality of such a
narrative, who were supportive, helpful and yet not obtrusive. There were
many who did not know that they were being interviewed, while we spoke to
them. When we met Shah, either all by ourselves or with others for meetings,
we took the opportunity of asking him some probing questions, reminding
him of some event or occasion which would often set him talking, with a
wealth of information and details pouring into our notebooks. These
interactions with Shah were often spontaneous and freewheeling. In the
course of writing this book, we heard a large number of his speeches, went
through pages of the party resolutions, accessed a plethora of articles on him,
15. read his interviews, scanned his profiles, spoke to those who have closely
worked with him and have seen his political evolution over the years and also
recorded anecdotes and episodes that would help us put together his
narrative.
One of the false and often peddled descriptions that has been imposed on
Shah and which was through and through busted in these meetings and
interactions was that of his style being corporate and isolated. Shah came
across as very earthy and hands-on, someone who has risen through the ranks
and, more importantly, has not forgotten his roots and past.
Ever since he took over as president of the BJP in July 2014, Amit Shah’s
drive has been directed not only towards winning elections but, more
importantly for our narrative, towards the expansion, the overhaul and the
restructuring of the party itself. His insistence on ideological renewal, his
conviction that the party would have to be imparted a modern working
structure, his meticulous emphasis on the need to systematically train and
orient its workers and yet retain the original spirit of the party, his emphasis
on looking at political work and responsibility as a full time endeavour, his
insistence on continuously remaining connected to the grassroots and to have
a regular dialogue with workers on the ground are aspects which have lent a
new momentum to the party. Above all his insistence on not being
complacent is what has continued to drive and give direction to the BJP.
With his decades long grassroots experience in organisation work for the
party in Gujarat, with his wide administrative experience in the state, with his
sharp electoral-strategic sense, with his minute understanding and grasp of
policies and policymaking and its impact on the mood of the people, with his
feel of the pulse of the people at large, Shah, we discerned and have argued,
has truly succeeded in turning the party into a bridge and an organism with a
sense of social responsibility. That in itself has been one of his most distinct
successes.
We took it upon ourselves to narrate the story of the BJP since 2014. In
narrating this fascinating story, we take upon ourselves the responsibilities of
16. narration, of interpretations and of articulations. The omissions, if any, are
solely ours and based on our still evolving understanding of a movement like
the BJP. In a sense, no knowledge of a party like the BJP can be definitive or
final. The chapters and sections that follow look at the party’s and the
movement’s growth and history since 1951—when the journey began with
ten members—to its expansion to 11 crore members by 2015, its electoral
successes, the method and approach of Amit Shah’s functioning and how he
has attempted to restructure and redirect the activities of the party.
The chapters also analyse the various innovative outreach campaigns that
have been initiated in the quest for expanding the party and much more. They
aim to dissolve the many false narratives of the party. In a sense our narrative
is exhaustive as well as authentic, though we do not claim that we are in the
know of the entire story. What we have sought to record, document and
narrate is the current wave of the BJP’s resurgence, its evolution as a party of
governance and its clear emergence as the dominant and most focused pole of
Indian politics. Its present reach and standing are a clear result of and a
tribute to the struggles of the past and the unrelenting actions of the present.
It is a story that is the key to our understanding of India’s present
resurgence and the future shape of her polity.
17. • C H A P T E R 1 •
FROM THE LAMP
TO THE LOTUS
The Symbolism of the Mandate of 2014
The month of May 2014 was undeniably a historic moment in the history of
post-independent India. After what seemed to be an unending hiatus, a single
political party received a resounding mandate in the general elections. It was
a reassuring mandate after a period of prolonged indecisiveness and policy
paralysis, and it signalled the arrival of an era of stability in terms of
governance and politics.
The BJP led by Narendra Modi bagged 282 seats which gave it a decisive
edge. Along with its coalition partners of the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA), it could form a stable coalition by breaking the vicious cycle of
unstable coalition mandates. There was a gruelling election campaign in
which the dominant theme veered around issues of livelihood, development
and governance, with Narendra Modi emerging as the symbol of a new
alternative. Some ‘saw him as a strong leader who would undo the policy
paralysis and the sense of drift India had experienced in the final three years
of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance’.1
Large numbers who ‘wanted purposeful governance of the type that Modi
had provided in Gujarat over the past thirteen years’,2 as chief minister of the
state from 2001 to 2014, made this mandate possible and converted it into a
18. turning point in India’s recent electoral history. An entire generation had
grown up without the memory of a full majority government, a decisive
leader and a defined programme of governance for the country. The story of
Narendra Modi’s rise to the top leadership of his party, his very modest and
challenging background, his journey from the margins to the centre and his
capacity of articulating an alternate narrative of India in the new century
made an impact across vast swathes of India, especially among the youth.
As early as 2011, a certain fatigue and disillusionment with the Congress-
led UPA-II dispensation had started setting in. Mega corruption scandals,
indecisiveness, a lack of political will when it came to promoting or
protecting India’s interests and India’s receding global footprints were giving
rise to disenchantment among people. Along with this was also a gradually
emerging support in favour of Modi and change. Observers of Indian politics,
having noticed this gradual shift, argued for the need to replicate the Gujarat
development model in other parts of the country, and of the need for youth
power to ensure that this could be made possible and Modi be positioned for
a greater ‘pan-Indian role’.3
The mandate of 2014, when it came, symbolised people’s expression of
their ‘volcanic capacity to remake the political landscape’4 of India. In a
sense, May 2014 was a liberating moment for India’s polity, which had faced
chronic instability for a while, either because of coalitions and fractured
mandates or because of weak political leadership and an unclear demarcation
between political power and actual responsibility. Narendra Modi’s mandate
was ‘more than a popular mandate, it was a cry from India’s heart, a call for
profound change and decisive governance in a country and among a people
tired of excuses and exasperated by the old ways’.5
A widely read western paper went so far as to argue in its editorial that
the electoral verdict of 2014 ‘may well go down in history as the day when
Britain finally left India’. It observed, ‘Narendra Modi’s victory in the
elections marks the end of a long era in which the structures of power did not
differ greatly from those through which Britain ruled the subcontinent. India
19. under the Congress party was in many ways a continuation of the British Raj
by other means.’6 The editorial spoke of the voice of the people asserting
itself, a people who had a vote but often lacked a voice. Modi was seen as an
endorsement of that voice; he was ‘a new kind of leader’ from the ‘lower
castes’, not a ‘natural English speaker’, without any truck with old power
structures and elites.7
But more importantly, the verdict was seen as the voice of the people
announcing ‘a new kind of India. In the old India, the poor were there to be
helped, when the elite remembered to do so or when they needed to seek or,
in effect, to buy votes. The middling classes were taken for granted and
sometimes snubbed’. This new kind of India was ‘not interested in handouts
and refuses to be snubbed’. It wanted the ‘obstacles it sees as impeding its
aspirations swept away’ and it has, quite clearly, ‘discarded the deference it
displayed towards the Gandhi family and towards the Anglicised’ elite.8
The Struggle and Saga: Formation of Jana Sangh
May 2014 was the fifth and the most decisive high watermark of a long and
arduous political saga and struggle that began in October 1951, with the
formation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). Having resigned from
Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet, the first cabinet of free India, in which he was
the minister of industry and supply, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-
1953), pioneering educationist, erstwhile leading light of the Hindu
Mahasabha, a member of the constituent assembly and one of the dominant
voices of Bengal politics, worked to form a political alternative to the
Nehruvian behemoth.
Dissatisfied with the overall national direction under the Nehruvian
dispensation, Mookerjee formed the Jana Sangh with swayamsevaks of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which, under the leadership of Guruji
M.S. Golwalkar, directed some of its most energetic and young pracharaks—
workers who had dedicated themselves full-time for the RSS work—for
assisting Mookerjee as the proposed party’s first ‘administrators and
20. managers’.9 Through his interactions with Guruji Golwalkar and the RSS
organisation, Mookerjee was convinced that the RSS ‘could be anything but
reactionary. It already had an extensive network of branches and a cadre of
tried and selfless workers’.10 It was not that Mookerjee was not exposed to
the RSS. In 1940, he had met the RSS founder Dr Keshav Baliram
Hedgewar. Guruji Golwalkar was present during that meeting. It was an
interesting encounter in which Dr Mookerjee and Dr Hedgewar discussed the
plight of Hindus in the then Muslim League ruled Bengal, the need to
organise them, the RSS and politics and much more. It is said that during the
course of the discussion, Dr Mookerjee suggested to Dr Hedgewar that the
‘Sangh must take part in politics’ to which Hedgewar is said to have replied
that the Sangh ‘was not interested in day to day politics’ but with the ‘support
and blessings of enlightened people like’ Mookerjee, the ‘beneficial Sangh
activities in Bengal will grow fast’ and the ‘protection and help needed by the
Hindus will thus become automatically available’.11 By connecting with
Guruji Golwalkar again, Mookerjee was taking forward a dialogue that had
been initiated in the past. He was, in a sense, renewing his understanding and
association with the RSS. Having met Guruji Golwalkar, Mookerjee felt that
any political organisation supported by and ‘enjoying the confidence of the
RSS could surely succeed in mobilising and consolidating the non-Congress
and non-Communist nationalist public opinion’.12 In the few early months,
after the formation of the Jana Sangh on 21 October 1951, Mookerjee
admirably withstood and countered the Nehruvian hegemony which was out
to crush the newly born party. To Nehru’s resolve that he would crush the
Jana Sangh, Mookerjee famously declared that he would instead ‘crush this
crushing mentality’.13 The Jana Sangh’s symbol was the earthen lamp, a
symbol that reflected the Indian cultural psyche. Speaking of the new party's
symbol, Mookerjee hoped that the party ‘whose symbol in the forthcoming
elections is a humble earthen pradip’ would try ‘to carry this light of hope
and unity, faith and courage, to dispel the darkness that surrounds the
country’.14 In the first general elections in 1951-52, the fledgling Jana Sangh
could win only three seats but it had at least succeeded in making its
‘existence known everywhere’ with ‘its name and ideology’ reaching ‘the
21. remotest villages especially in the areas in which it had contested elections. It
had secured a foothold in the country and also in the hearts of the people’.15
Jana Shakti vs Raj Shakti: Deendayal Upadhyaya and
Jana Sangh’s Growth
Mookerjee’s early death in 1953 in detention in Kashmir under mysterious
circumstances brought about an existential crisis for the fledgling Jana Sangh.
It not only ‘caused dismay throughout India’ but it ‘deprived the party of its
only parliamentarian of national standing and its one secure link with
powerful networks of highly placed professional and political bodies around
which an anti-Congress front might have been constructed’.16 The Jana
Sangh eventually survived the ordeal and began growing in political strength
and spread under the leadership of Mookerjee’s youthful and far-seeing
understudy Deendayal Upadhyaya who, through long years, steered the Jana
Sangh ship in the often rough and choppy waters of the Nehruvian era and
during the immediate phase after Nehru’s passing.
A dexterous and deft political organiser, a fundamental political thinker
and theoretician and an earthy political tactician, Upadhyaya combined in
him both idealism and pragmatism and saw to it that the Jana Sangh, from
1953 to 1968 (at the time of his untimely assassination) had clearly emerged
as one of the polls of Indian politics. It displayed a remarkable upward
growth over the years.
As one of the early and perhaps the only sympathetic biographer of the
Jana Sangh, the American political historian Craig Baxter noted, ‘The
Bharatiya Jana Sangh enjoys a unique position among the national political
parties of India. It is the only party that has increased its percentage of the
popular vote share of parliamentary and assembly seats in each successive
election from 1952 through 1967.’17 In fact, the formation of the Jana Sangh
in 1951 can be termed as the first watershed of an alternate political narrative
in independent India.
22. Among the political parties in India, post-independence, the Jana Sangh
and later the BJP went on to eventually emerge as the most stable political
formations. Ironically, it was Madhu Limaye, one of leading Indian socialists
of the 1970s, who was instrumental in the collapse of the Janata Party
experiment. She spoke of being ‘amazed by the capacity of the JS-BJP [later
the BJP] to hold together. It is alone among India’s political parties (written
by Madhu Limaye) which has not suffered a division. Every other political
party has suffered a split, some parties even repeated splits’.18 Upadhyaya’s
projection of the fledgling Jana Sangh was that it reflected Jana Shakti as
against the Congress steamroller which was representative of Raj Shakti.19
This caught the imagination of a section that had become increasingly
disillusioned with the Congress.
Reaching out to the Last Citizen: Formulating a
Political Philosophy
In terms of the articulation of a programme and ideology for the Jana Sangh,
1965 saw a second watershed. In that year, Upadhyaya formulated his
political philosophy of Integral Humanism. It was a political philosophy that
was to become the foundation of all the ideological positions that Jana Sangh
would henceforth articulate and would also continue to guide and later
influence the ideological direction of the Jana Sangh’s political successor, the
BJP.
While Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the party, it was Upadhyaya
who laid its political foundation in terms of organisation and ideology. One
of the main pillars of this political philosophy was the vision of Antyoday—
the empowerment, the rise and inclusion of the marginal citizen in the growth
story of the nation. In his approach to governance, Upadhyaya argued for the
need to evolve systems and programmes that would ensure such an inclusion
and empowerment.
In his first presidential address in 1980, after the formation of the BJP,
Atal Bihari Vajpayee reiterated that political philosophy when he spoke of
23. the need to correct distortions of inequality and ‘regard the individual,
particularly the weakest individual, as the focal point of our developmental
endeavours’.20 Narendra Modi bases his entire governance philosophy on
Antyoday, while his party today has structured its programmes and outreach
basing itself on that philosophical foundation.
Fragmentation of the Congress Juggernaut and the
SVD Experiment: 1967
The third political watershed was reached in 1967 when the Congress’s pan-
Indian political domination was demolished, and the Jana Sangh became a
part of a number of coalition ministries that were formed in the states,
comprising the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP)
and the Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD). This formation, known as the Samyukta
Vidhayak Dal (SVD) on the floor of the state assemblies in which the
Congress was ousted, succeeded for the first time in providing a governance
alternative to the Congress. The year 1967 was thus an important milestone
year for the Jana Sangh, primarily because of Deendayal Upadhyaya’s
political pragmatism; the Congress juggernaut could be challenged, slowed
and, in some states, halted. That year the Congress lost power in six states.
As Baxter put it:
In 1967, for the fourth time in India’s history, the opposition went to the polls
with the high, and previously dashed, hopes of displacing the Congress Party.
This time, however, there was a different result for the opposition did reduce the
Congress to a minority in several states, and, almost without exception, in other
states sharply reduced Congress majorities. In the Lok Sabha the results were
headlined by one paper as ‘Congress struggles to a majority’.
In the Lok Sabha, the Jana Sangh won thirty-five seats and was the largest
non-Congress formation after the Swatantra Party which had bagged forty-
four seats. Upadhyaya’s party emerged as the second party in India ‘in terms
of votes received and assembly seats won’, while the Congress was in a state
of shock. The ‘reinforced Jana Sangh delegation in the Lok Sabha became a
24. major force in the opposition’.21
While other all India parties had ‘either gone down or at best’ retained
their original position, the Jana Sangh made ‘impressive progress both in
votes and in seats’.22 Moreover, it had made all these gains without ‘entering
into an alliance with any other party’. This the party saw as an ‘index of the
confidence and support that the people have for it’.23 In Delhi, for example,
the party had secured six out of the seven Lok Sabha seats. In assembly
elections that followed, it won 78 seats in Madhya Pradesh, in UP 98 seats
and in Rajasthan, 22 assembly seats.24 This infused a new enthusiasm and
energy in the rank and file.
However, assembly verdicts throughout 1967 brought to the fore the need
for coalition formation. The year also saw a major shift in the political
attitude of the Jana Sangh. The party saw the necessity and compulsion of
forming or being part of coalitions. The need to keep Congress out of power
in the states made these smaller political formations realise the need to come
together by trying to form governments.
The Central Working Committee of the Jana Sangh met in Delhi in
March 1967 and noted how the Congress ‘had received a big shock’ because
it had failed to ‘secure a majority in eight states as well in Delhi’ and how ‘at
the centre too, its majority has a very narrow margin’. It argued that the
election results indicated that the ‘Indian voter has recognised his might. His
self-confidence has been roused’.25
The Jana Sangh began presenting itself as an ‘alternative with a positive
basis to the Congress’ and also debated the need to be part of coalitions in
order to prevent the Congress from forming governments in the states. It had
become impossible ‘in many states to form a government unless all non-
Congress parties’ came together and ‘to let the Congress form a government
in such states would not only amount to flouting the people’s feelings but
would also strike at their self-confidence’.26
The Jana Sangh thus favoured the inclusion of its ‘Members of
Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in non-Congress ministries’ and directed that
25. these ‘members will remain in the ministry so long as they can effectively
serve the people on the basis of the principles and programmes of the Jana
Sangh’.27 This was, in effect, the first experience of the party in government
participation and in the holding of power-offices. Presenting his general
secretary’s report and making an appraisal of the elections that year,
Upadhyaya reminded the rank and file that ‘our past achievement is
remarkable, but what remains to be done is considerable... Let us all march
and march until the goal is achieved’.28
Challenging Years: Upadhyaya’s Death, Emergency,
Resistance to Dictatorship
The year 1968 saw the sudden death of Deendayal Upadhyaya within five
months of his being elected the president of Jana Sangh. Together, Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani took up the reigns of the party. Both these
leaders had made their mark on the party’s national arena and in partnership
with a closely knit and cohesive group of seasoned organisational and
political leaders and workers such as Nanaji Deshmukh, Bhai Mahavir—the
first general secretary of the Jana Sangh from 1951-52—K.R. Malkani, Kedar
Nath Sahani, P. Parameshwaran, Jagadish Prasad Mathur, Jagannathrao Joshi
(Karnataka Kesri) , Sunder Singh Bhandari, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Rajmata
Vijayaraje Scindia, Kushabhau Thakre and others such as Balraj Madhok,
ensured that the party tided over this second major crisis of leadership.
The period between 1975 and 1977 was a debilitating one when Indira
Gandhi-imposed Emergency curtailed freedom and fundamental rights,
imprisoned opposition leaders and workers, and turned the country into a
massive prison. It also saw the Jana Sangh and the RSS workers and leaders
put up a spirited resistance in support of the restoration of democracy and
against Indira’s dictatorship. The rank and file of the party, led by L.K.
Advani, was thrown into prisons across the country. However, the
unrelenting resistance to Emergency eventually compelled Indira Gandhi to
announce fresh elections, in which she faced a complete rout.29 The BJS was
26. at the forefront of the movement for resisting Emergency and the suspension
of democracy.
The Janata Party Interlude: Merger and Crisis
The fourth watershed was reached in 1977 when the BJS merged itself with
other groups to form the Janata Party coalition that came to power following
Indira Gandhi’s defeat. The Jana Sangh played a crucial role in forming the
coalition and in presenting a credible alternative to the people. The Jana
Sangh leadership ‘enthusiastically responded’ to the moves and suggestions
of creating an opposition unity. L.K. Advani, writing on the ‘coming together
of the four non-communist opposition parties’ had observed that ‘the struggle
waged by the people against authoritarianism during the last nineteen months
has imported a new dimension to India’s body politic’.30 The Janata Party
formation propped itself on the peoples’ voice which had expressed itself
against Indira’s draconian and anti-democratic rule. However, the Janata
Party government soon crumbled due to contradictions and conflicting
personal ambitions of some of its leaders, squandering the historic mandate
given to it. But, it did represent for a while the possibilities of a non-Congress
alternative before the country.
Charting out a New Course: Formation of the BJP
Between 1980-1985
A crisis appeared in April 1980 when the National Executive of the Janata
Party ‘adopted a resolution prohibiting members of RSS’ from continuing in
the Janata Party. The fear entertained by a group led by Chandra Shekhar31,
then president of the party, and other socialists within the Janata Party was
that after the split of the party following the secession of the Charan Singh
faction, the ‘erstwhile Jana Sangh would capture the party on account of its
mass base and large army of dedicated workers’.32
Instead of trying to stay politically afloat and relevant, the Janata Party
27. and a section of its leaders were more concerned with trying to retain control
of a party that was already imploding. The members of the Jana Sangh
objected to this condition, the coalition experience had been that even though
‘it was the single largest constituent of the Janata Party and had a larger
popular base in the country’, the Jana Sangh had never negotiated for a
proportionate share either in the Janata government or in the Janata Party.33
Its members pointed out that the party had always displayed a spirit of
sacrifice and accommodation.
Jana Sangh leaders argued that the membership issue was settled when
the Janata Party was formed and the merger of the ‘constituents which
formed the Janata Party’ had taken place. They saw in this condition being
raised now an ‘ulterior reason to control the party’. Moreover, the RSS, they
pointed out, ‘had not interfered in any manner either in the functioning of the
party or government’.34 The BJS did not compromise on its link and it was
the relationship with the RSS, the Socialists, who played the principal role in
breaking apart the Janata Party.
At a conference of Jana Sangh workers, held at the Kotla ground in Delhi
on 6 April 1980, ‘it was decided to part company with Janata Party’.
Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), under whose inspiration the Janata Party had been
formed, had died in 1979, disillusioned with his experiment; the mood among
members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh was one of unhappiness at having to
disassociate themselves from JP’s experiment.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took birth on that day. As Rajmata
Vijayaraje Scindia recalled that moment, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee
appealed to the workers, ‘Come, light the lamp again.’ Vijayaraje recalled
how the workers ‘were imbued with new energy and excitement. A new party
was [being] formed on the old foundation... I was entrusted with the
responsibility to name the party. I announced the name of “Bharatiya Janata
Party” amid claps. The sky reverberated with joyous exclamations’.35 The
formation of the BJP thus was the fifth and principal watershed of this long
political movement. The party had no organisation of its own but lakhs of
28. erstwhile Jana Sangh workers ‘were there and had to start from scratch’.
However, it already had a phalanx of able leaders with a national profile who
could steer the new ship. Its ‘disciplined, dedicated and hard-working cadre
of workers’36 that it had inherited from Jana Sangh was its asset. Vajpayee
became the president of the newly formed BJP while Advani became its
general secretary.
Sanghtan, Sangharsh, Samrachana:
The Early Years
A plenary was convened in Mumbai towards the end of December 1980
(between 28 and 30) and the interim period between April and December was
utilised to mobilise cadres, enrol members and set up units across the
country. It is estimated that about twenty-five lakh members were enrolled in
the BJP during this period.37
The first plenary session of the BJP was thus held at Mumbai, the venue
was symbolically named ‘Samata Nagar’. The editorial of a paper covering
the event observed that the name was ‘presumably intended to indicate the
political-economic direction which the leaders wish to give to the BJP’. It
also indicated the party’s political philosophy of promising to work for the
‘creation of a society where every citizen, irrespective of caste or creed, is an
equal partner in the destiny of the nation’.38 Around fifty-five thousand
workers and members from across the country gathered for this first plenary.
It is now part of the lore—a lore that some parties, especially the
Congress, would like to forget—that the inaugural of the plenary was
attended by none other than Muhammed Currim Chagla, veteran
Congressmen, legendary jurist, for some time education minister in Nehru’s
cabinet and later a foreign minister in Indira’s cabinet. In his mid-seventies,
when Emergency was declared, Chagla energetically opposed it and later
welcomed the formation of the BJP as a national alternative to the Congress
which he felt had increasingly become a party of ‘hypocrites, opportunists
and sycophants’.39 Chagla delivered a forty-minute speech that was as ‘much
29. a benediction as it was an exhortation and the climax of the convention’.40
Later, in January 1981, Chagla wrote his impressions of the meet—it was
a ‘glimmer of hope’ which was beginning to show itself through the
‘extraordinary strength which this new party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has
shown... And if this party goes on from strength to strength and receives the
support of people from all over the country we might at last have a
democratic alternative to Indira’s government’.41
Former Chief Justice of India J.C. Shah, who had headed the Shah
Commission of Enquiry against the excesses committed during the
Emergency, also attended the Samata Nagar session in solidarity with Chagla
and with the aspiration for a ‘democratic alternative’ to the Indira regime.
The response to BJP’s convention showed that people still looked for a
democratic alternative to the Congress, despite Indira’s victory in the 1980
general elections. The main thrust of Vajpayee’s presidential address was the
need to oppose ‘authoritarianism’ and to support ‘parliamentary
democracy’.42
Interestingly, the convention was, as one observer put it, ‘relatively free
from any obsession with Mrs Gandhi and what she might or might not do—
the kind of obsession that had been oppressively present at practically all
conferences of opposition parties in recent years. The BJP convention was,
unlike them, no gathering of frightened men. There was, on the contrary, a
quiet but palpable self-confidence. This seemed significant. It certainly made
for constructive deliberation’.43 In the words of Chagla, the Samata Nagar
session was ‘Bombay’s answer to Indira’.44
Vajpayee was accepted as a ‘credible leader who could symbolise the
hopes and aspirations of the people’ and was backed by a ‘cohesive
organisation which had broken through its limiting shell’. The Jana Sangh
was a cadre-based party, while the BJP had clearly begun moving towards
becoming a mass party. Between them, Vajpayee and Advani were seen as a
‘perfect complement to each other’. The rallying cry for the new party was
Sanghtan, Sangharsh and Samrachana—‘Organisation’, ‘Struggle’ and
30. ‘Constructive Work’.45 The new party was different in that it spoke of the
need to engage in constructive work apart from putting in place an
organisation and launching a struggle for political space.
In his presidential address, Vajpayee dwelt at length on the state of the
country and on the raison d’être of the new party. He saw various levels of
degeneration and a multidimensional crisis affecting the country. ‘Mounting
inflation, deteriorating law and order situation, scarcity of essential
commodities, increase in the number and intensity of communal incidents,
oppression of Harijans, tribals, women and other weaker sections and the
explosive situation in the north-east’ were some of the dimensions of this
crisis. Vajpayee spoke of the prevailing ‘moral crisis’, ‘degeneration of
public life’ and ‘double standards’.46 The overall mood of the nation was
despondent, the press was being gagged, a distorted secularism was being
practised and there was increasing administrative paralysis.
Speaking of the need to restore moral values, he also spoke of why the
BJP aspired to be a ‘party with a difference’, ‘We can organise the people
only if we are able to establish credibility in their minds. The people must be
convinced that this is a party different from the crowd of self-seekers who
swamp the political stage, that its aim is not, somehow, to sneak into office
and that its politics are based on certain values and principles.’
The question was, as Vajpayee asked, ‘Will India be able to face the
present challenges successfully on the basis of its value-system and be able to
build a new future for itself?’ The country was at crossroads, on one side
loomed the ‘threat of authoritarianism’ and on the other was the danger of
‘anarchy’. For the BJP, the need was for defending democracy, carrying
forward a ‘relentless struggle for social justice and democracy’ and for
changing the ‘status quo’.47 Vajpayee cautioned,
There is no place in the BJP for people madly in pursuit of post, position and
pelf. Those who lack courage or self-respect may go and prostrate themselves at
the Delhi Durbar. So far as we are concerned, we are determined to wage a
relentless struggle against dangers [of authoritarianism and anarchy]. With the
Constitution of India in one hand and the banner of equality in the other, let us
31. get set for the struggle. Let us take inspiration from the life and struggle of
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Let Mahatma Phule be our guide in our crusade for
social justice.48
Vajpayee ended his presidential address with his famously prescient
prediction that the ‘Lotus shall bloom’; it was a prediction that kept
reverberating over the years, galvanising and sustaining the struggling cadres,
‘Standing on the shores of this ocean beneath the Western Ghats, I can say
this with confidence about the future: Darkness will be dispelled, the Sun will
rise and the Lotus shall bloom.’49
The Lotus Shall Bloom
Thus began a long and arduous struggle to capture the political imagination
of a new generation in India. The ‘five commitments’, the party’s economic
policy statement and its new constitution were all approved in the meet.
While ‘Integral Humanism’ was declared to be its ‘basic philosophy’, the
‘five commitments’—Pancha Nistha—were to be the ideological supports
for drawing up of its political and policy positions. These five commitments
were: i) nationalism and national integration, ii) democracy, iii) Gandhian
socialism, iv) positive secularism—can be described as denominational
impartiality and v) value-based politics. The issue of adopting Gandhian
socialism was discussed threadbare in the meet and was finally seen through.
As one veteran observer of Indian politics had then written: ‘The BJP has
also decided to live with another fact of Indian political life; a process that
began with the original Jana Sangh. Power lies somewhere near the centre of
the political spectrum and in Bombay, the BJP positioned itself to the right of
centre by adopting the slogan “Gandhian Socialism”.’50
The period from 1980 to 1985 ‘saw the growth of the party and the spread
of the organisation from villages to the national level’. Gradually pushing its
way up the electoral ladder, the BJP began registering its presence in other
parts of the country. Interestingly, in 1983, within three years of its
formation, the party had succeeded in winning eighteen seats in the
32. Karnataka Assembly, giving lie to the stereotype of the party being a ‘Hindi
heartland party’. While the party had a close-knit leadership base comprising
those who had cut their political teeth in the Jana Sangh days such as S.S.
Bhandari, Bhai Mahavir, Kushabhau Thakre, Kailashpati Mishra, Kidarnath
Sahni, Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia, Sunderlal Patwa, Bhairon Singh
Shekhawat, Shanta Kumar, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, J.P. Mathur, Dr Murli
Manohar Joshi. A large number of young workers also joined the party
around this time, driven solely by its ideological message and the drive to see
the formation of an alternate, viable and nationalist political structure in the
country that could challenge and eventually demolish the Congress. Leaders
like Pandit Vishnukant Shastri, one of the founding members of the party and
K.R. Malkani who joined it at inception, added greater intellectual heft to it
and those like Sikandar Bakht, who joined from the Congress (Organisation)
brought with them a wealth of political experience. This expansion of the
party was seen throughout the 1980s, even after it failed to perform
satisfactorily in the general elections of 1984 by winning only two seats.51
In its March (15-17) 1985 National Executive meet, the party debated
some fundamental questions that Vajpayee asked it to consider, while taking
moral responsibility for the discouraging results of the 1984 general
elections. Vajpayee’s contention was that in the 1980 session in Mumbai, ‘it
was felt that the BJP should be developed as an alternative to the Congress
(I). But, today after five years, we find ourselves miles away from that
objective... Even if it is accepted that the elections in 1984-85 were held in
extraordinary circumstances which were beyond any one’s control, this does
not explain all the causes of our defeat...’ Asking for an in-depth study of the
causes of their failure to be made, Vajpayee called for adopting ‘effective
ways of removing our shortcomings and drawbacks’.52
But, his principal question was whether the Jana Sangh’s merger with the
Janata Party and the subsequent formation of the BJP were steps in the right
direction. In April 1985, a working group was set up to ‘review the party’s
functioning, achievements and shortcomings and to recommend correctives’.
The group was also asked to ‘draw up a five-year “Plan of Action” on all
33. fronts—organisational, agitational, constructive and electoral’ which could
‘galvanise the party and make it an effective instrument of political and
socio-economic change’.53 The internal debate and discussions that took
place were indeed of a very fundamental nature.
The working group’s answer was unequivocal—there was to be no going
back on the decision of forming BJP. During the April 1980 session, where
the decision to form the new party was taken, hundreds of delegates ‘were
asked to suggest a name for the party. Out of hundreds who responded to it,
only a few had suggested naming the party again as Jana Sangh’.54 The firm
opinion was in favour of continuing with and building up the BJP.
The working group’s answer to the BJP president’s question was that,
The party had taken the correct decision when it decided to merge Jana Sangh in
Janata Party, a wise decision when it decided to come out of Janata Party to form
BJP and right decision when it chose to be BJP... We are very much proud of
Jana Sangh heritage, we have benefitted by our experience when we were in the
Janata Party and we will march ahead by building up BJP, towards our cherished
objectives.55
This culmination not only strengthened the resolve of the new party’s
members but also reinforced the tradition and mechanism of internal
consultation and debate and decision-making stating that the political
movement had evolved since its Jana Sangh days. ‘[F]ree thinking’ as
Upadhyaya had once noted, ‘is assured full scope’.56
The Blooming Lotus
The period that followed from 1985 to 1998 ‘shall remain a landmark in the
history of the BJP’. The party grew, expanded and evolved both politically
and organisationally. Through a number of historic political movements and
Yatras (such as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement which played an epic role
in the expansion of the party, the Ekta Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir,
the Somnath Yatra, Janadesh Yatra, Suraj Yatra, Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra)
34. and the expansion of its organisation and ancillary and frontal units, it began
gaining political space and credibility. It formed governments in a few states,
increasing its tally in the Parliament. In the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, for
example, the BJP won fifty-one out of the eighty-four seats it had contested
in the state of UP and secured over 32 per cent of the votes polled. The first
BJP government at the centre was eventually formed in 199657 but fell within
thirteen days when it failed to garner a majority. The Congress saw in this an
opportunity to prop up unstable dispensations which it could control. Thus,
the Deve Gowda dispensation of the United Front comprising thirteen parties
supported by the Congress from outside was formed. But, its inherent
instability was evident as the prime minister belonged to a party that just had
forty-six members in the Parliament. The government lasted for a little over
ten months and was followed by a dispensation led by I.K. Gujral, again
propped up from the outside by the Congress party, which once again lasted
for a little over ten months. The out of power and desperate Congress pulled
the rug once more and plunged the country into midterm polls.
The 1996 election, however, was a watershed in India’s contemporary
political history. The ‘most significant aspect of this verdict [was] the
removal of the [Congress] from the centre stage of national politics and the
emergence of the BJP as the premier party’. The party that had ruled for
‘forty-five [out] of forty-nine years since independence was dethroned from
its leading position’. Not only had the BJP emerged as the single largest party
in the Lok Sabha but ‘it [had] also contributed the highest number of women,
Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) members to Parliament
(MP)’. It had fourteen women MPs which was the largest contingent at that
time, and out of 120 seats reserved for SCs and STs, the BJP headed the tally
with a total of forty-two SC and ST MPs.58 This was thus the sixth watershed
or climax in the movement.
The entire period of the fiftieth anniversary of India’s independence saw
an unstable and indecisive government. This was the Congress’s doing, it had
pushed the country into a prolonged spell of uncertainty just because it had
failed to retain the people’s mandate. On 18 May 1997, the BJP launched the
35. Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra which ran over fifty-five days, 15,000 km and
passed through nineteen states and union territories. Leading the Yatra,
Advani defined its objectives as one of taking stock of the success,
shortcomings and failures of the first fifty years of free India, to catalyse a
serious debate on the important issues and problems facing the country today
and to project the BJP’s vision for national reconstruction, with specific focus
on transforming Swaraj (self-governance) to Suraj (good governance).59
The country entered into election mode in early 1998 to elect the twelfth
Lok Sabha. The BJP secured 182 seats and 25.59 per cent of votes.60 The
narrative of the evolution of the BJP noted, ‘The pseudo-secularists were
successful in ganging up against BJP and prevented the thirteen-day-long
BJP government from securing a vote of confidence; in 1998 they were in no
position to indulge in subverting the mandate. This was primarily because,
along with pre-election allies, BJP was able to secure a tally significantly
higher than that of 1996 and only a trifle short of a clear majority.’61 The BJP
and its allies put together a record 255 seats and with outside support from
groups like Telegu Desam Party (TDP) and some other parties, it succeeded
in forming the government. For the first time a truly non-Congress alternative
had emerged and the BJP had expanded its social and geographical base.62
The electorate, fed up with instability, had made a clear choice this time
round.
Renewed machinations by the Congress and the Left bloc driven by the
communist parties along with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (AIADMK), one of the major alliance partners of the BJP
dispensation, pushed the Vajpayee dispensation towards instability.
The Congress was again in the driver’s seat while spearheading this bout
of uncertainty. The years between 1989-1991 and 1996-1999 essentially
exposed the Congress’s penchant for ‘destabilising the polity and creating
instability’. It has been a pattern with the Congress that whenever it has been
electorally rejected and has been ‘denied the perks of office, it has exerted to
subvert the mandate of the people’ and in this it has almost always partnered
36. with the Left parties. ‘Confined to the margins of national politics’, the Left
habitually aspires for ‘power without accountability, influence without
responsibility’.63
The second BJP government fell, having lost the confidence vote by the
infamous ‘one vote’, cast by the then Congress leader from Odisha, Giridhar
Gamang. The inability of the Congress and other parties to cobble a coalition
again pushed the country towards elections.
The 1999 general elections for the thirteenth Lok Sabha saw the BJP
secure 182 seats again, and along with its allies it secured 306 seats in a
house of 543. The BJP-led NDA government thus formed in 1999 continued
in office till 2004.
Between 2004 and 2014, the Congress returned to power and succeeded
in being in office for two full terms till 2014, when it suffered a huge setback
that saw its tally reduced to forty-four in the Lok Sabha. The Congress party
‘had gone down to [its] worst defeat in history. With less than 10 per cent of
the MPs, [it] failed even to pass the threshold needed to claim the post of
leader of the opposition’.64
It was for the first time that a non-Congress party had succeeded in
gaining a majority on its own. Thus, 2014 had clearly dismantled the old
structures and arithmetic of Indian politics and announced the formations of
radically new ones. A sharp electoral and political strategy, a refreshing
message of hope, a convincing reaching out to all sections and segments of
society and the projection of a decisive leader with a clear vision had all
combined to bring about this historic mandate.
Grassroots, Democratised, Non-Dynastic
May 2014 thus was the seventh and most decisive watershed, an
unmistakable high water mark and culmination of a long political struggle,
which saw the BJP become ‘the principle fulcrum of Indian politics’.65
Narendra Modi’s victory was a remarkable one, ‘not just by the standards of
37. Indian democracy, but worthy of comparison with some of the greatest
electoral triumphs anywhere in the world’.66 Upadhyaya had written
sometime in 1961, that ‘political parties that stand for the people also stand
on the strength of the people... It is the people who are the architects of
political parties and through them of their political destiny’.67 The verdict of
2014 was the result of the people-centric political discourse that the BJP and
its election campaign led by Narendra Modi had succeeded in articulating the
aspirations and hopes of the people, besides presenting a roadmap for getting
the country back on track. Modi’s decisiveness, his robust narrative
supported by a legion of volunteers, political workers, supporters and astute
political strategists saw 2014 emerge as a most transformative year for the
BJP.
‘Over decades,’ as BJP President Amit Shah never fails to remind cadres
and workers of the party, ‘thousands of workers had sacrificed their careers
and lives to enable the party to reach this point of success and of power.’68
Indeed the BJP, since 1980, had consistently and resolutely grown and a
grassroots connect has always defined and shaped its leadership. Amit Shah
recalls how he had himself started off his political life as a booth worker and
in-charge, ‘that a booth worker, who would stick election posters can rise up
to become the national president of his party is proof enough of the
democratic and ideological base of the BJP’.69 It is this organic resilience and
identity that has enabled the party to produce leaders like Modi.
The presidency of the BJP has always symbolised and reflected this
upward mobility and scope for a grassroots political worker, it has reflected
Upadhyaya’s dictum that it was ‘necessary for a party to have grassroots if it
wants to exercise its authority in people’s interests’.70 This has been the
dominating approach in the party. It was this that saw a regular succession of
party presidents, each having come up from the ranks, the likes of Advani
and Vajpayee, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, the legendary Kushabhau Thakre,
Jana Krishnamurthy Bangaru Lakshman, Venkaiah Naidu, Rajnath Singh,
Nitin Gadkari and eventually Amit Shah, rise through the ranks. In the course
of his many interactions with the intelligentsia across the country, Amit Shah,
38. never tires of reminding his audience that after him no one knows who will
lead the BJP, but while in the Congress it is always a fait accompli, it is a
dynast from the Congress’s first family who is destined to assume the mantle
of the party’s presidency. ‘No one knows who will become the party
president after me,’ Shah used to say much before Rahul Gandhi became
Congress president, ‘but we know for sure who will become the president of
the Congress after Soniaji!’71
Each president in the BJP, having risen through the political ranks of the
party, brought with him a rich experience of being a political worker and
some leaders like Amit Shah, started their political life as booth level workers
and eventually rose up to head the party at the national level. They have only
added to the credibility of the democratic leadership structure that the BJP
has perpetuated over the years. Dynasty, pedigree, ancestry, familial
connections has never really mattered in the BJP which symbolises a stark
contrast to the Nehru-Gandhi family beholden and controlled Congress. The
BJP continues to be the antithetical other, in this context, to the Congress. It
is a democratised structure that has seen the BJP evolve and emerge out of
every crisis and challenge, and also to continue to remain relevant and evolve
into the dominant pole of Indian politics today. The year 2014 was as much a
triumph of that democratic framework as it was the victory of a new and
aspirational narrative of politics that emerged out of the BJP stable.
39. I
• C H A P T E R 2 •
RISING THROUGH THE RANKS
t was the evening of 31 January 2018, around 8.55 pm, when we finally
entered bungalow number 11 in New Delhi’s Akbar Road. Unlike the
standard Lutyen’s zone bungalows, this one was comparatively less lit and
unostentatious. Our appointment was at 9.00 pm, but, since we had arrived a
few minutes before the assigned time, we sat in an adjoining office in the
premises. At sharp 9.00 pm, a member of the staff walked in to lead us,
‘Please follow me, Sahaab has asked for you.’ ‘We stepped out of the office
and entered into that room of the bungalow in which the leader, considered to
be the second most powerful in the country, held his baithaks and met select
people.
It was an ordinary and simply laid out room, with blue upholstered chairs
and sofas; a simple khadi durree was spread on the floor. A similar chair to
the one occupied by Shah was placed beside his. A table full of papers and
files stood before Shah’s chair. He was pouring over them one by one,
scribbling notes, highlighting and writing his comments on them. Books were
not neatly arranged on his table, they were in a pile and one could make out
they were being regularly read and referred to. A page-marked history book
lay on a side table beside the telephone. We surmised that it must be on
Shah’s current reading list. Exactly behind his chair, the portraits of Savarkar
and Chanakya, hanging on the wall on either side of the door, dominated the
space and caught attention. It is said that these defining personalities of
civilisational India have had a profound influence on Shah’s life and political
40. work.
Amit Shah is now at that peak of his political life, which generates deep
curiosity in the minds of the political analyst and researcher and makes them
want to know him better and more closely. A large number of journalists
have also been intrigued about how Shah excecutes organisational work and
draws up electoral strategy. When they fired Shah with questions, it was
evident that what they wanted to know was essentially his style of election
management and how he had successfully won state after state for the BJP.
They are also seen trying to pick clues of his election management and style
while analysing his political programmes and extended tours.
‘Experience is not a subject… One has to live it, one gains it by going
from village to village, the way I am doing now,’1 he once remarked while
talking to a group of journalists who were eager to know how he had honed
his skills, who he had emulated and which strategy he had followed in his
political career in organisational work and in election management while
covering his country wise tours in 2017.
We entered his study brimming with questions ourselves. We had been
finally accorded a meeting, after much coaxing and requests. We were unsure
of how much time he would give us and how much we would be able to
extract from him. After this first meeting of about two hours we could hardly
get anything on his personal life. Shah is extremely reticent when it comes to
speaking about his personal life and journey. He does not avoid questions on
the subject, but neither does he openly speak about it. On the contrary, he
openly speaks and in great detail on the organization or the ideology that
drives it and on dimensions of public life.
What has defined Shah’s political approach is a hands-on grassroots
connect and a feel of the pulse of the voter. It is an experience that stood him
in good stead and enabled the BJP to win an all-time high of seventy-three
out of eighty Lok Sabha seats in the state of UP in 2014. For a year, after he
had been appointed as BJP’s general secretary and given charge of winning
parliamentary seats for the party in UP in 2013, Shah pursued his old strategy
41. of connecting with the booths, with villages and the districts, through an
indefatigable rounds of tours and outreach. The somnolent and often scattered
network and organisation on the ground was infused with fresh energy,
direction and responsibility. It was a throwback to his days in Gujarat, where
for years together Shah would travel across the state in rickety state transport
buses to organise the party at the grassroots, surviving during those gruelling
days on the staple of roti-alu-sabzi. It was such a ceaseless strategic political
peregrination which enabled Shah to put together a near unassailable and
unmatched political structure on the ground.2
These are things which the country has witnessed in the last few years.
Shah’s public political action has been visible across the spectrum. But,
beyond these, there are a number of facets and dimensions of Shah’s life
which have been rarely discussed or known in the public domain. These are
dimensions which provide a rare view into the actual Amit Shah, a leader, a
worker and a sensitive human being inspired and driven by the deeper values
of life.
Perceived to be tough, Shah is seen as a soft-hearted grandfather when
seated with his little granddaughter, Rudri on his lap, humming the tune of
‘Vaishnava janato, têne kahiye je, peed paraye jane re…’ and participating in
her games and laughter. A BJP leader who had been with Shah during the
recent Gujarat Assembly elections recalls how he had once gone to ‘Amit
bhai’s’ house and saw him sitting with his five-month-old granddaughter
Rudri, repeatedly looking at her in deep compassion and smiling, while
humming the Mahatma’s favourite bhajan. ‘I had never seen this aspect of
his,’ the leader recalled.
In an interview to British historian Patrick French, Shah observed that he
regularly maintained a personal diary, which was not for publication but,
mainly for his own self-assessment and to keep a record of his experiences.3
Those close to Shah observe that he is a very homely person, even though, at
times because of being at the centre of political action, he often forgets his
wedding anniversary! ‘Often, when I forget my wedding anniversary, my
wife reminds me,’ he once remarked with a disarming smile. He loves to
42. spend time with his family and to travel with them, but his complete
involvement and central role in national politics in Delhi leaves him no time
now. Though an aficionado of various types of dishes and fond of the typical
pakoda, Shah sticks to a simple diet. A karyakarta recalled that the late night
meetings during the recent Gujarat elections would be invariably
accompanied by pakodas. Shah, while munching on them and goading others
to follow suit, would jokingly say, ‘Arre keep eating, the leaders of the party
which consumes more besan will ultimately win Gujarat!’ But, he continues
to be extremely measured and disciplined in his approach to food, in a sense
he is a restrained foodie. A senior leader of the party once observed how
during his exile in Delhi, ‘Amit bhai’ would at times drive down to the
dhabas on Sonipat road in order to taste their fare and mingle with people on
the ground.
A question that many have asked and keep asking of Shah, who is often
referred to as the Chanakya of modern Indian politics, is about the evolution
of his multidimensional personality—political, educational and personal.
Traits of Shah’s potential and personality were discerned very early in his
life. Born in Mumbai on 22 October 1964, in a wealthy Nagar-Vaishnav
family to Anil Chandra Shah and Kusum ben. Shah spent his formative years
in his ancestral village. His grandfather shifted the family from Mumbai back
to their ancestral home in, Mansa in Gujarat, soon after Shah was born. ‘My
grandfather wanted me to have a traditional education,’ he recalled. He left
behind his large business establishment in Mumbai including interests in the
stock exchange so that he ‘could groom Shah in the Indian value system’. He
wanted ‘him to strike deep roots in the soil of ancestry, tradition and
civilisational values’.4
‘In my early years, I was taught by traditional teachers—Acharyas-
Shastris.’ Shah recalled one evening, in a particularly expansive mood, ‘My
grandfather was soft towards me but also insisted that I follow a strict regime.
At the age of four, I would be woken up at 4.00 am and I would get ready and
be dressed in traditional attire and sit before my masters who would then
begin their lessons on the Indian scriptures, epics, grammatical texts, stories,
43. history, etc. This was a period when I received a thorough grounding in
Indian parampara. Interestingly, these Shastris were part of a group of
scholars and teachers who would travel across the region to impart traditional
education and knowledge. After the system fell apart, post-independence,
these Shastris, some of whom were profound thinkers and scholars, and had
found employment in various households where they were privately engaged
as tutors. I remember Keshavram Kanshiram Shastri, a formidable scholar of
the Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, who had a deep influence on me.’
Shah’s great-grandfather and grandfather had been the nagarsheth of the
princely state of Mansa.5 It is said that the family had also hosted Sri
Aurobindo, then Arvind Ghose, who was attached to the Gaekwad of Baroda,
the legendary Sayaji Rao, one of the most progressive and future looking
rulers.6 ‘The Gaekwad had sent out some of his most trusted and senior
administrators and officers to apprise other princes and rulers in the region of
the reforms and progressive measures that he had undertaken,’ Shah narrated
one evening, leading among ‘and among those who had fanned out to impart
the message was Sri Aurobindo. He had enumerated nineteen points of
governance and administration to my great-grandfather.’ One advice that Sri
Aurobindo is said to have given to Shah’s family elders was that a ‘king
should always try to take decisions that benefit the masses and not
individuals’.7 ‘The chair in which Sri Aurobindo had sat when he visited our
home is still preserved. My grandfather, had told me once that a great
personality had once occupied that seat and that we had to preserve it for
posterity. I have preserved it, it remains intact.’8
The early years of informal or traditional education gave him a thorough
grounding in Bharatiya philosophical traditions and under his mother’s
influence Shah devoured history books, biographies and epics. She inspired
him to wear khadi and was a ‘big influence on his life’.9As with hundreds of
swayamsevaks, over the decades since the founding of the RSS, Shah’s
patriotism—deshabhakti—was further crystallised in the RSS, shakhas. He
refers to those days as a phase when he imbibed deshabhakti and sanskaar.10
44. An acquaintance narrated an interesting anecdote from Shah’s childhood.
As a child when Shah would go to school, his sisters would go on a ‘buggy’,
horse driven carriage, but since there was no such arrangement for him, he
would trudge the entire way to the school. Thus, he developed the capacity
for sustained hard work and to lead a disciplined life during those early years.
The writings of K.M. Munshi (1887-1971), avant-garde polymath,
politician, author and cultural thinker of the last century from his own state,
have profoundly influenced Shah. Shah has derived, to a large extent, his
deep cultural understanding and grounding in India’s civilisational ethos, his
vast and detailed knowledge of Indian history from Munshi’s monumental
work. His fascination for exploring books and reading continues to this day.
It is also a little known fact that Shah is a great admirer of the poems of poet
and lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi (Abdul Hayee) and Kaifi Azmi; during his exile
from Gujarat he would also spend time reading them. He is also fond of
movies and television serials based on episodes from history.
The habit of strict discipline and regular and deep study influenced his
life in such a way that it saw him evolving into a personality with a clear
vision and firm resolve. In course of time, Shah also established his own
business. Later, he was into full-time politics, Shah invested all his time,
energy and attention to political work. He is very clear that politics is not a
part-time occupation.
Shah married Sonal ben in 1987. Despite his busy schedule today, he
continues to be the quintessential family man, takes time out everyday to
speak to Sonal ben and ask after the other members of the family. Even
during his hectic tours, he makes it a point to listen to his little
granddaughter’s laughter over the phone, at the end of the day.
Usually Shah eschews foreign trips, probably his last trip abroad was a
visit to Munich in 2006. His reasons for not travelling abroad is his punishing
political schedule and his priority of nations responsibilities. Shah always
speaks with pride and accords primacy to India’s culture, languages and
history; he often speaks of these and of the need to be rooted in them. While
45. inaugurating a national exhibition on the life of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee
on 29 June 2016, Shah had publicly observed, ‘If we are unable to protect
and preserve our culture, our languages and traditions, we shall never emerge
as a great nation.’ It is this sense of rootedness, a sense of being content while
mingling with India’s civilisational dimension that makes Shah continuously
renew his horizon and perspective. He encourages and often deputes young
workers to represent the party on the global platforms saying that such
assignments and tours will give them exposure to the wider world and expand
their horizon. However once, when a party office-bearer told him that he
wished to organise a tour of his to Germany leading a delegation, Shah
jokingly quipped, whether the visit would fetch him votes in that country!
Contrary to perceptions in some quarters, Shah has a well-informed
understanding of international affairs and trends.
Possessing an incisive intellect, Shah, since childhood, would always be
seen to be ready to be seen to be ready to indulge in bouts of animated
debates and discussions on various issues. A relative of his narrated how he
came in contact with an astrologer in childhood while on his way to play and
would everyday engage with him. Shah honed his knowledge of astrology in
this way. Interestingly, Shah is not only an astrology enthusiast but has good
mastery over the subject! Sometime before the birth of his grand-daughter
Shah had predicted that Lakshmi would frequent the house. Of course Shah
dismissed all attempts to draw him out on the subject by saying that it is
personal and therefore inconsequential while emphasising that astrology is a
completely scientific subject.
Shah also possesses a deep interest and attraction for spirituality. Though
in the thick of political life, he continues to frequent ashrams and matths to
engage with gurus and spiritual masters. Between January 2013 and January
2018, Shah had publicly visited sixty-eight spiritual centres across the
country. On 18 June 2016, in Kundalpur, Madhya Pradesh, while
participating in the Mastakabhishek of Lord Rishabhanatha (Bade Baba). He
had observed in a public interaction that ‘the advancement and prosperity of
the world can enter India, but at a time when the world itself is ridden with
46. problems and challenges, it is only India which can provide the peace of
spirituality to the world at large’.
Shah’s mother Kusum ben had a profound influence on his life. She was
the one who had influenced Shah to wear only khadi. Referring to khadi,
Shah’s words reflect his deeper identification with the essence and soul of the
fabric. He argues that if there is one fabric which unites in itself the following
four defining traits—Swadeshi, Self-sufficiency, Self-respect, Self-
employment—it is khadi. His understanding and vision of khadi is all
encompassing. He insists that if every year all of us decide to buy khadi
products worth Rs 5,000, this country shall have no one who goes hungry or
remains unemployed. Always striving to implement and work out new ideas
and directions in governance, Shah has always encouraged the adoption of
khadi in ministries and departments. This has had a positive impact on the
khadi industry. He continues to encourage those workers who come in touch
with him, to wear and adopt khadi.
Shah has a great attachment for sports and is fond of cricket and chess
since childhood. He believes both chess and cricket help in building
concentration and one-pointedness. An expert in making moves on the
chessboard, Shah has also emerged today as a foremost expert in making
similar moves on the political chessboard. Those who know him closely tell
us that while playing chess, Shah takes his time to make every move, his aim
being the encirclement and defeat of the adversary. An opportunity presented
itself to him when in 2006 he became the president of the Gujarat state chess
association. An avid chess player himself, Shah promoted the game in a big
way among the youth across the state in order to enhance their concentration,
willpower, tenacity and problem-solving abilities. He introduced chess at the
primary levels as an experiment and during his tenure as the president of the
association, the first national chess championship was held in the state.
Around 20,000 young players participated in the tournament; it was a feat
bigger than the one held in Mexico—Simul Chess Championship—which
had seen 18,000 participants. Gujarat recorded itself in the Guinness Book as
a centre of chess. It is a feat that Shah is particularly fond of referring to, with
47. a sense of accomplishment. In 2007, he assumed control of the Gujarat
Cricket Association becoming its vice-president with Modi becoming
president; this also ended the Congress’s sixteen years old stranglehold of the
body. In 2009, during his tenure, the association corpus saw a rise from 22
crore to 162 crore. In order to ensure that deserving players received support
and financial security, Shah changed the policy for Ranji Trophy players—
instead of providing pension to players after twenty-four matches, it was
changed to ensure that even if one played one Ranji match, they were entitled
to a pension.
Shah’s personality unfolded along with his political training. It would be
interesting to mention here that Shah's active association with politics began
in 1977, to be precise, when at the age of thirteen he had set out to campaign
and stick posters for the formidable Sardar Patel’s daughter and sometime
secretary, Maniben Vallabhbhai Patel (1903-1990), who stood for elections in
protest against the Emergency and Indira’s excesses. It was the last election
of her life and in the anti-Indira wave that swept the country—the Janata
Party had won fifteen out of twenty-six Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat—
Maniben won on a Janata Party ticket from Mehsana.11
‘My grandfather and father were part of Gandhian circles, my mother was
a staunch Gandhian herself and they were well-known to these senior
leaders,’ Shah recalled, going on to add, ‘[D]uring the 1977 campaign, a
large number of these senior Gandhians who were exasperated with Indira
Gandhi, like Acharya J.B. Kripalani (1888-1982) and Maniben Patel and
many others decided to come together in support of the Janata Party. During
the election campaign, Acharya Kripalani put up in our house for seven days
and supported the campaign. He was in advanced years and had decided to
stay put in one place and express solidarity with the movement to unseat
Indira. I would go out every day accompanying Maniben as part of her
campaign team. She was quite old by then but would go around the whole
day campaigning. This gave me my first exposure.’12
Amit Shah’s journey up the ranks of the BJP is in fact reflective of the
growth and trajectory of the party itself. It symbolises the possibilities for
48. every worker in a party like the BJP, which is essentially democratic, organic
and constantly evolving. It was an intense patriotism and sanskaar that drove
Shah to join the ranks of swayamsevaks of the RSS in 1980 at the age of
sixteen. It was also the year that the BJP was born. Shah’s association with
the RSS and then his responsibilities as the joint-general secretary of the
Gujarat unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) gave him a
thorough grounding in organisational techniques and in nationalism.
Shah was among those many young workers who had joined the party in
the period of its first and most crucial expansion in the early years between
1980-85. It was a period when the possibility of ever being in power in Delhi
seemed a difficult dream, when the Congress’s dominance still continued and
when the fledgling party took halting steps towards establishing itself as a
credible alternative.
Moreover, in 1985 when Shah finally joined the BJP, the party had just
badly lost in the general elections of 1984 and its leaders were debating on
whether they had done the right thing by first, dissolving the Jana Sangh, and
then later by forming a new party. ‘In those days, all young workers who had
joined the BJP had done so solely under the inspiration of its ideology, of the
alternative that it aimed to create, its nationalism and its determination to
protect democracy and oppose authoritarianism. The possibility of being in
power was a faraway dream,’ Shah remembers.13 In his interaction with
workers to this day, Shah unfailingly refers to the contribution and sacrifice
of countless workers who, over the years, had pushed the chariot of the Jana
Sangh and BJP, had struggled, resisted and laid themselves down so that the
party could reach this pinnacle of power and expansion.14
Shah joined the BJP as an ordinary worker, around the time when the
party had lost badly in the general elections of 1984 and was undergoing a
deep internal churn on its future course of action and even its raison d’être.
His first assignment was as a poll agent at Ahmedabad’s Naranpura ward,
starting off as in charge of a booth then numbered 263 Sanghvi. Shah soon
became the ward's secretary. It was also an area in which he was a voter. His
phase as an ordinary worker had begun; he would grow with the party.
49. In 1987, Shah joined the youth wing of the party—Bharatiya Janata Yuva
Morcha (BJYM)—his entry in the real-time world of politics had begun. His
active association with the RSS and his organisational capacities had also
seen him becoming, at a young age, the state treasurer of the Gujarat unit of
the Deendayal Research Institute (DRI)—the research institute started by
Nanaji Deshmukh (1916-2010), one of the principal anchors of the Jana
Sangh, in memory of Upadhyaya. It was in his eight years as the state
treasurer of DRI, while being in the BJP, that Shah was exposed to the world
of research, policy studies and ideas as well as ideological orientation. It was
during these years that he took to reading the DRI’s flagship journal
Manthan. The journal played an important role in shaping his ideological and
political worldview.15
It was during this phase that Shah closely interacted with Nanaji
Deshmukh. He saw Nanaji emphasise on research, developing intellectual
rigour, analyse policies and come up with credible alternatives. ‘Nanaji was a
visionary. He would always say that we need workers with a revolutionary
mindset, with a drive to take on challenges, only then could new directions be
initiated and new goals be achieved. Merely being obedient without taking
initiative eventually serves no purpose,’ Shah recalled about one particular
conversation he had with Nanaji.16 In those early years, that advice was
useful to Shah, as it was to hundreds of young workers, who had set out to
make the BJP the new pole of Indian politics. This phase also saw him come
in touch with Narendra Modi.
What was the year 1987—the year Shah joined the youth wing of the BJP
—like for the party, then led by L.K. Advani? The party had started
becoming increasingly vocal on a number of issues, taking the Rajiv Gandhi-
led Congress government head on. The year 1987 saw the formulation of
ideological positions. It would thus be interesting to have a peek into the
political world of the BJP in the year Shah joined its youth wing. It would
give us an insight into the issues that workers of the party had to deal with
and the positions they were called upon to internalise and then disseminate
and argue for.
50. It was the height of the Khalistan movement and the BJP’s position was
that there could be ‘no dialogue with those demanding Khalistan’. The party
suggested a ‘six-point approach to the Punjab imbroglio’. President’s rule,
the creation of a security zone along the north-western border, calling in the
army to assist civil authorities, issuing a white paper on foreign involvement
in Punjab terrorism—were some of the points it made. The year 1987 also
saw the rise of a subversive discourse of India being a ‘multinational state’, a
discourse that periodically crops up even to this day. The BJP opposed and
rejected this divisive thesis. In his address to the party’s National Council in
Vijaywada between 2-4 January 1987, Advani noted that ‘India is multi-
lingual, it is multireligious, but it is still one nation. Indians are one people’
and that the Indian Constitution was also based ‘on this acceptance’.17 In
addition, the BJP gave the famous call for rejecting ‘pseudo-secularism’, the
truth being that ‘for many politicians and intellectuals, secularism [was] only
a euphemism to cloak their allergy to Hinduism’. The party also foresaw the
‘dangers of minoritism’18 and argued that while it was the duty ‘of the state
to guarantee justice and security to all minorities—religious, linguistic,
ethnic... it [was] also imperative for national integration that minorities do not
develop a minority complex’.19
The BJP also campaigned for electoral reforms and called for, ‘reducing
voting age from twenty-one years to eighteen years’, ‘providing photo-
affixed identity cards to all voters’ and for conducting ‘simultaneous
elections for Lok Sabha and assemblies’.20 The party also focused its
energies on highlighting the issue of ‘funds stashed abroad’ and upped the
ante on the ‘need for an enquiry’ into these. Advani demanded ‘a full-scale
enquiry into the sources of these hidden funds abroad including an approach
to the Swiss government’ which had recently ‘liberalised its laws relating to
such accounts’.21 In its National Executive meet in April that year in
Haryana’s Rohtak, the party flagged the ‘Bofors Kickbacks’ issue, cited the
Swedish State Radio’s ‘startling report about an undercover operation carried
out by an arms firm Bofors, whereby 16 million dollars (about Rs 20 crore)
[were] to be paid to “members of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress
51. (I)” in connection with an Indian order for a complete field artillery system’
and called upon the prime minister to immediately order a suitable probe
whose impartiality is accepted by all, and while the probe is on, it asked him
‘to step down from office and let his party elect a new leader’.22
The previous year, that is 1986, had seen the Shah Bano case; it was an
issue that had generated wide debate among the party’s cadres. While taking
over the mantle of the BJP presidency from Vajpayee, Advani spoke of how
the government’s ‘somersault’ on the verdict was distressing and how the
prime minister had ‘capitulated to the vicious campaign, unleashed by the
Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami against the judgment and introduced a
bill in Parliament seeking to wipe out the impact of the Supreme Court
judgment’.23 Advani’s observations on the entire episode is contemporaneous
if one were to taken into account the present debate on Triple Talaq, an issue
which both the party headed by Shah today and the government led by Modi
are trying to address. Advani had concluded his observations thus:
History will never forgive this government [Rajiv Gandhi’s] for the fact that
when a debate ensued within the Indian Muslim community with regard to the
rights of women and a sizable—and very enlightened—section of the community
risked opprobrium at the hands of the obscurantists in the community to espouse
the cause of social reform and a fair deal for women, this government sided with
the fanatics!24
This was broadly the ideological world of the BJP in 1987.
The 1980s, especially the latter half of the decade, saw younger people
being encouraged to ‘assume leadership responsibilities in the organisation
both at the national level and state level’.25 Shah’s successful performance at
the booth level saw him being given the responsibility as the Ahmedabad city
secretary of BJP in 1989; it was as the secretary of Ahmedabad city that Shah
got sucked into the world of Yatras. His deft mobilisation and publicity
campaign for the Rath Yatra caught Advani’s attention.
In June that year, the BJP’s National Executive meet at Palampur had
passed a ‘resolution on Rama-Janmabhumi [sic] drawing attention of the
