Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Bharatiya Jana Sangh
Founder	Syama Prasad Mukherjee
Founded	21 October 1951;73 years ago (21 October 1951) [1]
Dissolved	()
Split from	Hindu Mahasabha
Merged into	Janata Party (1977–1980)
Succeeded by	Bharatiya Janata Party (1980–present)
Ideology	Hindu nationalism [2] Hindutva [3] Integral humanism [4] National conservatism [5] Economic nationalism [6]
Political position	Right-wing [7] to far-right [8]
Religion	Hinduism [9]
Colours	Saffron
Election symbol
Politics of India Political parties Elections

The Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh (abbreviated asBJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh ^[10] ) was a Hindutva political party active in India. It was established on 21 October 1951 in Delhi by three founding members: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal Upadhyaya. Jan Sangh was the political arm of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindutva volunteer organisation. ^[11] In 1977, it merged with several other left, centre and right parties opposed to the Indian National Congress and formed the Janata Party. ^[12] In 1980, the members of erstwhile Jan Sangh quit the Janata party after the defeat in the 1980 general elections and formed the [[Professor Balraj Madhok, a founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, maintained the Bharatiya Jana Sangh by registering it with the Election Commission. Professor Balraj Madhok remained the National President of All India Jan Sangh till 2016. After his death, the national president of All India Jan Sangh is Dr. Acharya Bharatbhushan Pandey. The so-called ideology of Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh, "Integral Humanism", was first given by Deendayal Upadhyay in 1965.]], which is the direct political successor to the Jan Sangh.

Origins

Syama Prasad Mukherjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Many members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) began to contemplate the formation of a political party to continue their work, begun in the days of the British Raj, and take their ideology further. Around the same time, Syama Prasad Mukherjee left the Hindu Mahasabha political party that he had once led because of a disagreement with that party over permitting non-Hindu membership. ^{[13] [14] [15]}
Mainly two reasons led to the formation of Jan Sangh- first was the Liaquat–Nehru Pact and second, the ban on RSS after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. ^[16]
The state level units for Punjab, P.E.P.S.U. (Patiala and East Punjab States Union), Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Bharat were already established before it was formally founded at national level. ^[17] The BJS was subsequently started by Mukherjee on 21 October 1951 ^[1] in Delhi, with the collaboration of the R.S.S., as a "nationalistic alternative" to the Congress Party. ^[18]

History

The first plenary session of Jan Sangh was held at Kanpur in December 1952. ^[19]

After the death of Mukherjee in 1953, RSS activists in the BJS edged out the career politicians and made it a political arm of the RSS and an integral part of the RSS family of organisations (Sangh Parivar). ^[20]

The strongest election performance of the BJS came in the 1967 Lok Sabha election in which it won 35 seats, ^{[21] [22]} when the Congress majority was its thinnest ever. ^[23]
The party secured six out of seven parliamentary seats in Delhi and went on to wrest control of the Metropolitan Council and Municipal corporation. ^[24]

Ideology

Main article: Hindutva

When BJS was formed, an 8-point programme was adopted.This formed the core of its ideology over the next years. ^[25]

The BJS leadership fervently supported a strong policy against Pakistan and China, and were averse to communism and the Soviet Union. Many BJS leaders also initiated the drive to ban cow slaughter nationwide in the early 1960s. ^[26]
Establishment of full relations with Israel was also a demand in the party manifesto. ^[8]
Uniform Civil Code was mentioned in the 1967 manifesto which said that the party would enact UCC if it came to power. ^[27]

Chronological list of presidents

#	Portrait	Name	Term
1		Syama Prasad Mukherjee	1951–52
2		Mauli Chandra Sharma	1954
3		Prem Nath Dogra	1955
4		Debaprasad Ghosh	1956–59
5		Pitamber Das	1960
6		Avasarala Rama Rao	1961
(4)		Debaprasad Ghosh	1962
7		Raghu Vira	1963
(4)		Debaprasad Ghosh	1964
8		Bachhraj Vyas	1965
9		Balraj Madhok	1966
10		Deendayal Upadhyaya	1967–68
11		Atal Bihari Vajpayee	1968–72
12		L. K. Advani	1973–77
See [[ Professor Balraj Madhok, a founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, maintained the Bharatiya Jana Sangh by registering it with the Election Commission. Professor Balraj Madhok remained the National President of All India Jan Sangh till 2016. After his death, the national president of All India Jan Sangh is Dr. Acharya Bharatbhushan Pandey. ]]

In general elections

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was created in 1951, and the first general election it contested was in 1951–52, in which it won only three Lok Sabha seats, in line with the four seats won by Hindu Mahasabha and three seats won by Ram Rajya Parishad. Syama Prasad Mukherjee and Durga Charan Banerjee were elected from Calcutta South East constituency and Midnapore Jhargram constituency in West Bengal and Uma Shankar Trivedi from Chittor constituency in Rajasthan. All the like-minded parties formed a block in the Parliament, led by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee. ^{[28] [21]}

Year	General Election	Seats Won	Change in Seat	% of votes	Ref.
1951	1st Lok Sabha	3	–	3.06	[28] [22]
1957	2nd Lok Sabha	4	1	5.93	[21] [22]
1962	3rd Lok Sabha	14	10	6.44	[21] [22]
1967	4th Lok Sabha	35	21	9.31	[21] [22]
1971	5th Lok Sabha	22	13	7.35	[29] [22] [30]

References

1. "Founding of Jan Sangh". www.bjp.org. Archived from the original on 25 January 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
2. Graham, Bruce D. "The Jana Sangh as a Nationalist Rally". Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics. Cambridge University Press. p. 94.
3. Thachil, Tariq (2014). Elite Parties, Poor Voters. Cambridge University Press. p. 42.
4. Kochanek, Stanley (2007). India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation. Cengage Learning. p. 333.
5. Baxter, Craig (1969). The Jana Sangh: a biography of an Indian political party. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 171.
6. Marty, Martin E. (1996). Fundamentalisms and the State. University of Chicago Press. p. 418.
7. Field, John Osgood. Electoral Politics in the Indian States. Manohar Book Service. p. 28.
8. "Israeli Diplomats Forged Deep Ties With Hindu Right Wing From Early '60s, Documents Reveal". The Wire. 11 March 2024. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
9. [[Lahiry, Sutapa. “JANA SANGH AND BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY : A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THEIR PHILOSOPHY AND STRATEGY AND THEIR PROXIMITY WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE SANGH PARIVAR.” The Indian Journal of Political Science, vol. 66, no. 4, 2005, pp. 831–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41856171. Accessed 8 Jan. 2024.]]
10. Donald Anthony Low, ed. (1968), Soundings in Modern South Asian History, University of California Press
11. A. G. Noorani (2000). The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour. LeftWord Books. p. 20. ISBN   9788187496137.
12. "Syama Prasad Mookerjee: Lesser-known facts about the Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder". Firstpost. 23 June 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
13. Urmila Sharma & SK Sharma 2001, p. 381.
14. Kedar Nath Kumar 1990, pp. 20–21.
15. Islam 2006b, p. 227.
16. Ahmad, Kabool (7 April 2023). "BJP's 43 years: How it emerged from Jana Sangh and became world's largest party". India Today. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
17. "Jana Sangh was formed on this day 70 yrs ago. How its ideology is reflected in today's BJP". The Print. 21 October 2021. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
18. Sharad Gupta; Sanjiv Sinha (18 January 2000). "Revive Jan Sangh – BJP hardlines". The Indian Express . Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
19. Madhok, Madhuri (20 October 2018). "Time to remember Jana Sangh's history". The Sunday Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
20. Kanungo, Pralaya (November 2006), "Myth of the Monolith: The RSS Wrestles to Discipline Its Political Progeny", Social Scientist, 34 (11/12): 51–69, JSTOR   27644183
21. Archis Mohan (9 October 2014). "The roots of India's second republic". Business Standard. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
22. Andersen & Damle 1987, p. 165.
23. "General Election of India 1967, 4th Lok Sabha" (PDF). Election Commission of India. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 July 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2010.
24. Vohra, Pankaj (20 October 2018). "Jana Sangh-BJP saga started in Delhi". The Sunday Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2024.
25. "On this day 69 years ago, 200 leaders formed Jana Sangh. It is now the BJP". The Print. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2024. When the BJS was formed, the party adopted an eight-point programme that largely formed its ideological core over the next few decades.These were: United Bharat; reciprocity instead of appeasement towards Pakistan; an independent foreign policy consistent with Bharat's paramount self-interest; rehabilitation of refugees with suitable compensation from Pakistan; increased production of goods, especially food and cloth, and decentralisation of industry; development of a single Bharatiya culture; equal rights for all citizens regardless of caste, community or creed, and improvement of the backward classes' standard; and readjustment of West Bengal's boundary with Bihar.
26. "Anti-cow slaughter mob storms Parliament | From the Archives (dated 8 November 1966)". The Hindu. 8 November 2016. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 26 January 2020. Thousands of rupees worth of damage to buildings and vehicles, both private and public, was caused by the mob which, in a violent and vociferous way, was demonstrating for the imposition of a ban on cow slaughter by Government. The parties who organised the demonstration, the number of participants in which was estimated between 3 lakhs and 7 lakhs, were the Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Arya Samaj and the Sanatan Dharma Sabha
27. "Uniform Civil Code: A core agenda for BJP, UCC's political genesis dates back to Jana Sangh days". Financial Express. 8 February 2024. Retrieved 7 July 2024. The BJS' Lok Sabha manifesto of 1962 didn't mention the UCC. However, it found a clear mention in the BJS's 1967 manifesto, where it promised citizens that it would enact UCC if voted to power, and would bring "uniform law for marriage, succession and adoption for all citizens".
28. Nag 2014, chapter 1.
29. Nag 2014, chapter 4.
30. "Members : Lok Sabha". loksabhaph.nic.in. Parliament of India. Retrieved 2 August 2022.

Sources

• Andersen, Walter K.; Damle, Shridhar D. (1987) [Oringally published by Westview Press]. The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism . Delhi: Vistaar Publications.
• Islam, Shamsul (2006b). Savarkar Myths and Facts. Anamaika Publishing & Distributors.
• Kumar, Kedar Nath (1990). Political Parties in India, Their Ideology and Organisation. Mittal Publications. ISBN   9788170992059.
• Nag, Kingshuk (2014). The Saffron Tide: The Rise of the BJP. Rupa Publications. ISBN   978-8129134295.
• Sharma, Urmila; Sharma, S.K. (2001). Indian Political Thought. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. ISBN   9788171566785.

Further reading

• Baxter, Craig (1971) [first published by University of Pennsylvania Press 1969]. The Jana Sangh – A Biography of an Indian Political Party . Oxford University Press, Bombay. ISBN   0812275837.
• Graham, B. D. (1990). Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-38348X.
• Jaffrelot, Christophe (1996). The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN   978-1850653011.