Bharatiya Jana Sangh | |
---|---|
President | Bharat Bhushan Pandey |
Founder | Syama Prasad Mukherjee |
Founded | 21 October 1951[1] |
Dissolved | 23 June 1977 |
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 | |
The Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh (abbreviated asBJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, [10] was an Indian nationalist political party. This party was established on 21 October 1951 in Delhi, and existed until 1977. Its three founding members were Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal Upadhyaya. Jan Sangh was the political arm of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist 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 Bharatiya Janata Party, which is the direct political successor to the Jan 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]
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]
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 the Communist idelogy 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]
# | 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 List of presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party |
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. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and Durga Charan Banerjee were elected from Bengal and Uma Shankar Trivedi from 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] |
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar, which has developed a presence in all facets of Indian society and includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling political party under Narendra Modi, the 14th prime minister of India. Mohan Bhagwat has served as the Sarsanghchalak of the RSS since March 2009.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is a political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP is aligned with right-wing politics and has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right paramilitary organisation. Its policies adhere to Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology. As of January 2024, it is the country's biggest political party in terms of representation in the Parliament of India as well as state legislatures.
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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.
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
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".
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