Jana Sangh to BJP: Battling India's pluralism
Amulya Ganguli
Narendra Modi's views of the historical events at the time of partition are as problematic as his understanding of what happened in the subsequent periods. Inaugurating the new, plush, 170,000 sq. feet, vaastu-compliant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office in New Delhi, he said that the party in its earlier avatar as the Jana Sangh was at the forefront of all the leading mass movements in the country.
However, this assessment is unlikely to be shared by those who are not followers of the BJP. In their opinion, far from being a leading player during popular agitations in the 1950s and 1960s, the Jana Sangh was very much on the margins of the political scene if only because it carried the stain of responsibility for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and was shunned by the Muslims. The liberal Hindus, too, looked upon the Jana Sangh as a backward-looking party of the "cow belt", representing all that was primitive in the Indian mind.
This somewhat lowly status can be seen from the fact that the Jana Sangh won only three Lok Sabha seats in the 1952 general election with 3.06 per cent votes. Its subsequent performances were only marginally better. The party won four seats in 1957 (5.93 per cent), 14 seats in 1962 (6.44 per cent), 35 seats, its best performance till then, in 1967 with 9.41 per cent votes and 22 seats in 1971 (7.35 per cent). These figures do not substantiate the claim about the Jana Sangh being a major player in the political scene.
Not surprisingly, the party was not averse to losing its identity in 1977 when it merged with three other equally marginal players -- the Congress (O), the Congress for Democracy and the Socialist Party -- to form the Janata Party. If the Jana Sangh was as important as it is claimed to be, it wouldn't have given up its distinct status so readily. As for the three others, they were all bit players and have since disappeared although prominent politicians of the time -- Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram, Madhu Limaye -- were associated with them.
However, it has to be acknowledged that the Jana Sangh was able to reinvent itself as the BJP after the latter was formed in 1980 and now represents one of the poles of Indian politics. From this standpoint, the loss of its earlier identity may have been a blessing in disguise for it could start all over again. But the crucial link between its earlier self and the present one remains. It is that of communalism -- the cornerstone of its ideology.
Indeed, this trait has become even more pronounced with the BJP's assumption of power at the Centre in 2014. Nothing demonstrated this characteristic more starkly than the assertion by a BJP MP, Sakshi Maharaj, that Nathuram Godse, Mahatma Gandhi's assassin, was a patriot. It is a safe bet that a claim of this nature would not have been made by anyone in the Jana Sangh in the immediate post-Independence decades when it was supposedly leading mass movements. The party simply did not have the confidence then to do so when it was unsure of its place in the social and political worlds.
As a result, the Jana Sangh had kept its core beliefs under wraps. If the BJP is less discrete now, the reason is that it believes it has been somewhat better able than before to sell its anti-Muslim ideology in the garb of nationalism and by promising vikas or development which, it claims, can be provided only by Modi, who has been described as God's gift to the nation by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu.
The BJP has also been helped by the weakening of its opponent, viz., the Congress, which no longer wears the halo as at the time of Independence and for about two decades afterwards when it had no real challengers. At the same time, it is obvious that the BJP's progress at the central level has been by fits and starts, pointing towards flawed policies which do not have wide popular approval.
The party's first stint under Atal Behari Vajpayee was followed by a break of 10 years when the Congress was in power. Now, there is speculation that Narendra Modi may find it difficult to repeat his performance of 2014 when the BJP won a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. The grapevine in Lutyens Delhi now predicts that the party's tally of seats will be around 200-220, dropping from the present 282.
Rumours of this nature explain the BJP's caution, as in its Jana Sangh days, against unfurling the Sangh parivar's saffron flag to the fullest extent possible. Sakshi Maharaj, for instance, has been told not to praise Godse again.
What this circumspection indicates is the BJP's realisation that it remains a square peg of sectarianism in the round hole of India's pluralism. From the Jana Sangh days to the present, the party of cultural nationalism -- one nation, one people, one culture -- has been an outsider, battling unsuccessfully against India's DNA of cultural assimilation.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
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Strict security measures in place in Mumbai for Messi's events at 2 venues Dec 14, say police
Mumbai (PTI): In view of Argentine superstar footballer Lionel Messi's visit to Mumbai on Sunday, the city police are implementing stringent security measures, like not allowing water bottles, metals, coins inside the stadiums and setting up watchtowers to keep an eye on the crowd, officials said.
The police also said taking extra care to avoid any stampede-like situation and to prevent recurrence of the chaotic situation that unfolded in Kolkata during Messi's visit on Saturday as thousands of fans protested inside the Salt Lake stadium here after failing to catch a clear glimpse of the football icon despite paying hefty sums for tickets.
Messi is expected to be present at the Cricket Club of India (Brabourne Stadium) in Mumbai on Sunday for a Padel GOAT Cup event followed by attending a celebrity football match. He is expected to proceed to the Wankhede Stadium for the GOAT India Tour main event around 5 pm.
"In view of Lionel Messi's visit to Mumbai, the police are geared up and have put in place a high level of security arrangements in and around the stadiums located in south Mumbai. Considering the chaos that prevailed in Kolkata and the security breach, we have deployed World Cup-level security arrangements at Brabourne and Wankhede stadiums," an official said.
Expecting heavy crowd near the stadiums during Messi's visit, the city police force has deployed more than 2,000 of its personnel near and around both the venues, he said.
As the Mumbai police have the experience of security 'bandobast' during the victory parade of ICC World Cup-winning Indian team and World Cup final match at the Wankhede Stadium, in which over one lakh cricket fans had gathered, we are prepared to handle a large crowd of fans, he said.
"We are trying to avoid the errors that occurred in the past," the official said.
There is no place to sneak inside the stadiums in Mumbai like the Kolkata stadium, according to him.
The police are also asking the organisers to provide all the required facilities to the fans inside the stadium, so that there will be no chaos, he said, adding the spectators have purchased tickets in the range of Rs 5,000 to 25,000. After paying so much of amount, any spectator expects proper services, while enjoying the event, he said.
The police are expecting 33,000 spectators at the Wankhede Stadium and over 4,000 at Brabourne Stadium. Besides this, more than 30,000 people are expected outside and around the stadiums just to have a glimpse of the football sensation, he said.
The organisers responsible for Messi's India visit recently came to Mumbai to discuss security arrangements. During the meeting, the Mumbai police asked them not to take the event lightly, according to the official.
After those requirements were fulfilled, the final security deployment was chalked out, he said.
Police has the standard procedure of the security arrangements inside the Wankhede Stadium, where people are barred from taking water bottles, metals objects, coins. Police are setting up watch towers near the stadiums and there will be traffic diversions, so that there is maximum space available to stand, according to the official.
Police are also appealing to the spectators to use public transport service for commuting and avoid personal vehicles to reach south Mumbai.
To avoid any stampede-like situation, police are also taking precautionary measures and will stop the fans some distance ahead of the stadium and public announcement systems will be used to guide the crowd. Barricades will be placed at various places to manage the crowd.
In case the crowd swells up beyond expectation, the police will divert people to other grounds and preparations in this regard underway, he said.
Additional police force has been deployed in south Mumbai to tackle any kind of situation, he said.
