Vinay Sitapati - Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi

A tent city had been erected over the Mahalakshmi Race Course, playground of south Bombays upper classes. A public rally was scheduled in Shivaji Park, maidan for middle Mumbais middle classes. The three-day plenary session of the Bharatiya Janata Party had begun in Bombay on 10 November 1995, just months before the coming national elections.

Over 120,000 donor Nusli Wadiagrandson of Muhammad Ali Jinnahmade his own offerings.

Party bigwigs had their mugshots plastered onto the backdrop of the sprawling podium. But one picture loomed largea balding dome, oval face, white moustache and black-rimmed glasses. image in these years, co-opting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) men like Narendra Modi as well as movements like the one for a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The seventy-year-old Atal Bihari Vajpayee, meanwhile, had spent this past decade sidelined from a party travelling in the reverse direction from his preferred Gandhian socialism. Vajpayee was a few inches shorter than Advani, with a face that was rounder, clean-shaven and full haired. This had been the face of political Hinduism since 1957, and Vajpayee had founded the BJP in this moderate image in 1980.

But ever since the RSS had removed him from party leadership in 1986,

The backdrop of the stage additionally had a picture of The depiction of the spot where Indian prime ministers ceremonially give their yearly Independence Day address was deliberate. Elections were scheduled for AprilMay 1996, and Advanis agenda this plenary was to ensure that on 15 August 1996, it would be a BJP prime minister who spoke from its ramparts.

There was no guarantee that this would happen. While the party had emerged as the second largest in the 1991 national elections, much had altered since then, including three domes of a mosque in central Uttar Pradesh. Confusingly, this demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 had slowed the ascent of the BJP. The party had done worse than expected in local and state elections held since.

These losses were aggravated by ego tussles in a party that prided itself And worst of all, the BJPs winning score in Gujarat in March 1995it had won 121 of the 182 assembly seatswas being levelled by self-goals.

Denied the position Advani was forced to transfer Modi to Delhi that very November.

This was the same Congress culture of factional fights that Advani had prided himself on staying away from. Indeed, this was the disunity that, in the RSSs telling, had been the historical source of Hindu

The first day of the plenary was dominated by these twin trepidations regarding party unity and electability. On day two, when party president Advani got up to address the public meeting at Shivaji Park, the crowd assumed that he would reiterate these twofold concerns and announce himself as the prime minister-in-waiting.

Instead, the audience began to hear a small section chant Vajpayee, Vajpayee. Someone present remembers: One thing I can tell you about Advaniji. He controlled the party fully. Those [chants] would not have happened without his knowing... without his permitting. And as if on cue, L.K. Advani announced the name of the partys prime ministerial candidate.

* * *

A few weeks earlier, Advani had visited a village in Madhya Pradesh. From this remote location, he had stated that it was Vajpayee, not he, who would be the next prime minister. So implausible was Advanis line and so obscure the platform that the cadre had not stirred. But Vajpayee had. He had

The Bombay plenary that followed had provided Advani the loudspeaker to broadcast his decision: Vajpayee, not Advani, was the prime minister-in-waiting. Vajpayee spoke to the crowd after Advani, responding with characteristic mixed messaging. On Delhi is still far away.

The rest of the party

Even two decades after, an RSS leader remembers with an air of irritation: I have nothing to say about the 1995 Advani decision. Only thing I can say is that it was not decided formally. The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), which had ridden along with Advani on the back

The RSS continued to argue for several days. But Advani refused to imagine himself as prime minister. He did not say if the love from his four-decade-friendship with Vajpayee had influenced his decision. He would only say: What

* * *

What prompted you? the journalist Swapan Dasgupta asked Advani immediately after the announcement. Advani replied: We need the incremental votes. And for that, we need Atalji.

The other reason for Advanis choice was that Vajpayee was better than he was at pacifying rebels within the party. A confidante of his says, Advaniji told me: Why are we Hindus making [the same] mistakes as the past. He knew that the many factions [in the BJP] may not like Vajpayee, but they respected him. Only he could bring them together. Advani didnt have that skill.

In the midst of such

* * *

It is this partnership between Vajpayee and Advani that this book employs as a vehicle to study the Bharatiya Janata Party: from an ideology in the early twentieth century, to a movement, then party, and finally government from 1998 to 2004. This first phase ends with the arrival of Narendra Modi on the national stage.

Picking a political relationship to analyse an ideology does come with blind spots. For one, the focus of Those interested in these debates may wish to first turn to the Scholarly Contribution at the very end of this book before reading on.

These theoretical arguments, however, loiter in the background. The ensuing chapters weave a story of a relationship rather than prove a theorem. The music that runs through this book is the jugalbandi between Vajpayee and Advani, which reflected (in their early years) and shaped (in their later years) Hindu nationalism before Narendra Modi.

Vajpayee and Advani were able to upturn their internal hierarchies not once but twice. The 1995 decision of Advani to sacrifice for the sake of Vajpayee was not the first time they had switched places with each other. As this book shows, while Vajpayee controlled the party from 1968 onwards, he wordlessly stepped aside in 1986 and served under Advani for the next decade.

This ability to forgo for the other, complement the otherall the while maintaining distinctive dispositions and dogmasshowcases the BJPs nature and effectiveness. Even their births coincided with the origin of their political ideology. And so we begin this journey in the 1920s, with the births of Vajpayee, Advani and of Hindu nationalism itself.

PART I

THE PAST (192480)