Vinay Sitapati - India Before Modi: How the BJP Came to Power

INDIA BEFORE MODI

VINAY SITAPATI

India Before Modi

How the BJP Came to Power

HURST & COMPANY, LONDON

First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by

C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,

83 Torbay Road, London, NW6 7DT

Vinay Sitapati, 2021

Printed in the United Kingdom

All rights reserved.

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Manipal Technologies Limited, Manipal

The right of Vinay Sitapati to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781787385375

www.hurstpublishers.com

Jugalbandi () means entwined twins in Hindi.
Typically used for an Indian classical concert
featuring two solo musicians,
usually with different instruments,
making music together.

Contents

Through the 1950s, Vajpayee was the voice of Hindu nationalism. Seen here with M.S. Golwalkar and Deendayal Upadhyaya in the audience.

Vajpayee and Balraj Madhok (behind Vajpayee) accompany Deendayal Upadhyayas funeral procession in 1968. Their succession fight would draw Vajpayee to Advani.

The under-confident L.K. Advani giving one of his first public speeches soon after Vajpayee made his former secretary party president in 1973.

Nusli Wadia (seen here with wife Maureen and two children) was not just the billionaire grandson of Jinnah, he was also the BJPs early funder.

Vajpayee and Advani announce the formation of a new party, BJP, in Delhi in April 1980.

Vajpayee was injured during campaigning for the 1984 elections. His electoral loss would begin his long exile from the BJP.

From 1986 to 1995, Advani ran the BJP, aided by loyalists like Narendra Modiseen here in Gujarat in 1992.

Vajpayees fortune changed once again in 1995 when Advani shocked the RSS by announcing him as the partys prime ministerial candidate in Mumbai.

As power came to the BJP, so did the money. R.V. Pandit, one such donor close to Bombay industrialists, only paid by cheque.

Team of Rivals: Murli Manohar Joshi, Advani, Vajpayee and Vijayaraje Scindia.

As power came to Vajpayee, so did BJP general secretary Narendra Modiseen here celebrating Holi in 1999.

Prime Minister Vajpayee proved adept at managing his coalition and cabinet to last a full term in office.

Vajpayees biggest opponent as prime minister was the RSS. While he did not back down, neither could he break away from the family.

Advanis family has always been run by powerful women, first Kamla then Pratibha.

From left: Vajpayees son-in-law Ranjan, granddaughter, daughter Namita and man Friday Shiv Kumar, at his funeral in 2018.

The New Jugalbandi: Modi and Amit Shah with Advani at Vajpayees funeral.

PROLOGUE: PRIME MINISTER ADVANI (1995)

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 delegates attended, some even by ship from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. And a party insider speculates that long-time 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. The sixty-eight-year-old Lal Krishna Advani had been party president for much of the past decade. He had remodelled the BJP in his radical 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 Red Fort in Delhi. 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.