Bharatiya Jana Sangh
| Bharatiya Jana Sangh | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Party leader |
Syama Prasad Mukherjee (1951–52) Mauli Chandra Sharma (1954) |
| Emergence | Party founded by Syama Prasad Mukherjee |
| founding | October 21, 1951 |
| Place of foundation | Delhi , India |
| fusion | 1974 (merged into: Bharatiya Lok Dal ) |
| Headquarters | Delhi |
| Alignment |
Conservatism , national conservatism Hindutva |
| Colours) | Saffron orange |
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS , Hindi भारतीय जन संघ , "Indian People's Association"), often shortened to Jana Sangh or Jan Sangh , was a political party in India that existed from 1951 to 1974. Politically, she belonged to the conservative “ Hindu nationalist ” spectrum. The BJS is the direct forerunner of today's Indian ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), founded in 1980 .
history
Ideological precursors
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh had two ideological precursors: the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM, "All Indian Hindu Grand Assembly", "Hindu Mahasabha" for short), founded in 1915, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, "National Volunteer Organization"), founded in 1926 . Both organizations had been founded in what was then British India and had the aim of strengthening Hindu self-confidence and representing Hindu interests. While the ABHM transformed itself into a political party in the 1930s, which later was also partly involved in coalition governments in the provinces of British India, the RSS focused on ideological and spiritual training and character building as well as on social activities throughout the colonial period of the Hindu community and refused to participate in daily politics. After the murder of Mohanda Karamchand Gandhi in 1948 by the militant Hindu Nathuram Godse , ABHM and RSS fell into severe public disrepute. The ABHM could not be proven to be directly involved in the murder, but it was noticeable that everyone involved in the planning of the murder, including Godses, had previously had connections with the ABHM. The ABHM was placed under close scrutiny by the government. The RSS, which was banned as an organization for a year, was hit even harder.
After the re-approval of the RSS in 1949 there was a strong tendency within the same, especially among younger members, to let the RSS become politically active. The ideologically related ABHM was not considered an alternative as it was seen as an inefficiently organized party led by old, inactive, uninspiring men. In view of the upcoming first all-India parliamentary election 1951–1952, two people in the RSS campaigned for the founding of a new party that would represent Hindu nationalist ideas and whose staff should be recruited mainly from RSS members. These were Balraj Madhok and Keval Malkani , who both drafted a provisional party program in publications.
The way to founding a party: Mukherjee
When the Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1951, a “party without a party leader” (the RSS) met a “party leader without a party”. This "party leader without a party" was Syama Prasad Mukherjee . Mukherjee was a Bengali lawyer and politician. In the mid-1930s he became a member of the ABHM and later for some time was a minister in a coalition government in the province of Bengal. After independence on August 15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru , who was known as a skilled administrative lawyer, appointed him Minister of Industry in the cabinet of the Indian interim government. After Gandhi's murder in 1948, in which Mukherjee was never suspected of having anything to do with it, he initially remained in the ABHM, of which he was vice-president at the time. He tried to get the ABHM to open up to other social groups and to give up their narrow communalist positions. However, he did not succeed and in December 1948 he left the ABHM. In the following period he came into conflict with Nehru. The reason for the rift lay in the situation in Bengal , the home of Mukherjee. Bengal was directly affected by the partition of India . The predominantly Muslim eastern part was split off as East Pakistan (now Bangladesh ), while West Bengal remained with India. Shortly after the partition, pogrom-like riots took place against the respective religious minorities, in which tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims died. In the years after the partition there was an ongoing mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan, who complained of massive discrimination and persecution by the Muslim majority, to India. Mukherjee was deeply affected by the misery of his compatriots and called for the Indian government to play a more active role and to take sides in the interests of Hindus in East Pakistan.
On April 8, 1950, Nehru signed the so-called Liaquat-Nehru Agreement with Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan , in which it was agreed that refugees could return to their home country and freely dispose of their belongings and that minorities should be better protected in future. On the day the contract was signed, Mukherjee, who had called for a much tougher course against the Pakistani government, which he blamed for the misery of the refugees, resigned from his ministerial office. Mukherjee's resignation was welcomed by RSS members and sympathizers who also opposed the deal. After his resignation, Mukherjee traveled all over India and had many political talks with RSS members. As a result, he decided that the time was right to found a new political party. On May 5, 1951 in Calcutta he announced the founding of a "People's Party" and outlined its program in eight points: (1) Unity of India, (2) reciprocity instead of appeasement towards Pakistan, (3) an independent foreign policy "in India's self-interest" , (4) reparation for the refugees and "appropriate compensations from Pakistan", (5) decentralized industries and increasing the production of goods, especially food and textiles, (6) developing an all-Indian national culture, (7) equal rights for all citizens and uplift the underprivileged castes, (8) aligning the borders of West Bengal with Bihar. Further local founding of regional associations followed in the course of the year: on May 27 in Jullundur for Delhi , Punjab , PEPSU and Himachal Pradesh , on September 2 in Indore for Madhya Pradesh , on October 2 in Satna for Vindhya Pradesh , on September 13. October for Rajasthan - Ajmer and on 13-14. October in Patna for Bihar . On October 21, 1951, representatives of these “regional associations” met in Delhi and officially united to form the “Bharatiya Jana Sangh” (BJS) as a nationwide Indian party.
The first elections 1951–1952 and the time thereafter
The elections 1951–1952
| Country | Lok Sabha | Parliament d. State | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
|
| "A states" | ||||||
| Assam | 12 | 0 | 3.64 | 105 | 0 | 0.29 |
| Bihar | 55 | 0 | 0.4 | 330 | 0 | 1.18 |
| Bombay | 45 | - | - | 315 | 0 | 0.04 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 29 | 0 | 4.94 | 232 | 0 | 3.58 |
| Madras | 75 | - | - | 375 | 0 | 0.04 |
| Orissa | 20th | - | - | 140 | - | - |
| Punjab | 18th | 0 | 5.6 | 126 | 0 | 5.56 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 86 | 0 | 7.29 | 430 | 2 | 6.45 |
| West Bengal | 34 | 2 | 5.94 | 238 | 9 | 5.58 |
| "B-States" | ||||||
| Hyderabad | 25th | - | - | 175 | 0 | 0.04 |
| Madhya Bharat | 11 | 0 | 9.65 | 99 | 4th | 9.74 |
| Mysore | 11 | 0 | 4.16 | 99 | 0 | 2.26 |
| PEPSU | 5 | 0 | 2.94 | 60 | 2 | 3.23 |
| Rajasthan | 20th | 1 | 3.04 | 160 | 8th | 5.93 |
| Saurashtra | 6th | - | - | 60 | 0 | 0.46 |
| Travancore Cochin | 12 | - | - | 108 | - | - |
| "C-States" | ||||||
| Ajmer | 2 | 0 | 16.2 | 30th | 3 | 11.95 |
| Bhopal | 2 | - | - | 30th | 0 | 4.92 |
| Bilaspur | 1 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Coorg | 1 | - | - | 24 | - | - |
| Delhi | 4th | 0 | 25.92 | 48 | 5 | 21.9 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 2 | 0 | 10.72 | 36 | 0 | 3.35 |
| Kachchh | 2 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Manipur | 2 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tripura | 2 | 0 | 6.14 | - | - | - |
| Vindhya Pradesh | 4th | 0 | 12.71 | 60 | 2 | 9.88 |
| total | 400 | 3 | 3.06 | 3280 | 35 | 1.07 |
Shortly after its founding, the new party was campaigning for the first nationwide elections to the all-India parliament (the Lok Sabha ) and the parliaments of the Indian states, which were held from October 1951 to February 1952. During the elections, the BJS was able to rely on the organizational structures of the RSS. The focal points of the party were the states of Madhya Pradesh , Madhya Bharat , Uttar Pradesh and Punjab . In its election manifesto published on October 29, 1951, the party invoked the unity of India and rejected secularism as it was only a "euphemism for appeasement towards Muslims". In terms of economic policy, there were only more general statements (increase in production, mechanization of agriculture, etc.) and the party was also cautious and cautious about land reform. In principle, the program spoke out in favor of a private-sector system and against extensive state-owned companies or state controls. Indian industry should be protected against "unfair foreign competition" by tariff barriers. The import of luxury goods should be taxed, while the import of capital goods should be made easier. In India, Hindi in Devanagari script was to be introduced as the nationwide national language. Other Indian languages should also be written in Devanagari. Education should become a focus of state work, with Sanskrit studies and (modernized) Ayurveda medicine receiving special state funding. The foreign policy statements in the program focused on Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir . As long as Pakistan is a separate state, a policy of reciprocity and not appeasement must be pursued towards it. Ultimately, the goal of a "reunification" of India with Pakistan should be pursued. This must also be in the interests of the Muslims in Pakistan, who have suffered just as much from the mass displacement. On the other hand, the party manifesto spoke in critical terms of the Muslim minority in India, saying that they still kept a certain distance from the Indian state ( Bharat ). They are free to practice their Muslim faith, but they have to adapt to Indian customs.
During the elections, there were some voting arrangements between Jan Sangh and smaller local parties. A major electoral alliance with the other two larger Hindu nationalist groups, Ram Rajya Parishad and Hindu Mahasabha , did not materialize. In the states of Bombay , Madras , Orissa , Manipur , Travancore-Cochin , Bhopal , Hyderabad , Saurashtra , Coorg and Kachchh , the BJS did not put up any candidates for the Lok Sabha election (but in some cases candidates for the local parliaments). In order not to run against the Ganatantra Parishad , with which the Jana Sangh sought to unite, the party did not put up any candidates in Orissa elections until 1962. The central personality on the side of the Jan Sangh in the subsequent election campaign was Mukherjee, who concentrated his activities primarily on West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The Jan Sangh was sharply attacked during the election campaign by Nehru, who described the party as a communalist, reactionary organization financed by former princes.
The election result was a disappointment for the Jan Sangh. With 3.06% of the votes in the nationwide election, it won just enough votes to continue to be recognized as a “national party” by the Indian Electoral Commission (the limit was 3.0% of the vote) and thus its symbol, the oil lamp ( Deepak ) to continue to reserve nationwide for themselves. Strongly disadvantaged by the current relative majority voting system, Jan Sangh candidates were only able to prevail in three constituencies, including Mukherjee in the Calcutta South East constituency .
Death of Mukherjee and attempt to unite with the Hindu Mahasabha
After the election defeat, negotiations between Jan Sangh and other opposition parties took place. In June 1952, after a conference chaired by Mukherjee, a new grouping of members of parliament from various parties, the " National Democratic Party ", was formed. It included MPs from Jan Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha, Akali Dal , Ganatantra Parishad , Commonweal Party and Tamil Nadu Toilers Party (the latter two regional parties from Madras) and several independent MPs. In 1953 Hindu Mahasabha, Ram Raja Parishad and Jan Sangh jointly agitated for further integration of Jammu and Kashmir in India. In order to facilitate the integration of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir into India, Prime Minister Nehru made major concessions to the head of the Kashmiri government, Mohammed Abdullah , which went far too far for the Hindu nationalists. These demanded a full integration of Jammu and Kashmir in India as a regular federal state. While trying to enter Jammu and Kashmir without the required permit, Mukherjee was arrested and died unexpectedly in prison on June 23, 1953. Pneumonia was given as the cause of death. With the death of their most famous political leader, the three Hindu nationalist parties moved closer together and plans arose to unite the Jan Sangh with the Hindu Mahasabha, but these concepts fell apart in the course of 1953, much to the regret of Mahasabha leader Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee , who had been a close friend of Mukherjee.
For the Jan Sangh, the surprising death of their party leader Mukherjee was a disaster. Mukherjee had been the only nationally known figure in the party, and one of the very few individuals who could rival the leaders of the Congress Party, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru, in terms of format. After Mukherjee's death, Mauli Chandra Sharma became party president of the Jan Sangh. On November 3, 1954, Sharma resigned from this office on the grounds that the party was now too dominated by the RSS. Sharma was later expelled from the party. A wave of party withdrawals and expulsions followed. Ultimately, this led to the organizational structure of the Jan Sangh becoming significantly more disciplined and streamlined. In the years 1952-57, the party fought intensely against the Hindu Code bills introduced by Nehru for the codification and reform of Hindu private law and, on the other hand, supported the reorganization of the states according to linguistic criteria, which was implemented in the States Reorganization Act 1956.
The years 1957 to 1977
In the second all- India parliamentary election in 1957 , there were no nationwide alliances with other parties. The Jan Sangh was able to increase its share of the vote noticeably (from 3.06 to 5.93%) and won 4 instead of 3 constituencies. The same applied to the elections to the parliaments of the federal states. One of the four elected BJS Lok Sabha MPs was Atal Bihari Vajpayee , who was the spokesman for the BJS parliamentary group from 1957 to 1962.
The Jan Sangh opposed the division of the state of Punjab into a Punjabi - and a Hindi -speaking part, operated by Akali-Dal politicians , as it saw the unity of Hindus and Sikhs that it had assumed endangered. In terms of foreign policy, the party continued to see Pakistan as the main threat to India and fought both the 1958 agreement between the Pakistani Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon and Jawaharlal Nehru (which never came into force), projected in October 1958 , and the India-Pakistani agreement on water resources Indus river basin of September 19, 1960. With regard to the People's Republic of China , the Jan Sangh initially took a cautiously positive position, although they strictly rejected communist ideology. She condemned the Chinese occupation of Tibet particularly clearly. With the escalation of tensions over the Indo-Chinese territorial conflicts in Ladakh , the Jan Sangh assumed an increasingly anti-Chinese stance from 1957 at the latest. Domestically, the party was repeatedly accused of being involved in communalist conflicts or of having fueled them.
In the all-India parliamentary elections in 1962 , the BJS again won slightly and gained 6.44% of the votes and increased the number of its members of parliament from 4 to 14. It was also able to increase its share of the vote in the elections to the state parliaments. The BJS was no longer the only major conservative opposition party in this election, as the Swatantra party had been founded in 1959 . In the subsequent parliamentary election in 1967 , the Congress party suffered significant losses and was reduced to a minority party in many states for the first time. This was offset by corresponding gains by the opposition parties (Socialists, Jan Sangh, Swatantra). The Jan Sangh won 9.41% of the vote and 35 seats in parliament, making it the third largest parliamentary group (after Congress and Swatantra). The 1971 election , on the other hand, was a great disappointment. Under Indira Gandhi, the Congress Party achieved a triumphant election victory and the Jan Sangh fell to 7.35% of the vote and 23 seats.
In 1974 seven parties, including the Jan Sangh, united to form a new party, the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD, "Indian People's Party") in order to be able to counter the dominant congress party more effectively . In alliance with other parties, the BLD was successful in the 1975 parliamentary elections in Gujarat . Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency , which lasted until 1977. Many Jan Sangh leaders were imprisoned during this period, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani . After the state of emergency was lifted, Indira Gandhi threatened to win again in the scheduled election, which is why the opposition hurried to bring together the largest possible front of opposition parties. Through the amalgamation of various opposition parties, including the BLD, the Janata Party was formed , which surprisingly won the 1977 election and then formed the government. Former Jan Sangh politicians like Vajpayee held leading positions in the government. However, tensions soon arose within the heterogeneous Janata Party, especially between the exponents of the socialist wing and the former Jan Sangh partisans. The former Jan Sangh politicians left the government and later the party and founded a new party in 1980, which was largely identical to the old Jan Sangh in terms of program and personnel, but gave itself a new name - Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Election results
Elections to the parliaments of the states
The following are the results of the Jan Sangh in elections to the parliaments of the states and Union territories. Not all Union territories had their own parliaments and the BJS did not take part in all elections (non-participation is marked as '-'). The focus of the BJS was on the two north Indian Hindi-speaking states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, as well as Delhi. The party was also above average in Rajasthan and Bihar. In the south Indian " Dravidian " states of Madras (from 1969 Tamil Nadu), Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, in Orissa, as well as in the Indian north-east , the party had hardly any political weight.
| State / Union Territory |
Elections 1957 | Elections 1962 | Elections 1967 | 1972 elections | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
Seats | Profit | Votes (in%) |
|
| Assam | 108 | - | - | 105 | 0 | 0.45 | 126 | 0 | 1.84 | 126 | 0 | 0.26 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 105 | 0 | 0.16 | 300 | 0 | 1.04 | 287 | 3 | 2.11 | 287 | 0 | 1.86 |
| Bihar | 318 | 0 | 1.23 | 318 | 3 | 2.77 | 318 | 26th | 10.42 | 301 | 25th | 11.69 |
| Bombay | 396 | 4th | 1.56 | |||||||||
| Delhi | 56 | 5 | 38.47 | |||||||||
| Goa | 30th | - | - | 30th | 0 | 0.36 | ||||||
| Gujarat | 154 | 0 | 1.34 | 168 | 1 | 1.88 | 168 | 3 | 9.29 | |||
| Haryana | 81 | 12 | 14.39 | 81 | 2 | 6.55 | ||||||
| Himachal Pradesh | 60 | 7th | 13.87 | 68 | 5 | 7.75 | ||||||
| Jammu and Kashmir | 75 | - | - | 75 | 3 | 16.45 | 75 | 3 | 9.85 | |||
| Mysore | 208 | 0 | 1.34 | 208 | 0 | 2.29 | 216 | 4th | 2.82 | 216 | 0 | 4.3 |
| Kerala | 126 | - | - | 126 | 0 | 0.07 | 133 | 0 | 0.88 | 133 | 0 | 0.6 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 77 | 6th | 9.9 | 288 | 41 | 16.66 | 296 | 78 | 28.28 | 296 | 48 | 28.64 |
| Madras / Tamil Nadu | 205 | - | - | 206 | 0 | 0.08 | 234 | 0 | 0.15 | 234 | 0 | 0.06 |
| Maharashtra | 264 | 0 | 5.00 | 270 | 4th | 8.17 | 270 | 5 | 6.25 | |||
| Manipur | 30th | - | - | 60 | 0 | 0.22 | ||||||
| Nagaland | 40 | - | - | 40 | - | - | 60 | - | - | |||
| Orissa | 140 | - | - | 140 | - | - | 140 | 0 | 0.54 | 140 | 0 | 0.7 |
| Pondicherry | 30th | - | - | 30th | - | - | 30th | - | - | |||
| Punjab | 154 | 9 | 8.61 | 154 | 8th | 9.72 | 104 | 9 | 9.84 | 104 | 0 | 4.97 |
| Rajasthan | 176 | 6th | 5.55 | 176 | 15th | 9.15 | 184 | 22nd | 11.69 | 184 | 8th | 12.2 |
| Manipur | 30th | - | - | 60 | 0 | 0.22 | ||||||
| Tripura | 30th | 0 | 0.35 | 60 | 0 | 0.07 | ||||||
| West Bengal | 252 | 0 | 0.98 | 252 | 0 | 0.45 | 280 | 1 | 1.33 | 275 | 0 | 0.19 |
- ↑ 1960 in Kerala, 1961 in Orissa, 1964 in Nagaland and Pondicherry.
- ↑ 1969 in Nagaland and Pondicherry.
- ↑ 1970 in Kerala, 1971 in Orissa and Tamil Nadu, 1974 in Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland and Pondicherry.
Elections to the Lok Sabha
The following table shows the election results (seats won) in the all-India parliamentary elections.
| year | choice | voting share |
Seats in parliament |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1951/52 |
 Elected Lok Sabha 1951/52
|
3.06% |
3/489 |
| 1957 |
Elected Lok Sabha in 1957
|
5.97% |
4/494 |
| 1962 |
Elected Lok Sabha in 1962
|
6.44% |
14/494 |
| 1967 |
Elected Lok Sabha in 1967
|
9.31% |
35/520 |
| 1971 |
Elected Lok Sabha in 1971
|
7.35% |
22/518 |
cards
The following maps show the voting shares of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh by district in the elections to the state parliament. With the maps it should be taken into account that not all Union territories had their own parliament.
1952
1957
1962
1967
literature
- Craig Baxter: The Jana Sangh - A Biography of an Indian Political Party . Oxford University Press, Bombay 1971, ISBN 0-8122-7583-7 .
- Bruce Graham: Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The origins and development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. (= South Asian Studies. 47). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990, ISBN 0-521-05374-9 .
- Christophe Jaffrelot : The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India . Columbia University Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-231-10334-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Craig Baxter: The Jana Sangh - A Biography of an Indian Political Party . Oxford University Press, Bombay 1971, ISBN 0-8122-7583-7 , II. The Political Ancestor: The Hindu Mahasabha, III. The Ideological and Organizational Ancestor: The RSS, p. 6–30 (English).
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter III. The Founding of the Jana Sangh
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter II. And Chapter III.
- ^ Treaty detail: AGREEMENT BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN REGARDING SECURITY AND RIGHTS OF MINORITIES (NEHRU-LIAQUAT AGREEMENT). Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India, April 8, 1950, accessed February 4, 2017 .
- ^ Indian Treaty series: AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENTS OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN REGARDING SECURITY AND RIGHTS OF MINORITIES (NEHRU-LIAQUAT AGREEMENT). Commonwealth Legal Information Institute, April 8, 1950, accessed February 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter III
- ↑ The last point was specially tailored to the needs of West Bengal and was implemented in the 1956 States Reorganization Act .
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter III
- ↑ a b c Election Results - Full Statistical Reports. Indian Election Commission, accessed on August 29, 2015 (English, election results of all Indian elections to the Lok Sabha and the parliaments of the states since independence).
- ^ Baxter, Chapter V. Facing the Electorate (I) - 1952
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter V.
- ↑ a b Myron Weiner: Party Politics in India. Chapter 10: The Unsuccessful Merger Attempt of Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha. Princeton University Press 1957, LC Card 57-5483, pp. 199-222.
- ↑ Baxter, Chapter VI. Mookherjee, Sharma and the RSS: 1952-1957
- ^ Treaty detail: TREATY BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN CONCERNING THE MOST COMPLETE AND SATISFACTORY UTILIZATION OF THE WATERS OF THE INDUS SYSTEM OF RIVERS. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India, September 19, 1960, accessed February 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Indian Treaty series: TREATY BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN CONCERNING THE MOST COMPLETE AND SATISFACTORY UTILIZATION OF THE WATERS OF THE INDUS SYSTEM OF RIVERS. Commonwealth Legal Information Institute, September 19, 1960, accessed February 16, 2017 .
- ^ Baxter, Chapter VIII. Strengthening the Organization: 1957–1962.
- ↑ after Baxter, opus cit.