Anand Kochukudy

The re-election of Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh chief minister marks a new chapter in the emergence of the Hindutva forces as the central pole of Indian politics. If it was the Indian National Congress which held sway for most of the initial few decades since independence, and continued to be a dominant force until about a decade ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party has well and truly eclipsed India’s Grand Old Party today. As the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) marks its centenary in 1925, an ideology which lost out to the nationalist movement and remained at the fringes has recaptured public imagination. The magnitude of the turnaround can only be contextualised by recalling the long and arduous journey of the Sangh Parivar from the Nehru era.
In 1952, Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had qualified the Bhartiya Jan Sangh as the “illegitimate child of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”. Nehru, known for his erudition and for weighing words carefully, was seemingly pointing out the contradiction in the formation of the Jan Sangh, even as the ‘legitimate’ Hindu Mahasabha existed in the political firmament. The Sangh Parivar’s idea of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, first conceptualised by Savarkar in 1923, couldn’t have succeeded if the Mahasabha, with the blood of the Mahatma on its hands, remained its political organ. Hence the Jan Sangh. In the first general elections of 1951-52, the Hindu Mahasabha returned four and the Jan Sangh three seats respectively.
The Jan Sangh couldn’t make much headway in the 1950s and ‘60s, despite managing to corner the spoils of power in some states in the late-sixties as part of the ‘Samyukt Vidhayak Dal’ arrangement. It was, in fact, the Janata Party experiment which saw the Sangh finally getting mainstreamed with 89 representatives from its ranks getting elected under the aegis of the Janata Party. Rather than cut off their umbilical cord with the RSS, the erstwhile Jan Sanghis preferred to leave the Janata Party and yet, in a bid to claim the legacy of Jayaprakash Narayan, they preferred to float the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) instead of reviving the Jan Sangh. Quite ironically, among the five commitments professed by the BJP at its birth included “Gandhian Socialism” and “positive secularism”.
In an interview to the RSS organ Panchajanya, then BJP President Lal Krishna Advani explained the dilution of ideology: “In India, a party based on ideology can come to power in a small area. Neither the Communist Party or the Jan Sangh in its original form can win the confidence of the entire country”. In an anti-climax of sorts, the BJP won just 2 seats and 7.68 per cent votes in the 1984 general election. The duplicity was hard to sell to its hardcore Sangh cadre, who did not possess the refinement of politicians. The BJP was going through an existential crisis post 1984, when it chanced upon a goldmine — the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid on February 1, 1986.
By May 1986 Advani was back at the helm of the BJP replacing Atal Bihari Vajpayee and, he saw a potential to turn the emotional Ram Temple issue into a poll plank. In 1989, the BJP passed a resolution in Palampur to build a Ram Temple at the site of the mosque and, it propelled the party from a mere 2 to 86 seats in the 1989 general elections. It took another seven years for the BJP to get a sniff at power and a further two years to shed its untouchability, heading a coalition government lasting six years. However, its hands were tied with having to manage some 25 allies and its seat tally not crossing 183 – 90 less than a simple majority — with a vote share of 25-26%. The professed core agendas of the construction of a Ram Temple, abolition of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir, and a Uniform Civil Code had to be put on the back burner, as a compromise to remain in power.
Post its 2004 loss, the BJP was finding it tough to come back to power with the Ayodhya issue bringing diminishing returns, until Narendra Modi emerged on the scene with the Congress-led UPA government on a free fall. Modi supplemented his Hindutva appeal with the promise of ‘Vikas’ or development, and promised to carry everyone together with the ‘Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas’ pitch and, the BJP finally came to power on its own for the first time in independent India, with 283 seats and 31% votes.
When BJP went on to win a landslide win in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, it was once again thanks to the massive popularity enjoyed by Modi. However, it was a left-field choice in Yogi Adityanath, head of the Gorakhnath Math and MP, whom the Sangh anointed as chief minister. Now, Yogi Adityanath exemplifies the twain that joins the Bharatiya Janata Party with the Hindu Mahasabha. It has to be remembered that Adityanath’s predecessors Yogi Avedyanath and Digvijaynath were both elected as members of the Hindu Mahasabha to the Lok Sabha representing Gorakhpur, and championed the Ram Temple movement in Ayodhya.
Adityanath went on to rule Uttar Pradesh with an overbearing approach; there were charges of extra-judicial killings, extra-constitutional measures and witch-hunting of minorities, but that made no difference. Just as the BJP under Prime Minister Modi retained power in 2019 with a bigger majority in the Lok Sabha elections, Yogi Adityanath has also replicated it in Uttar Pradesh against all odds, thus, virtually anointing himself as Modi’s successor.
Adityanath, while remaining the Mahant (head priest) of the Gorakhnath Math, continues to double up as Uttar Pradesh chief minister – in what is a blatant symbol of Hindu majoritarian politics in Independent India. A divided opposition has contributed to the growth of Hindutva forces and a listless Congress has so far failed to put up a fight even as the BJP marches ahead with purpose.
A third term for Modi in 2024 and a two-thirds majority for BJP in parliament looks probable, under the present circumstances. As the RSS marks its centenary in 2025, India might well be hurtling towards a Hindu Rashtra. And Yogi Adityanath’s re-election is a precursor to that.

(Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and former editor of The Kochi Post.)