The Brotherhood in Saffron

by Walter Anderson

  The Jana Sangh performed consistently well in Delhi, where it was able to gain the allegiance of a substantial part of the large Hindu refugee population from Pakistan. While it won no parliamentary seats in the first three general elections, the party accumulated between a fifth and a third of the vote in each election.43 It also did well in the Delhi Municipal elections, and, despite the 1954 party revolt, won about a quarter of the vote in both the 1958 and 1962 municipal Corporation elections. The Congress, its only serious political rival in the Union territory, was weakened by factional strife in 1958, enabling the Jana Sangh to win 25 of the 80 corporation seats. The dominant and dissident Congress factions patched up their disagreements before the 1962 elections, and the Jana Sangh could win only eight municipal corporation seats.44

  The Praja Parishad continued to operate as a separate Jana Sangh affiliate in Jammu and Kashmir in both 1957 and 1962. The ruling National Conference reached out for support in the Hindu-majority Jammu region after Bakshi Ghulam Muhammad replaced Sheikh Abdullah as the state’s prime minister in late 1953. Bakshi gave greater representation to the Jammu region in the National Conference. His popularity was in no small part assisted by the massive flow of financial aid from New Delhi, and by the resulting improvement in the state’s standard of living. 45 The Parishad was able to win only five of the 30 assembly seats allotted to Jammu in 1957, and three in 1952. In both elections, the National Conference polled over twice as many votes as the Parishad in Jammu.46 The Parishad’s support base remained largely caste Hindu, and it was unable to win any appreciable following from Muslim backward castes and from the Scheduled Caste Hindu voters.

  Bihar was the one Hindi-speaking state where the Jana Sangh performed poorly in the first three general elections. Neither the Arya Samaj nor the RSS, two major support bases for the party in other Hindi-speaking states, had a strong following in Bihar. Moreover, Bihar had a small Hindu refugee population.

  After Mookerjee’s death, the Jana Sangh was never to attract much support in Bengal. As in Bihar, supporters of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, which had helped party building elsewhere, were weakly represented. The Jana Sangh contested few assembly seats and accumulated less than 1 per cent of the vote in the 1957 and 1962 assembly elections.

  Except for the case of Maharashtra in 1957, the Jana Sangh made no significant gains outside the Hindi-speaking states in the 1957 and 1962 elections. Its relatively strong showing in Maharashtra in 1957 owed much to the Jana Sangh’s participation in the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, an alliance of parties that advocated the division of Bombay into separate Gujarati and Marathi-speaking states. The Congress, which took an ambiguous stand on this emotional issue, lost considerable support, and the Jana Sangh won four of the eighteen Maharashtra assembly seats allotted to it by the Samiti. The Jana Sangh also won two of the seven parliamentary seats which it contested in 1957. The Congress, however, regained its electoral pre-eminence in the 1962 elections; and the Jana Sangh, which by then had left the opposition alliance, won no assembly or parliamentary seats. As in Jammu and Kashmir, the Jana Sangh was unable to mobilize any appreciable support outside caste Hindu groups. Indeed, it was popularly referred to in Maharashtra as the party of brahmins.47

  The Jana Sangh also participated in the Mahagujarat Janata Parishad, the Gujarat equivalent of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, although the Jana Sangh reaped few benefits.48 The party won none of the five assembly seats allotted to it in 1957. In Maharashtra the Jana Sangh relied on the RSS to build the party organization and to mobilize support. It was also able to recruit many of the high-caste Hindu voters who had supported the Mahasabha in Maharashtra. However, the Mahasabha and the RSS were both relatively weak in Gujarat, and the Jana Sangh was not able to build a grass roots organization there until much later.

  1967 GENERAL ELECTIONS: THE JANA SANGH ASPIRES TO ESTABLISH ITSELF AS AN ALL-INDIA PARTY

  Between the 1962 and 1967 elections, a series of events had eroded support from the ruling Congress party. India fought costly wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965) which drained resources that could have gone into economic development; it experienced severe droughts and high rates of inflation. Anti-Congress sentiment was fuelled by outbursts of popular agitation over cow protection and the choice of a national link language. The Congress missed the unifying influence of Prime Minister Nehru, who had led the country from Independence until his death in 1964. His daughter, Indira Gandhi, became prime minister in 1966, and found herself under attack from dissident factions on both the left and the right for deviating from her father’s policies.49

  Jana Sangh leaders believed that the public mood might be shifting in ways they could exploit to strengthen the party’s support base. They were confident that the party’s support of a tough approach towards China and Pakistan would evoke a favourable response. Indeed, the heightened sense of patriotism appeared to generate a favourable response to the ‘family’ of organizations around the RSS. One sign of respectability was the invitation to the RSS to participate for the first time in the 1963 Republic Day parade in New Delhi; more than 2,000 swayamsevaks in full uniform, as well as the RSS bagpipe and bugle unit, marched in the parade.50

  As relations with China deteriorated in the early 1960s, the Jana Sangh found itself more acceptable to other non-communist opposition parties, particularly the Swatantra Party and the Praja Socialist Party. These three favoured a tougher Indian response to the Chinese occupation of the Aksai Chin area of Kashmir. They worked together in 1962 against V. K. Krishna Menon, Nehru’s defence minister, considered by them to be a fellow-traveller, by jointly supporting the candidacy of Acharya Kripalani in the Bombay North-east parliamentary constituency. Over the next two years, they worked out electoral alliances in three parliamentary bye-elections, winning two of them. The losing candidate was Deendayal Upadhyaya, who fought his only parliamentary contest from Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh.

  In 1963 Balraj Madhok, who had served as a Jana Sangh member of parliament from Delhi in 1961–62, even proposed that the Jana Sangh unite with the conservative Swatantra Party to form a new party. While the Swatantra Party may have agreed, General Secretary Upadhyaya did not want the Jana Sangh to become transformed into a party of the right. In his view, anti-communism was not a sufficient justification for the step proposed by Madhok. The Jana Sangh working committee rejected the notion ostensibly because of the ambiguous attitude of the Swatantra towards Indian control of Jammu and Kashmir. Upadhyaya was then seeking to give a more populist orientation to the Jana Sangh, and a union with a political organization representing the interests of private capital and large landholders was unacceptable. Moreover, the RSS brotherhood could not have relished the prospect of a significant diffusion of its power for the uncertain benefits of the new party.

  Even prior to the Jana Sangh’s electoral understanding of the early 1960s, the party leadership was under some pressure to formulate a set of principles that would distinguish the Jana Sangh from other political parties.51 Perhaps prompted by the Jana Sangh’s growing collaboration with some of the opposition parties following the deterioration in Sino-Indian relations, Upadhyaya responded to the demand for a distinct ideological statement by drafting a set of principles he referred to as Integral Humanism. He introduced the concept at the January 1965 meeting of the party’s working committee, which adopted Integral Humanism as the Jana Sangh’s official statement of fundamental principles. Upadhyaya gave greater substance to the notion in a series of lectures later that year in Bombay.52

  In justifying the need for a separate ideological statement, Upadhyaya argued that Western political philosophies did not provide an acceptable blueprint for the good society because of their preoccupation with materialism while largely overlooking the social well-being of the individual. Capitalism and socialism in his view were flawed because they stimulated greed, class antagonism, exploitation and social anarchy. In their place, he proposes an ‘integral’ approach that seeks to create a harmo
nious society by satisfying the needs of the body (hunger, shelter), the mind (traditions), intelligence (reforms), and soul (the common aspirations of a people that shape their unique culture). He argued that each nation creates institutions to satisfy these needs, and that such institutions must be reshaped to sustain group solidarity under changing circumstances. They might even have to be discarded for something new if they undermine the unity of a people. For example, if the caste system divides society, as he argued it did, it should be scrapped and replaced by something else. Indian tradition, he asserted, stresses the social nature of people and obligates them to create institutions designed to enhance social solidarity. Advaita vedanta (recognition of ourselves in all life) provides the philosophic underpinning of this view.

  Social solidarity in his view required a political and economic system in which the people affected by the decisions are involved in the decision-making process. On the economic front, he proposed worker control of the means of production and cooperative ownership over larger, more complex industries. In the political arena, he advocated democracy. However, he believed that political democracy is a sham unless accompanied by social and economic democracy, and vice versa. Upadhyaya did not try to describe in any specific detail what an ideal society would look like. Rather, he assumed that it is the obligation of Indian statesmen continually to apply the relatively few general rules of Integral Humanism to practical politics, in an effort to strengthen social solidarity; and, as he was soon to argue, agitation is a legitimate tool in this process.

  In his 1967 presidential address, Upadhyaya defended the call to activism alluded to in his exposition of Integral Humanism. He stated

  We should also be cautious about people who see in every popular agitation the hidden hand of communism and [who] suggest that agitation must be crushed. In the changing situation at present, public agitations are natural and even essential. In fact, they are the medium of expression of social awakening. It is of course necessary that these agitations should be made instruments of constructive revolution and not allowed to become violent and adventurist. Therefore, we must actively participate in popular movements and try to guide then. Those who are keen to preserve the status quo in economic and social spheres feel threatened by these movements and are wont to create an atmosphere of pessimism. We are sorry we cannot cooperate with them. We think these sections are trying in vain to halt the wheels of progress and avert the destiny of the country.53

  Upadhyaya thus legitimized agitation as a technique, and the party’s increasing resort to it was to drive out some prominent conservative elements.

  To prepare for the 1967 elections, the Jana Sangh’s working committee met at Vijayawada in early 1965 to establish policy guidelines. Sensing the rising nationalist mood triggered by India’s defeat in the 1962 war with China, the leadership concentrated on foreign policy questions. The working committee suggested that India sever diplomatic relations with China and vote against China’s entry into the United Nations; it advocated closer relations with those countries in South-East Asia ‘which are interested in the containment of Communist China’; it called for the recognition of the Dalai Lama as the legitimate ruler of Tibet, and it demanded that India recover the areas ‘occupied’ by Pakistan and China. To back up this tough stand, it called for the compulsory military training of all young men and for the development of nuclear weapons.54 Resolutions were passed opposing India’s agreement to withdraw from those parts of Jammu and Kashmir which it had occupied during the 1965 war with Pakistan,55 encouraging the government to support the separatist movements among the Pakhtoons in West Pakistan and the Bengalis in East Pakistan,56 and calling for the establishment of military settlements along the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir.57

  One year before the 1967 general elections, the Jana Sangh elected Balraj Madhok president, breaking the precedent established in 1955 of figurehead presidents. The party anticipated making major gains in the elections and its leaders wanted a well-known figure like Madhok in that position who could make a significant contribution in the campaign.58

  Madhok immediately set out on the campaign trail to prepare the local units for the forthcoming elections. As part of its pre-election strategy, the party units were instructed to increase significantly the party’s enrolled membership. The general secretary reported in April 1966 that the party membership had increased from about 600,000 in 1956 to 1,300,000 in early 1966, and that it had party units in 268 districts.59

  Corruption, factionalism and economic hardship had undermined the Congress’s popularity. It was returned to power at the centre in 1967 but with a much reduced majority. It won 83 fewer seats in the Lower House of parliament, giving it a narrow 25-seat majority. Moreover, the Congress failed to win an absolute majority in eight of the state assemblies.

  The Jana Sangh for its part performed far better than even its leaders expected. Its parliamentary representation increased from 14 in 1962 to 35 in 1967, and its percentage of the parliamentary vote increased from 6.44 to 9.41. The party won 261 assembly seats in 1967, over double the 119 it had won in 1962. While the Jana Sangh’s support was still concentrated in the Hindi-speaking states, it won 32 assembly seats and 2 parliamentary seats elsewhere. For the first time since 1952, it won an assembly seat in West Bengal, and for the first time it won assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh (3) and in Karnataka (4).

  The Jana Sangh’s most impressive gains in the 1967 elections were in Bihar and Delhi. In Bihar, the party increased its percentage of the assembly vote from 2.77 to 10.42 and increased its assembly representation from 3 to 26, in a 318-member assembly. The Jana Sangh performance in the parliamentary contests in Bihar was even more impressive. The party increased its percentage of the parliamentary vote from 2.34 in 1962 to 11.05 in 1967. However, the Jana Sangh could win only one of the 53 parliamentary seats in Bihar in 1967. In an attempt to broaden its support base, the party made a special effort to mobilize scheduled-caste and Scheduled Tribe voters. The RSS and its affiliates had already begun a major effort to attract the support of these groups. This work may have helped the Jana Sangh. It won 5 of the 26 assembly seats reserved for the scheduled tribe candidates in 1967.

  The Jana Sangh won a major triumph in Delhi, winning 52 of the 100 seats in the Delhi Municipal Corporation, 33 of the 56 seats in the Metropolitan Council, and 6 of Delhi’s 7 parliamentary seats, losing only outer Delhi to Brahm Parkash, the leader of the Delhi Congress organization. Delhi has tended towards a two-party system, and the Jana Sangh was able to do well when the Congress was internally divided, as it was in 1967.

  Regarding Punjab, the Jana Sangh reconciled itself to the division of Punjab into two states. In his presidential address to the 1966 annual session of the party, Madhok called upon the Hindus in Punjab to learn Punjabi in the Gurmukhi script. Despite this announced shift in policy, the Hindus in Punjab voted for the Jana Sangh in even greater numbers than before. Many Hindus blamed the Congress for the division of the state. For the first time, the Jana Sangh out-polled the Congress in the urban constituencies, winning 7 of the 9 urban seats in the assembly. Yagya Dutt Sharma, a former RSS pracharak, won the Amritsar parliamentary seat, the first Jana Sangh candidate to win a parliamentary seat from the region included in the new Sikh-majority Punjab. The Jana Sangh built on its already strong support base in Haryana, adding 8 assembly seats to the 4 won in 1962. Its support in Haryana was rather widespread, and it won assembly seats in six of the state’s seven districts. Its parliamentary candidate in Chandigarh, capital of both Punjab and Haryana, campaigning on a platform to keep the city the joint capital of the two states, won with 48.70 per cent of the vote. The Punjab and Haryana units of the party had each resolved that Chandigarh should go to their own state. The national leadership took no stand on this question and was willing to live with the non-uniform response of the three party units.

  In Rajasthan, the Jana Sangh formed an alliance with the conservative Swatantra Party, and the two parties won 70 asse
mbly seats, 48 for the Swatantra and 22 for the Jana Sangh. The two parties polled 33.79 per cent of the vote, only about 7 percentage points less than the Congress, which won 89 seats. The Jana Sangh continued to draw most of its support from the eastern districts, where it won 16 of its 22 assembly seats, 11 of them in the south-eastern Kota division. Two of its 3 parliamentary seats were also in this division. The impressive showing in this area, where it won 11 of the 16 assembly seats and both parliamentary seats, might be attributed in part to the support which the former royal families of Kota and Mewar extended to it during this election. The Jana Sangh also out-polled the Congress in the state’s urban assembly constituencies and won 5 of Rajasthan’s 9 urban seats.60

  One commentator of the 1967 elections in Jammu and Kashmir mentions that the elections there generated greater enthusiasm than any prior election because it appeared that the National Conference might, for the first time, be defeated.61 Fifty-three of the state’s 75 assembly seats were contested, more than in any prior election. The Jana Sangh contested 26 of the 31 seats in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and won 3 of them, and it accumulated over one-fourth the vote in that region. It also contested 2 parliamentary seats from Jammu. While the Congress won both Jammu seats, the Jana Sangh received one-third the vote. Even though the party made a special appeal to the Scheduled Caste and backward caste voter and nominated three Muslims (two for assembly seats and one for a parliamentary seat), it was still boxed into its urban caste Hindu constituency.

  The party still received its strongest support from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In the former, the Jana Sangh increased its vote share by about 5 percentage points for both the assembly and parliamentary contests, winning 98 of the 425 assembly seats, and 12 of the 85 parliamentary seats. The Jana Sangh won 17 of the 45 urban constituencies, more than any other party.62 With the backing of prominent members of the Scindia princely family of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, the party was able to increase its strength in the Madhya Bharat region, where it won 40 of its 78 assembly seats and 5 of its 10 parliamentary seats.63 In both states, the Jana Sangh out-polled the Congress in cities.64