Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh | |
|---|---|
| Founder | Shyama Prasad Mukherjee |
| Founded | 21 October 1951; 74 years ago (21 October 1951)[1] |
| Dissolved | 23 January 1977; 48 years ago (23 January 1977) |
| Split from | Hindu Mahasabha |
| Merged into | Janata Party (1977–1980) |
| Succeeded by | Bharatiya Janata Party (1980–present) |
| Ideology | Hindutva[2] Hindu nationalism[3] Integral humanism[4] National conservatism[5] Economic nationalism[6] |
| Political position | Right-wing[7][8] tofar-right[9] |
| Colours | Saffron |
| Election symbol | |
 | |
TheBharatiya Jana Sangh (abbreviated asBJS orJS, short name:Jan Sangh[10];lit. 'All-India People's Union') was aHindutva political partyactive in India. It was established on 21 October 1951 inDelhi byShyama Prasad Mukherjee.[8] Jan Sangh was the political arm ofRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), aright-wing Hindutvaparamilitary organisation.[8][11][12][13]In 1977, it merged with several otherleft,centre, andright parties opposed to theIndian National Congress and formed theJanata Party.[14] In 1980, the members of the erstwhile Jan Sangh quit Janata Party after its defeat in the1980 general election and formed theBharatiya Janata Party, which is the direct political successor to the Jan Sangh. InBihar, Ramdeo Mahto considered as founding leader ofBharatiya Janata Party – Bihar, because he broughtBJP Into the power inBihar, he elected as a candidate ofBhartiya Jana Sangh to Bihar Legislative Assembly in 1969 Assembly elections fromPatna East Assembly constituency.
Many members of the RSS contemplated the formation of a political party during the days of theBritish Raj, in an attempt to take their ideology further. Around the same time,Shyama Prasad Mukherjee left theHindu Mahasabha political party that he had once led because of a disagreement with that party over permitting non-Hindu membership.[15][16][17]
There were two main reasons for the formation of Jan Sangh, those being theLiaquat–Nehru Pact and the ban on the RSS after theassassination of Mahatma Gandhi.[18]
The state level units of the party were already established inPunjab,P.E.P.S.U. (Patiala and East Punjab States Union),Delhi,West Bengal,Rajasthan,Uttar Pradesh,Madhya Bharat before the party was formally founded at national level.[19] The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was subsequently founded by Mukherjee on 21 October 1951[1] inDelhi under the RSS, as a "nationalistic alternative" to theIndian National Congress.[20]
The first plenary session of Jan Sangh was held at Kanpur in December 1952.[21]
After the death of Mukherjee in 1953, RSS activists in the BJS edged out the career politicians and made it a political arm of the RSS and an integral part of theRSS family of organisations (Sangh Parivar).[22]
The strongest election performance of the BJS came in the1967 Lok Sabha election in which it won 35 seats,[23][24] when the Congress majority was its thinnest ever.[25]
The party secured six out of seven parliamentary seats in Delhi and went on to wrest control of the Metropolitan Council and Municipal corporation.[26]
When BJS was formed, an 8-point programme was adopted.This formed the core of its ideology over the next years.[27]
The BJS leadership fervently supported a strong policy against Pakistan and China, and were averse tocommunism and theSoviet Union. Many BJS leaders also initiated the drive to bancow slaughter nationwide in the early 1960s.[28] Establishment of full relations with Israel was also a demand in the party manifesto.[9] Uniform Civil Code was mentioned in the 1967 manifesto which said that the party would enact UCC if it came to power.[29]
| # | Portrait | Name | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | | Shyama Prasad Mukherjee | 1951–52 |
| 2 | Mauli Chandra Sharma | 1954 | |
| 3 | Prem Nath Dogra | 1955 | |
| 4 | Debaprasad Ghosh | 1956–59 | |
| 5 | Pitamber Das | 1960 | |
| 6 | Avasarala Rama Rao | 1961 | |
| (4) | Debaprasad Ghosh | 1962 | |
| 7 | Raghu Vira | 1963 | |
| (4) | Debaprasad Ghosh | 1964 | |
| 8 | Bachhraj Vyas | 1965 | |
| 9 | Balraj Madhok | 1966 | |
| 10 | Deendayal Upadhyaya | 1967–68 | |
| 11 | .jpg) | Atal Bihari Vajpayee | 1968–72 |
| 12 |  | L. K. Advani | 1973–77 |
| SeeList of national presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party | |||
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was created in 1951, and the first general election it contested was in 1951–52, in which it won only three Lok Sabha seats, in line with the four seats won byHindu Mahasabha and three seats won byRam Rajya Parishad.Shyama Prasad Mukherjee andDurga Charan Banerjee were elected fromCalcutta South East constituency andMidnapore Jhargram constituency in West Bengal andUma Shankar Trivedi fromChittor constituency in Rajasthan. All the like-minded parties formed a block in the Parliament, led by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.[30][23]
| Year | General Election | Seats Won | Change in Seat | % of votes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | 1st Lok Sabha | 3 | – | 3.06 | [30][24] |
| 1957 | 2nd Lok Sabha | 4 |  1 | 5.93 | [23][24] |
| 1962 | 3rd Lok Sabha | 14 | 10 | 6.44 | [23][24] |
| 1967 | 4th Lok Sabha | 35 | 21 | 9.31 | [23][24] |
| 1971 | 5th Lok Sabha | 22 |  13 | 7.35 | [31][24][32] |
Based on foreign ministry documents released to the national archives in last two years, a detailed report by human rights and freedom of information activist Eitay Mack, published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, chronicles Israel's relationship with the far right in India, particularly the BJP and its predecessor Jan Sangh. ... During the Emergency years, Israeli diplomats had difficulty in maintaining contacts with the Jan Sangh and other right-wing parties, as their leaders had gone underground or been arrested. ... A senior US diplomat, National Security Council's Thomas Thornton, informed the Israeli ambassador in Washington David Turgeman that "those who pursue a less hostile line to Israel are organized within the framework of Janata". Turgeman wrote in his telegram dated March 25, 1977 that Thornton told him that the "right-wing Jan Sangh, because of its anti-Muslim Hindu nature, is a supporter of Israel".
Bharatiya Jana Sangh: Indian political organization… Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS; Indian People's Association), which was established in 1951 as the political wing of the pro-Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS; "National Volunteers Corps") by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.
When the BJS was formed, the party adopted an eight-point programme that largely formed its ideological core over the next few decades.These were: United Bharat; reciprocity instead of appeasement towards Pakistan; an independent foreign policy consistent with Bharat's paramount self-interest; rehabilitation of refugees with suitable compensation from Pakistan; increased production of goods, especially food and cloth, and decentralisation of industry; development of a single Bharatiya culture; equal rights for all citizens regardless of caste, community or creed, and improvement of the backward classes' standard; and readjustment of West Bengal's boundary with Bihar.
Thousands of rupees worth of damage to buildings and vehicles, both private and public, was caused by the mob which, in a violent and vociferous way, was demonstrating for the imposition of a ban on cow slaughter by Government. The parties who organised the demonstration, the number of participants in which was estimated between 3 lakhs and 7 lakhs, were the Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Arya Samaj and the Sanatan Dharma Sabha
The BJS' Lok Sabha manifesto of 1962 didn't mention the UCC. However, it found a clear mention in the BJS's 1967 manifesto, where it promised citizens that it would enact UCC if voted to power, and would bring "uniform law for marriage, succession and adoption for all citizens".
Sources
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