Emergence, Alliance and Thereafter

The term Sangh Parivar refers to all organisations having similar nature and ideology such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, student’s union and religious organisations. Often the BJP is called the political wing of the RSS, protecting and promoting Hindu cultural identity while opposing the policy of appeasement of Muslims by the Congress. The Jana Sangh registered its presence in the first general elections held in 1952 by winning 3 seats in Lok Sabha and it maintained this minor attendance in the parliament until 1967. The first major campaign initiated in 1953 by the Jana Sangh was aimed for the total integration of Jammu and Kashmir into India. Following the sudden demise of Syama Prasad Mukherjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya was appointed General Secretary who worked hard to erect and spread the party across the country, especially the grassroots organisations under the image of the RSS. In addition to that, Upadhyaya gave the cult of integral humanism to the party which later became its guiding doctrine. During the period, many young leaders such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani became involved with the top rank of the organization and Vajpayee also succeeded Upadhyaya as chairman of the party from 1968 with three agenda in focus: uniform civil code, total ban on cow slaughter and abrogation of special status given to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Assembly elections of 1967 gave the party several lessons and it then started forming coalitions with other political parties including Swatantra Party and Socialists and formed governments in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In the period of national emergency, the party took an active part in widespread protests across the country, opposed government national and foreign policies and after being released from the jail, a grand political alliance was formed by the merger of the Jana Sangh, the Socialist Party, the Congress (O) and the Bharatiya Lok Dal.

All coming together formed the Janata Party with the single aim of defeating Indira Gandhi. The Janata Party succeeded to form the government under the leadership of Morarji Desai, who, unfortunately failed to continue for the full term and a mid-term poll was held in January 1980 with Indira Gandhi coming back to power. Although the alliance failed to run the regime due to internal dissension, the Jana Sangh emerged as the largest Party with 93 seats and about 31% of polled votes. The Parliamentary election of 1980 was a major jolt to the Opposition as due to the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 a wave of sympathy vote emerged in favour of her party which secured a historic majority of 403 seats in the Lok Sabha.

Meanwhile, the RSS banned dual membership and it led to the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 6, 1980 with the bulk of its rank and file identical to the Jana Sangh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee became its first president. Under Vajpayee, the BJP made a shift in its earlier ideology and more emphasis focused on hard-line Hindu nationalism. Later on, L. K. Advani was appointed president of the party in 1984 and it gave the party a new height larger than one expected and formed government at the Centre thrice under the premiership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now from 2014 till date under Narendra Modi with a grand alliance of NDA, winning Lok Sabha elections in a row in 2014 and 2019.

Profile of Shiv Sena

The Shiv Sena, which literally means the army of Shivaji, a historical hero of Maratha, is a right -wing party having a regional and ultranationalist theme. It was formed on June 6, 1966 by the cartoonist Bal Thackeray, who himself was a Marathi with a huge amount of sentiments for the native people or the ‘sons of the soil’. The testing time for the party came in Independent India when under the Bombay Presidency, a popular movement was launched for the creation of a separate state for Marathi-speaking people, which led to the division of the presidency in 1966 and the consequent formation of two states - Gujarat and Maharashtra on the basis of language.

The erstwhile Marathi-speaking areas of Hyderabad were joined with Maharashtra and Mumbai, the economic capital of India was made the capital of the new state. In the capital, the majority of trade and business enterprises were under the control of Gujarati people and a large flow of South Indian migrants also rushed to the city and captured many white-collar jobs.

The developments compelled Bal Thackeray to publish many articles and cartoons relating to the subject narrating unemployment among Marathi youths and ultimately formed the Shiv Sena as a political party. It also launched several attacks against the South Indian migrants and pressured them to hire local youth. When the issue of migrants gradually faded away, Shiv Sena changed the track and started placing weight on Hindutva ideology which brought it near to the BJP and it increased the chances of alliance between the two.

Alliance and breakaway

In the changed circumstances from early and mid-1980s both the BJP and the Shiv Sena began to come together on a common front of Hindutva and in 1984 they first joined hands and Shiv Sena fielded its candidates using the BJP’s symbol in the election. Further, it led to the formation of a coalition of Assembly and Lok Sabha seats from 1989. As a result of the alliance between 1995-1999, they formed a government and as per formal alliance out of 48 seats the BJP contested on 22 while the Shiv Sena won 6 parliamentary seats. At the time Hindutva was the binding force but at the same time they also emerged as political rivals, but it made no difference for the common people who viewed them one and united as a Hindu-supporter party.

Despite competition and rivalry on political front the BJP and the Shiv Sena supported each other on several issues, such as Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute, uniform civil code, abrogation of Article-370, triple talaq, representation of Muslims in elections, cultural nationalism, foreign policy, etc. Similarities apart, the two parties remained a potential rival for each other in the state and even when they were in Opposition, they competed for the post of the Leader of Opposition, but in public their face continued to be Hinduised and, as a result, the Assembly election held in 1995, after the demolition of Babri Masjid, was fully charged with communal whims, leading the alliance for clear victory and assumption of power by the BJP-Shiv Sena combination. The alliance lost the Assembly election of 1999 and remained in the opposition for about 15 years which on the other side widened their gap in spheres more than one.

In between the period while BJP became more popular in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena proved to next in name and fame and even in Assembly election of 2014, although both contested elections separately, BJP got 122 and the Shiv Sena finished on 63 and joined hands with the BJP with Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister of the state. As the differences between the two became public on the eve of Assembly elections held in October 2019, blaming the BJP for not keeping their promises, the Shiv Sena broke away from the alliance and ultimately formed the government by joining hands with the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party with Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Soon, the Shiv Sena also left the grand alliance called NDA of which the BJP is an integral part and joined hands with UPA, managed and maintained by Opposition parties of India.