Bharatiya Jana Sangh

The Bharatiya Jan Sangh, founded on October 21, 1951, was based on right wing ideology. According to Bipan Chandra, the Jana Sangh was a communal party and to understand its basic character and politics, the genesis of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is to be analysed first. The Jan Sangh was a creation of the RSS and drew its organised strength, centralised character and ideological homogeneity from it.

The party, in the beginning was strongly anti-Pakistan. The propagation of Bharatiya culture and the establishment of Bharatiya nationalism were its core agenda and it gave the slogan of ‘one country one culture, one nation’. Similarly, it took a strident stand in favour of Sanskritised Hindi as an official link language of India. (In 1965 it gave up this demand in view of expansion of party in non-Hindi belt and accepted the decision to retain English along with Hindi so long as the non-Hindi states wanted this.)

Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who had resigned from the Nehru cabinet in April 1951 over the Liaquat-Nehru Pact, was the main force behind the formation of the Jana Sangh. Mukherjee claimed it to be a non-communal party aiming to build a broad-based democratic opposition to the Congress. But in the absence of any effective alternative ideology or programme, and mass support, the party became a subsidiary of the RSS. It won 3 Lok Sabha seats with 3.06 per cent of votes. Incidentally, Mauli Chandra Sharma, the second president of the Jana Sangh, resigned in protest against the RSS domination of the party.

In later years, the party was to be a part of the coalition Janata Party against the Emergency.