New BJP

Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media, UPES; Advisor, Global University Systems; and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major Indian media companies and in international financing institutions like the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland. He has taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia (ANU, La Trobe University), Singapore (NUS), Switzerland (International Olympic Museum) and India (IIM Bangalore, Shiv Nadar University).He was previously Executive Editor, The Times of India-Online, where he led a number of AI-led tech innovations to redefine digital media. He has also served as Managing Editor, India Today (English TV channel) and Consulting Editor, The Times of India. Mehta is the author of five bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including India on Television (winner of the Asian Publishing Award for Best Book on Asian Media, 2009), Behind a Billion Screens (longlisted as Business Book of the Year, Tata Literature Live, 2015), and most recently, Dreams of a Billion (co-authored, Ekamra Sports Book of the Year, 2021).

‘The transformation of the BJP from a small player in the political scene to the premier, possibly new dominant formation in India has led to much comment but not as much quality scholarship as one might have expected. Dr Mehta brings to this subject the keen energy of a journalist and observer with the patience of an archivist. His analysis has much that will excite, surprise, and provoke critical thought even as it informs and gives a sense of perspective. It is especially notable how work on the growth of the Sangh and the party in the last two decades are matched by careful examination of key moments in the early years of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. A book that will be indispensable for the study of contemporary India.’—Professor Mahesh Rangarajan, Vice Chancellor, Krea University‘I’ve had the pleasure of reading drafts of all the chapters of Nalin Mehta’s manuscript on the Bharatiya Janata Party. In my opinion, it is going to be a classic, a book that will be read widely and for a long time. Its readership will include scholars, political activists and anyone whose job or interest lies in understanding contemporary India and the processes that have shaped it.’—Professor Robin Jeffrey, Visiting Research Professor, National University of Singapore; Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Canberra & La Trobe University, Melbourne‘Mehta’s masterful account of the evolution and rise of the BJP deftly weaves an enormous amount of material into an expansive and authoritative account of modern India. This brilliantly revealing portrait of the inner workings of the party—its ideological bedrock, organisational structure and economic outlook—is brimming with insights about India’s cultural contradictions, political alliances and searing religious tensions. Mehta’s benchmark study deftly brings together the freshness and vigour of on-the-ground reporting with scholarly precision and vivid descriptions of India’s political, economic and social systems. An urgent investigation of Indian democracy, its electoral system and voting patterns; written with anthropological attentiveness to local idioms, gender structure, caste conflict and class relations: a major achievement.’—Professor Assa Doron, Professor of Anthropology and South Asia, Founding Director, South Asia Centre, Australian National University, Canberra

• INTRODUCTIONA ‘Jai Sri Ram’ Sticker and a Family Argument: The BJP and a Personal RetracingPART ITHE HINDI HEARTLAND: LABHARTHEE SAMMELANS, CASTE RE-ENGINEERING, HINDUTVA AND THE WELFARE WHEEL1. The BJP as the Party of the Village: An Introduction2. Becoming the Hindi Heartland’s Predominant Rural Party3. The Caste Game: How the BJP Became the Most Socially Representative Party in UP (Barring Muslims)4. The BJP’s Political Mobilisation of Welfare: ‘Labharthees’5. The BJP’s Muslim Model: Hindutva, the Politics of Exclusion and Why the BJP Still Wins Muslim SeatsPART IICOMMUNICATION: WHAT THE BJP FOCUSES ONAND WHERE IT SPEAKS6. What the BJP Says: The Changing Patterns of Its Discourse7. Modi@Digital: Why the BJP Wins on Social Media8. How the BJP Became the World’s Largest Political Party: Organisational Restructuring and the Use of Digital TechnologiesPART IIIIDEOLOGY, ECONOMIC THINKING AND GOVERNANCE9. Roots of the BJP: The Jan Sangh Story10. When Right Is Left: The BJP’s Economic Model in New IndiaPART IVTHE UMBILICAL CORD11. The BJP’s RSS Link: The Foundational Moment12. The Growth of the RSS13. What the RSS Says: Issues That Matter the Most to the Sangh14. The Sangh Parivar and Education: Tribal Communities, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Christian MissionariesPART VBEYOND THE DOMINANT NARRATIVE: THE SOUTH, THE NORTHEAST AND WOMEN15. The BJP’s South Model: The Karnataka Formula16. Mergers, Acquisitions and the ‘Eight Goddesses’: The BJP’s Northeast Push17. The Making of a New Women’s Vote: Gender, Politics and HindutvaCONCLUSION18 ‘Party of Ram’: A Hindu Suratrana, the Idea of ‘New India’ and Its Global MessagePostscriptNotesAppendices 1–15The BJP: A TimelineIndexAcknowledgements