The current Central Government of India holds a firm policy. The Bharatiya Janata Party has its motto of accomplishing a Hindu Rastra or Hindu Nationalism in India. Since the appearance of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India in 2014, the political party has triumphantly indoctrinated its agenda into millions of people’s hearts. However, it hasn’t been about brute authority or anarchy; it has been a systematic emotional binding of the Hindu people to feel patriotism within nationalism. And this is how the BJP government has been marching towards a prosperous endowment of Hindu Rastra, under Shri Narendra Modi, Sri Amit Shah, and many others political champs. However, Jugalbandi is all about the birth of nationalist thought before the era of Narendra Modi.
Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi
The emergence of the Bharatiya Janta Party was way back in the ’70s. However, it was the period between the early to late nineties that BJP started to have a firm grip in the political arena. It was all because of the two stalwarts of the political party back then- Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Their equation, their formation of political power, and their striving towards Hindutva is the book Jugalbandi: The BJP before Modi by Vinay Sitapati.
Vinay Sitapati sublimely uses the personas of Advani and Bajpayee in his book. From the beginning, the book drives into the eminent cosmos of Hindu nationalism without endeavoring judgment. He craftily shows the rise of Hindu nation sentiments among the common people in Vajpayee’s and Advani’s era. Even though the writer gives a glimpse of violence accompanied by Hindutva’s rise, violence is not integral to this telling plot. The violence acts as a background score as the duo on the stage continuously raises the pitch.
The Growth Of The Concept Of Hindu Rashtra
The principal accent of Jugalbandi is on two features 1) importance on organizational unity and 2) an ideology designed to win elections. The ideology came through instrumental forces because of the thinking cauldron of Atal Bihari Bajpayee and L.K Advani.
The party’s vacillation on economic policy is instructive. The author also puts the spotlight on the inadequacy of a provision of the state in RSS reasoning. However, subsequently, in the book, the writer is notable about ideology’s role in the BJP’s growth. The book is conclusive that “the mucilage that kept them (Advani and Vajpayee) contemporaneously was the philosophy itself.”
The Upliftment Of Temple
Vinay Senapati is firm when he defines the ideology of demolishing mosques for the sake of building the temple. Jugalbandi mends Advani’s firm notion of being a hardliner and Vajpayee being restrained by cautiously disengaging their mutual views. However, the masjid was demolished anyhow, and it became a turning point for the growth of Hindutva among Hindus.
EndNote
Jugalbandi is a fine piece of art for preaching the Bharatiya Janta Party and motives for the party’s growth and development. It is also a class read, as it provides insight into building the strong base of the political party before the advent of Narendra Modi.
