Conservatism in India

Conservatism in India refers to the political philosophy of conservatism as it has developed in India. Politics in India has since at least the 1990s been most predominantly a contest between the centre-left Indian National Congress alliance and the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party.

Historically, Conservatism in India has been divided between liberal conservatives and social conservatives.[1]

Political parties

Prior to independence

A number of political parties with conservative ideologies existed in India prior to independence. These included the Congress Nationalist Party[2], the Punjab Unionist Party[3] and the Akali Dal.

In addition, a number of figures within the Indian National Congress, such as Sardar Vallabhai Patel were conservative.[4]

In contrast to secular parties, such as the Punjab Unionist Party, Islamic conservatism was used by the All India Muslim League to pursue their objective of a separate Islamic state.[5] (see Conservatism in Pakistan)

Bharatiya Jana Sangh

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh (abbrv. BJS), commonly known as the Jan Sangh, was an Indian nationalist political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was socially conservative. In 1977, it merged with several other left, centre and right parties opposed to rule of the Indian National Congress and formed the Janata Party. After the Janata Party split in 1980, it was re-formed as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980, which is currently India's largest political party by primary membership and representation in Lok Sabha.

Swatantra Party

The first party to espouse conservative economic ideals in India since independence was the Swatantra Party. It existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly socialist and statist outlook. Swatantra (Freedom) stood for a market-based economy with the "Licence Raj" dismantled, although it opposed laissez faire policies. The party was thus favoured by some traders and industrialists, but at the state-level its leadership was dominated by the traditional privileged classes such as zamindars (feudal landlords) and erstwhile princes.[6][7]

In the 1962 general election, the first after its formation, Swatantra received 6.8 percent of the total votes and won 18 seats in the third Lok Sabha (1962–67). It emerged as the main opposition to the dominant Congress in four states—Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa. By the next general election in 1967, Swatantra had become a significant force in some parts of India; it won 8.7 percent of the votes and became the single-largest opposition party in the fourth Lok Sabha (1967–71) with 44 seats. In 1971, Swatantra joined a "Grand Alliance" of parties from across the political spectrum who aimed to defeat Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The party secured eight seats, winning only 3% of the votes. The next year, in 1972, its founder Rajagopalachari died, and Swatantra declined rapidly. By 1974, it merged into the Charan Singh-led Bharatiya Kranti Dal, another coalition committed to anti-Congressism.

Bharatiya Janta Party

The Bharatiya Janata Party is one of the two major political parties in India, along with the Indian National Congress.[8] As of 2016, it is the country's largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies, and it is the world's largest party in terms of primary membership. The BJP is a right-wing party,[9][10] with close ideological and organisational links to the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

After the 1998 general election, the BJP-led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) formed a government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a year. Following fresh elections, the NDA government, again headed by Vajpayee, lasted for a full term in office; this was the first non-Congress government to do so. In the 2004 general election, the NDA suffered an unexpected defeat, and for the next ten years the BJP was the principal opposition party. Long time Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi led it to a landslide victory in the 2014 general election. Since that election, Modi leads the NDA government as Prime Minister and as of March 2017, the alliance governs 17 states.

The official ideology of the BJP is "integral humanism", first formulated by Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965. The party expresses a commitment to Hindutva, and its policy has historically reflected Hindu nationalist positions. The BJP advocates social conservatism and a foreign policy centred on nationalist principles. Its key issues have included the abrogation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir, the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the implementation of a uniform civil code. However, the 1998–2004 NDA government did not pursue any of these controversial issues. It instead focused on a largely neoliberal economic policy prioritising globalisation and economic growth over social welfare.

Other conservative parties

Other conservative political parties in India include the regional Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal, Lok Satta Party, Swabhimani Paksha, Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Telugu Desam Party. Most are members of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

A splinter of the INC, INC(O) had emerged after Indira Gandhi wanted to use a populist agenda in order to mobilize popular support for the party. The regional party elites, who formed the INC(O), stood for a more right-wing agenda, and distrusted Soviet help.

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://swarajyamag.com/magazine/india-needs-a-right-wing-rainbow
  2. ↑ Beck, Sanderson. South Asia 1800-1950.
  3. ↑ Hardy (1972). The Muslims of British India. CUP Archive. ISBN 978-0-521-09783-3.
  4. ↑ McLeod, John (2015). The History of India (2nd ed.). Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-61069-765-1.
  5. ↑ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00856407608730709?journalCode=csas19
  6. ↑ The 21 Principles of the Swatantra Party. 1959.
  7. ↑ Erdman, 1963–64
  8. ↑ "In Numbers: The Rise of BJP and decline of Congress". The Times of India. 19 May 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  9. ↑ Banerjee 2005, p. 3118.
  10. ↑ Malik & Singh 1992, p. 318.
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