Book Spotlight: Vinay Sitapati | Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi

The book is called Jugalbandi, a BJP before Modi and it's the decades-long friendship of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani and it's their friendship and the rise of what became the BJP, the Hindu Nationalist Party, until the rise of Modi. So it's kind of literally the BJP before Modi.

Motivation for the book

I am a child of the 1990s. My first book was on Narasimha Rao, who was Prime Minister. In the mid-90s, I remember, I was in Bombay and the first McDonald's opened and I stood in line. So I wanted to tell the story of liberalization. That was my first book. The second book was the rise of the BJP. I was in Bombay when the riots took place in the 90s.

The BJP government came to power for the first time in 96, then again in 98 and for a third time in 99. And I wanted to know what the backstory to this rise is. And I thought these two people, the orator and the organizer, were good conduits to tell this larger story.

So when I was writing the book, the looming question actually was quite clear to me, which is why does the BJP win? And I felt that there were too many critics of the BJP simply assume that they are an anti-democratic or fascist party. And I thought that was too simplistic a narrative because why is this party that everybody says is fascist, that is anti-democratic, so obsessed with winning elections? In fact, somebody who's in the current government and who gave me this great quote, I don't want to take the person's name, which is, we worship God by winning elections. And one of the points of the book repeatedly makes is that they don't have a liberal democratic view.

They don't see human beings as individuals. They see society as consists of groups. But very much they are in the business of one person, one vote. And in that sense, they have an elections only view of democracy, but they take elections very, very seriously.

Themes explored

So it had two themes. The first theme is that the Hindu Nationalist Party, you know, it was called by many other names before it became the BJP in 1980.

But the political idea comes from the 1920s, the churning of the 1920s in India, which is when for the first time Indians are realizing that the future is one person, one vote. The Muslim League, of course, a decade prior to that reacts by saying we hate one person, one vote, because under conditions of one person, one vote, where Indians vote as groups in their anxiety religious groups, Muslims will be confined to a permanent minority. And for precisely that reason, early Hindu nationalists say we love elections, because in elections in which Hindus are a clear majority will be a form of Hindu Rashtra.

So we love elections, but we love elections under conditions of one person, one vote in a country that is majority Hindu. And the hundred year political project of Hindu nationalism was to convert Hindus to Hindutva. That's kind of the hundred year project. So that's the kind of the first theme that they win elections because it's an ideology constituted for the sake of winning elections. It's the ultimate form of vote bank politics.

And the second reason, which is a second theme that runs through the book, is the phrase Jugalbandi. Jugalbandi is a musical concert where two dissimilar musicians play together. And again and again in the book, I point out that Hindu nationalists look to Hindu history or their version of Hindu history as being not something you want to go back to, but as a warning that you should avoid. And the warning is that Hindus are repeatedly invaded.

Hindus repeatedly lose wars because they lack unity. And so the key organizational lesson from this history lesson is that come what may, we must be united. You know, we must not split.

So that's another key feature of Hindu nationalism. This, you know, in the book, I call it Hindu fevicol or Hindutva fevicol that come what may don't split. It's not a secret that lots of people in the BJP don't like Narendra Modi, but they don't publicly criticize him.

And it's not just fear. It's this belief that if you split the movement today, you are repeating the mistakes of your Hindu ancestors and Vajpayee and Advani, two dissimilar people who didn't get along at various points. They got along at various points. They didn't get along at various points. It was this Hindutva fevicol that made them stick together.

Misconceptions Challenged

I'd say the first big misconception is that too many European terms like fascism, etc, we use to try to understand the BJP. I think to understand the BJP, you have to look at Hinduism and the modern crisis within Hinduism, the crisis of representation, the crisis of meaning. So I think that, you know, the answer to what is the BJP is to look within. I think it's a misconception that the BJP is fundamentally a European ethno-nationalist party.

I think those, you know, the moment you get onto that, it's only two lines from saying Hitler and Nazis. And I think that, you know, there are no shortage of things to criticize them, criticize them on those Indian terms.

Takeaways for readers

Well, if you want to defeat the BJP, first you have to spend time asking why they win. And one of those reasons that I provide, which is that this idea of the Hindutva fevicol, I think a lot of parties can learn from, which is that even when, I mean, look at the Congress party, every month it's splitting. Every month there's a fight going on. If you look at Indian organizations, Indian organizations constantly split on egos.

Indian companies constantly, you know, split. Look at Indian family businesses. You think that the family is actually this glue, but you're increasingly seeing brothers, you know, fathers and sons, daughters, you know, fighting with each other, asking for the organization to split.

So I think we need a new organizational idiom in India on being together. Of course, you know, it doesn't mean being together despite anything, but I would say an ethic in which you subordinate a little bit of your ego into a larger organizational ethic, I think would be good for India, whether it's parties who dislike the BJP or whether it is organizations who want to make it. Too much of our time goes in personality fights.

Too many Indians think they're heroes and heroines of their own film, which is why we are condemned. You know, there are many reasons why we Indians are condemned to being small scale all the time, whether it's organizations, whether it's parties. But I think one important ingredient is that we need to develop an organizational ethic in which unity, organizational unity is prized.

And, you know, even if you hate the RSS, you know, the RSS and frankly, the Communist Politburo has something to teach other Indians. So the book was written not if you're left wing or right wing, right? So I would be much, you know, I would be hurt if somebody read it to say, look, I love it because I love the BJP or I hate it because I hate the BJP, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think, you know, if you like the BJP, you know, so many people who love the BJP think the BJP began with Modi.

There's like a much longer story. And a lot of people who hate the BJP just think it's a story of, you know, BJP winsbecause they fix elections, because they control, et cetera, et cetera, without understanding that their focus on winning elections and their focus on organizational unity. So I would say that, you know, that's something to take away.