The BJP that mocks protests rose through them | LME 152 | Pooja Prasanna
This is Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
One of the Sangh’s tallest icons.
In 1953, he deliberately broke the law.
He entered Jammu and Kashmir without the required permit to protest Article 370.
He was arrested and later died in detention.
For the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, and later the BJP, this became one of its defining political legends.
But that was just the beginning.
In 1966, one of the largest protests in independent India descended on Delhi.
The demand? A nationwide ban on cow slaughter.
Hundreds of thousands marched. Naga sadhus, religious activists and members of the sangh parivar.
Among those backing the agitation was the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor.
The protest turned violent as Crowds tried to breach Parliament.
Police used tear gas, lathi charges and eventually opened fire.
Many people died.
Today, imagine if TV channels were covering them.
Would the protestors be called democratic?
Or would they be branded anti-national?
Because that is exactly how many television channels and BJP leaders speak about protests today.
The message is simple.
That protests create instability.
That protesters are anti-national.
That democracy begins and ends at the ballot box.
But if that’s true, then the BJP has a problem.
Because some of the biggest political mobilisations in independent India were led by the Sangh Parivar.
Its own history was written on the streets.
And the careers of many of its tallest leaders began there too.
Including Narendra Modi.
Let me explain
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According to Narendra Modi's official website, the Navnirman movement of Gujarat in 1974 was his first major experience of mass politics
As a young RSS pracharak associated with the ABVP, Modi participated in the movement. And this eventually led to his first political role as General Secretary of the Lok Sangharsh Samiti in Gujarat.
What makes this remarkable is how the movement began.
With students.
Anger over rising prices and corruption triggered protests at an engineering college in Ahmedabad.
Within days, the demonstrations spread across Gujarat.
Police action only fuelled public anger.
Students were joined by ordinary citizens.
Opposition parties threw their weight behind the agitation.
Eventually, the movement became so powerful that Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel was forced to resign.
Navnirman showed something remarkable.
A student movement could shake an entire state government.
It also inspired broader anti-Congress mobilizations across India.
The irony is difficult to miss.
One of the BJP's most influential leaders entered politics through a movement that began on a university campus.
It’s the same story for many other BJP leaders
Arun Jaitley first rose to national prominence during the JP Movement. As Delhi University Students' Union president, he coordinated student protests in support of Jayaprakash Narayan's call for "Sampoorna Kranti." When Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency in 1975, Jaitley publicly burned an effigy of the Prime Minister, courted arrest and spent 19 months in jail.
M. Venkaiah Naidu was another young student activist shaped by the JP Movement. He organized anti-Emergency protests in Andhra Pradesh
Prakash Javadekar entered national politics through the anti-Emergency movement. As an ABVP activist in Pune, he led satyagrahas against the Emergency and was imprisoned for his role in the protests.
And then there's Dharmendra Pradhan.
His story is really meme material
In 1997, he organized demonstrations outside the Odisha Secretariat over an examination paper leak.
Police lathi-charged the protesters.
Pradhan himself was beaten so badly that he reportedly suffered multiple fractures.
By now, the pattern is impossible to ignore, right?
Rallies.
Campus movements.
Street demonstrations. That propelled BJP leaders
In 1984, the BJP was on the fringes as a political force.
It had won just two seats in the Lok Sabha.
Then, it found the movement that would redefine it.
The Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
Starting in the 1980s, the VHP, the RSS and later the BJP transformed the demand for a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid from a local dispute into a nationwide movement.
Everywhere you looked, there was mobilization.
Rallies.
Religious processions.
Public meetings.
Volunteers carrying consecrated bricks to Ayodhya.
A vast grassroots network ensured the issue never left the national conversation.
Before long, Ayodhya wasn't just a religious issue.
It had become the BJP's defining political issue.
Then came one of the most remarkable pieces of political theatre in modern India.
In 1990, L.K. Advani climbed aboard a modified vehicle designed to resemble a mythological chariot and began the Ram Rath Yatra.
It travelled thousands of kilometres.
Stopped in hundreds of towns.
Drew enormous crowds.
Every kilometre brought the BJP closer to becoming a national force.
As the campaign gathered pace, communal tensions intensified.
Violence spread across the country. There were violent communal incidents in many states including Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
Then, on 6 December 1992, thousands of kar sevaks demolished the Babri Masjid.
The communal clashes and the riots that followed claimed more than 2,000 lives.
The consequences were devastating.
But politically,the movement transformed the BJP.
A party that had won just two seats in 1984 was now emerging as a big political force.
It also produced a generation of leaders.
L.K. Advani became the face of the movement.
Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Kalyan Singh all rose to national prominence through the Ayodhya campaign.
And once the BJP discovered the power of mass mobilization...
It kept returning to it.
The Ekta Yatra followed.
Then nationwide protests against the India-US nuclear deal.
Then demonstrations against FDI in multi-brand retail.
The point I am making is simple.
Indian history has been shaped by protests.
Some protests have expanded democracy.
Others have deepened division.
Some have delivered justice.
Others have caused immense harm.
But protest has been one of the most important engines of Indian democracy.
And perhaps no major political party demonstrates that more clearly than the BJP.
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