The 2022 State Elections in Uttar Pradesh and the RSS-isation of the BJP

AbstractSince 2014, the BJP has become increasingly dominant in Uttar Pradesh, India, a state where, as recently as 2012, its vote share had slumped to 15 percent. This paper examines, through ethnographic field research with party workers and others, the reasons for the turnaround in the party’s fortunes. A large part of the answer lies in the increasing strength of BJP party organisation, modelled on an RSS template, as well as the increasing coordination between the RSS and the BJP, with RSS personnel frequently seconded to the BJP. This intense closeness between the RSS and the BJP is a new post-2014 feature, something that did not characterise earlier periods of the BJP in power. A second key factor, building on the BJP’s increased organisational capacity, and one long advocated by the RSS, is the mobilisation of state welfare benefits by the party and the concerted effort to convert welfare recipients, coming from all communities, into supporters. A third key factor, at which the BJP is increasingly adept and where RSS organisational skills provide a significant advantage, is the micromanagement of caste dynamics and religious polarisation as and when required to gain and maintain a political advantage.Keywords: BJPHindutvaIndian politicslocal electionsRSSUPUttar Pradesh AcknowledgementsWe thank the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust for their support through the BA’s Small Research Grants scheme (grant SRG21\211342). Chaturvedi would also like to thank Professor Pushpendra Kumar and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Patna, for supporting the early phase of fieldwork; and for support in the field, Rahul Mishra (Gorakhpur) and Harinder Chowdhary (Bulandhshahar). Ethical approval was obtained from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford (SAME_C1A_21_100). For helpful comments on earlier drafts, and assistance in sharpening our argument, we thank Ralph Schroeder, Amogh Sharma, Priya Chacko, and two anonymous referees.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1. Cited in D. Thengadi, Karyakarta (Pune: Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, 5th ed., 2011 [1995]): 106.2. To two decimal points, the BJP vote share in 2022 was 41.29 percent while that of the SP was 32.06 percent. Lok Dhaba Trivedi Centre for Political Data, accessed April 27, 2023, https://lokdhaba.ashoka.edu.in/browse-data?et=AE&st=Uttar_Pradesh&an=18.3. The BJP won 8 percent of the Muslim votes in the 2022 assembly election in UP: The Hindu Bureau, ‘The Hindu-CSDS-Lokniti Post-Poll Survey 2022: Welfare, Regional Factors Provided Ballast to BJP in Uttar Pradesh’, The Hindu, March 12, 2022, accessed September 29, 2022, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/the-hindu-csds-lokniti-post-poll-survey-2022/article65215064.ece.4. N. Mehta, The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party (Chennai: Westland, 2022): Chap. 3.5. On the history of the RSS, see W.K. Anderson and S. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987); W.K. Anderson and S. Damle, The RSS: A View to the Inside (Gurgaon: Penguin Viking, 2019). On the RSS’s role in the new BJP, see A. Singh, The Architect of the New BJP: How Narendra Modi Transformed the Party (New Delhi: Penguin, 2022); Mehta, New BJP.6. For example, C. Jaffrelot, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021); P.B. Mehta, ‘Hindu Nationalism: From Ethnic Identity to Authoritarian Repression’, Studies in Indian Politics 10, no. 1 (2022): 31–47; B. Yadav and I. Patnaik, The Rise of the BJP: The Making of the World’s Largest Political Party (New Delhi: Penguin, 2022).7. 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Ali, ‘The Central Force behind India’s Fourth Party System’, Economic & Political Weekly 56, no. 10 (2021): https://www.epw.in/engage/article/central-force-behind-indias-fourth-party-system; A. Jha, ‘Expanding the Vote Base in Uttar Pradesh: Understanding the RSS–BJP Combined Mobilization Strategies’, Samaj: South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (2021): DOI: doi.org/10.4000/samaj.7238.35. K. Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); K. Chandra, ed., Democratic Dynasties: State, Party, and Family in Contemporary Politics (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016).36. On factions within the Congress Party in its heyday, see P. Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State: The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1965); R. Kothari, ‘The Congress “System” in India’, Asian Survey 4, no. 12 (1964): 1161–73.37. Ganguly and Dwivedi, Amit Shah, 318–19.38. V. Pandit, ‘Modi, the Successful Social Engineer’, The Hindu BusinessLine, May 31, 2019, accessed May 14, 2023, https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/modi-20-indias-social-engineer/article27350612.ece.39. ‘Kamjor Booth Honge Majboot’, Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, July 9, 2022.40. ‘Gorakhpur ke in Panch Ilako mein Mohallon mein CM Yogi ko Mile Sabse Kam Vote’, Amar Ujala, Gorakhpur edition, March 14, 2022.41. On the key role of Amit Shah, see also Ganguly and Dwivedi, Amit Shah; Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP.42. Amit Shah’s speech available at Amit Shah, ‘Amit Shah Addresses BJP National Council at Talkatora Stadium, New Delhi’, YouTube video, 47:12, March 13, 2015, accessed July 14, 2022, https://youtu.be/-Jze5wxMvIw.43. These departments include good governance, policy research, media, training, political feedback, party journals and publications, the coordination of disaster relief, and media relations. Yadav and Patnaik write that three departments became the major focus of the party: Ajeevan Sahyog Nidha (Lifetime Co-operation Fund); IT, Website and Social Media Activities; and Documentation and Library: see Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP, 172. On similar lines, projects are intended to pursue a short-term objective such as office modernisation, e-libraries and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission). One may note that a government programme like Clean India Mission is also a project of the organisation: cf. Ganguly and Dwivedi, Amit Shah, Chap. 9.44. The author of this text (full reference details in fn 1), Dattopant Thengadi (1920–2004), an RSS ideologue and founder of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Swadeshi Jagran Manch and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, was also the organising secretary of the Jan Sangh in the 1950s.45. Ibid., 96.46. Ibid., 97.47. Ibid.48. Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP, 165.49. Lok Dhaba Trivedi Centre, accessed November 23, 2022, https://lokdhaba.ashoka.edu.in/dash.50. Shashank Chaturvedi, fieldnotes.51. Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, August 19, 2021.52. Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, August 4, 2021.53. Cf, Ganguly and Dwivedi, Amit Shah, Chaps. 4–5.54. Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP, 164.55. L. Mathew, ‘Eyeing 2024, BJP Ministers to Visit Seats Lost in 2019’, The Indian Express, May 26, 2022, accessed May 14, 2023, https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/eyeing-2024-bjp-ministers-to-visit-seats-lost-in-2019-7936468/.56. Lunchbox meetings are derived from the RSS tradition of sahbhoj (collective dining) in which members bring their own tiffin boxes. This culture is now very prominent in the BJP and even Modi was seen carrying his lunchbox in public meetings and sharing it with the local leaders in the open. One such image can be viewed online at https://static-ai.asianetnews.com/images/87c296e2-a541-48d7-aaba-16ad89fd7219/image_710x400xt.jpg, accessed August 11, 2022.57. A famous dish in Bihar and UP, a dough ball made of wheat flour and baked, and eaten with mashed potato.58. Shashank Chaturvedi, fieldnotes.59. About 1.6 million metric tonnes of food grains are provided per month free of cost to 3.61 crore ration card-holders under two schemes: the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKAY) and the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. In addition to funds from the Centre for these programmes, the UP government spends Rs950 crore per month. There are 3.61 crore ration cards in UP, about 41 lakh of them Antyodaya cards and the remaining PHH (priority households). While about 7.50 lakh metric tonnes of food grains is provided to these cardholders across UP under the PMGKAY per month, over 8 lakh metric tonnes are distributed under the NFSA. Sources in the state Food and Civil Supplies Department put the total number of beneficiaries at an estimated 14.96 crore (or over 60 percent of the population): The Indian Express, Lucknow edition, February 26, 2022.60. Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP, 164, quoting from B.K. Kelkar, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya: Vichar Darshan, Vol. 3 (New Delhi: Aschi Prakashan, 2014): 80.61. Under the new system, whenever a membership drive is organised, a toll-free number is launched and people are asked to give it a missed call; the call is returned, personal details are taken, and membership is confirmed.62. Yadav and Patnaik, Rise of the BJP, 171.63. The Hindu Bureau, ‘Hindu-CSDS-Lokniti Post-Poll Survey’. CSDS stands for the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.64. J. Mishra and S. Palshikar, ‘The Labharthi Factor’, The Hindu, March 12, 2022, accessed October 11, 2023, https://www.thehindu.com/elections/uttar-pradesh-assembly/the-labharthi-factor/article65215837.ece.65. Thengadi, Karyakarta, 109.66. Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, August 19, 2021.67. Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, February 5, 2022.68. Presumably the word ‘just’ was a reference to justice.69. P.K. Dutta, ‘What Makes Yogi Adityanath’s Gorakhpur Urban a BJP Bastion in Uttar Pradesh Election’, Hindustan Times, February 4, 2022, accessed May 14, 2023, https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/uttar-pradesh-assembly-polls-2022/story/yogi-adityanath-gorakhpur-urban-impregnable-bjp-bastion-1908736-2022-02-04.70. First India, Lucknow edition, August 5, 2021.71. Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, February 27, 2022.72. S. Chaturvedi, D.N. Gellner and S.K. Pandey, ‘Politics in Gorakhpur since the 1920s: The Making of a Safe “Hindu” Constituency’, Contemporary South Asia 27, no. 1 (2019): 40–57; 52–53.73. Since Independence, other than the Congress, the Bharatiya Kranti Dal, Lok Dal, Communist Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP had all won the seat either once or twice only, according to ECI data.74. Based on local newspaper reports, including Dainik Jagran, Gorakhpur edition, February 22, 2022.75. Much ink has been spilt on the question of the BJP’s undoubted prowess in the use of social media, which there is no space to address here. A report by CSDS, Social Media and Political Behaviour (Delhi: Lokniti, 2019), suggests that this is not as decisive a factor as often thought.76. Mehta, New BJP, 570.