The New BJP

Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media, UPES; Advisor, Global University Systems; and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major Indian media companies and in international financing institutions like the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland. He has taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia (ANU, La Trobe University), Singapore (NUS), Switzerland (International Olympic Museum) and India (IIM Bangalore, Shiv Nadar University). He was previously Executive Editor, The Times of India-Online, where he led a number of AI-led tech innovations to redefine digital media. He has also served as Managing Editor, India Today (English TV channel) and Consulting Editor, The Times of India. Mehta is the author of five bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including India on Television (winner of the Asian Publishing Award for Best Book on Asian Media, 2009), Behind a Billion Screens (longlisted as Business Book of the Year, Tata Literature Live, 2015), and most recently, Dreams of a Billion (co-authored, Ekamra Sports Book of the Year, 2021).

INTRODUCTION

A ‘Jai Sri Ram’ Sticker and a Family Argument: The BJP and a Personal Retracing

PART I

THE HINDI HEARTLAND: LABHARTHEE SAMMELANS, CASTE RE-ENGINEERING, HINDUTVA AND THE WELFARE WHEEL

1. The BJP as the Party of the Village: An Introduction

2. Becoming the Hindi Heartland’s Predominant Rural Party

3. The Caste Game: How the BJP Became the Most Socially Representative Party in UP (Barring Muslims)

4. The BJP’s Political Mobilisation of Welfare: ‘Labharthees’

5. The BJP’s Muslim Model: Hindutva, the Politics of Exclusion and Why the BJP Still Wins Muslim Seats

PART II

COMMUNICATION: WHAT THE BJP FOCUSES ON

AND WHERE IT SPEAKS

6. What the BJP Says: The Changing Patterns of Its Discourse

7. Modi@Digital: Why the BJP Wins on Social Media

8. How the BJP Became the World’s Largest Political Party: Organisational Restructuring and the Use of Digital Technologies

PART III

IDEOLOGY, ECONOMIC THINKING AND GOVERNANCE

9. Roots of the BJP: The Jan Sangh Story

10. When Right Is Left: The BJP’s Economic Model in New India

PART IV

THE UMBILICAL CORD

11. The BJP’s RSS Link: The Foundational Moment

12. The Growth of the RSS

13. What the RSS Says: Issues That Matter the Most to the Sangh

14. The Sangh Parivar and Education: Tribal Communities, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and Christian Missionaries

PART V

BEYOND THE DOMINANT NARRATIVE: THE SOUTH, THE NORTHEAST AND WOMEN

15. The BJP’s South Model: The Karnataka Formula

16. Mergers, Acquisitions and the ‘Eight Goddesses’: The BJP’s Northeast Push

17. The Making of a New Women’s Vote: Gender, Politics and Hindutva

CONCLUSION

18 ‘Party of Ram’: A Hindu Suratrana, the Idea of ‘New India’ and Its Global Message

Postscript

Notes

Appendices 1–15

The BJP: A Timeline

Index

Acknowledgements