bärˈətēə jänˈətə [Hindi,=Indian People's party] (BJP), Indian political party that espouses Hindu nationalism. The BJP draws its Hindu nationalist creed from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS; National Self-Service Organization), a group founded in 1925 in opposition to Mohandas Gandhi and dedicated to the propagation of orthodox Hindu religious practices.

The BJP's direct political antecedent is the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a party established in 1951 that stood in staunch opposition to what it perceived as the evils of Western cultural imperialism. Its principles were retained when the party was renamed the BJP in 1980. Opposed to the secular democracy advocated by the long-ruling Congress party (see Indian National Congress), the BJP objected to the separate code of civil laws for India's Muslims, supported India's nuclear defense capability, and favored restrictions on foreign investment.

At first largely a northern party popular in Hindi-speaking areas among urban middle-class traders, by 1989 the BJP had won 85 seats in parliament. In the 1990s the party became part of the mainstream political life of India. It scored a major success in the 1996 general elections, winning the most parliamentary seats (161 of 545) but falling short of a majority. Shortly thereafter, the BJP formed a government, with its leader, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as prime minister, but it fell prior to a confidence vote. The BJP again garnered the largest number of parliamentary seats in the 1998 and 1999 elections and successfully formed governments, again with Vajpayee as prime minister. In power, the BJP has tended to avoid many of the Hindu nationalist issues originally central to it, and has promoted economic reforms and development, including foreign investment. Although the BJP has moved to distance itself somewhat from the RSS and attract Muslim voters, party members were accused of complicity in the violence that killed perhaps as many as 2,000 in Gujarat in Feb.–Mar., 2002.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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