What are the policies and programmes of Bharatiya Janata party?

Answer 1

The BJP is a religious conservative political organisation. It sees itself as rising to the defence of indigenous culture, and Indian religious systems which include Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism. To many Hindu nationalists,Bharat is a Hindu Rashtra, literally a Hindu nation.

According to BJP, this definition does not exclude Muslims, Christians. Hindu Rashtra is portrayed as cultural nationalism and Hinduism as the entire complex system of culture, history, faith and worship that have evolved in India over the past 5,000 years. In the political language of Hindu nationalists, all the peoples of India, their cultures and heritage are "Hindu," which literally means "inhabitant of the land of the river Sindhu," the modern-day Indus.

While the draft manifestation of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (The organization that spawned the BJP) mentions the "Hindu Rashtra", the BJP has historically raised objections to this view. The party's chief objective is the "building up of India as a modern, progressive and enlightened nation" which draws inspiration from India's ancient Hindu culture and values. The key theorist of the party, K. Upadhyaya, authored the publication titled Integral humanism which laid down the foundations for this view. According to Upadhyaya, the so-called "monarch" and "state" are the dharmaand the chiti (genius) of society. He asserted that the very source of meaning in Indian society is the concept of "national identity". The BJP stresses the importance of integrating the four ends of human life in accordance with Hindu scripture ie, kama(gratification),artha (wealth), dharma (faith), and moksha (spiritual release).[2]

The BJP has been accused of being a xenophobic and fascist organization by its opponents. Its supporters, on the other hand, argue that it is no more than a conservative, nationally-oriented party which does not wish to polarise the country on communal (religious) grounds. These accusations are largely regarded as a smear campaign against the BJP by left-wing pundits. In addition, accusations of "fascism" in BJP the Hindutva movement coming from the left wing parties and western academics such as Christoffe Jaffrelot have been criticized by former professor of political philosophy[3]and Times of Indiacommentator Jyotirmaya Sharma as a "simplistic transference [that] has done great injustice to our knowledge of Hindu nationalist politics".[4]

The life and work of the BJP is seen by many as strongly influenced by the Partition of India in 1947. The partition was traumatic legacy for most religious communities in India. Millions migrated to find safety in one of the two new states. During the chaos surrounding partition over half a million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, were killed in communal riots wake of horrendous carnage. The trauma of midnight evacuations of ancestral homes, and being forced to wade through murderous violence, chaos and confusion to despair and helplessness in a different land which became their home, has struck deep in the veins of Hindu nationalists.

Another important factor in the ideological construction of the ideology of BJP is the ongoing territorial dispute overJammu and Kashmir and the wars of 1947-48, 1962, 1965, and 1971 and recently the 1999 Kargil War. The BJP and its supporters feel India must remain vigilant against threats from Pakistan, the People's Republic of China, and elsewhere such as Bangladesh even Sri Lanka.

The BJP has often been accused of participation in religious violence and using religiously sensitive issues for political advantage. These accusations, largely a political smear campaign by opposition parties, have tarnished the image of BJP in the eyes of many Indians, particularly Muslims. Many left wing journalists and observers feel that the BJP is a fascist organization with a clear anti-Muslim bias. This is in spite of the fact that the party has promoted a number of Muslims like Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the late Sikandar Bakht and Dr. Najma Heptullainto prominent leadership position, and even had a prominent member of the Indian Jewishcommunity, J.F.R. Jacob, among their ranks.