Balraj Madhok

Balraj Madhok was among the founders of the BJS (Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Indian People’s Alliance) in 1951. He is now one of the oldest living leaders of the Sangh Parivar (Hindu family of organizations). Born in the district of Skardu, now in Pakistan, to an Arya Samaj (Hindu reformist movement) family, Madhok completed his education in Lahore and subsequently became a history professor at the University of Delhi. After attending several Communist Party meetings, he became a full-time member of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, National Volunteers’ Association) in 1942. In 1947, he acquired political experience while forming a political Hindu movement, the Praja had. He assisted Dr. S. P. Mookerjee in creating the BJS by writing the party’s manifesto and becoming its first national secretary. He played a key role in the cow-protection movement. He eventually became president of the party (from 1966 to 1967). Madhok also advocated the “Indianization” of Muslims and promoted an aggressive Hindu agenda. In 1972, as a partisan of a militant religious conservatism, he denounced the leftward drift of the Jan Sangh and was expelled from the party for indiscipline by L. K. Advani. When the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian People’s Party) was formed, he criticized its leaders, A. B. Vajpayee and L. K. Advani, for having forgotten the real ideology of the Jan Sangh.

JAFFRELOT, Christophe. 1996. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s, Strategies of identity-building, implantation and mobilisation. London: C. Hurst.