However, even the anti-free marketeers could find some disagreement with
Nehruvian socialism, because the latter concentrated on the essentially mod-
ernist enterprise of creating an industrial economy, whereas the RSS type of
social development was focused (in a way oddly reminiscent of Gandhi) on the
agrarian economy, with its ties to an ancient civilizational way of life.
The first taste of power: the Janata Party
The ideological tension within the Hindu nationalist fold gradually fed into a
tension over political strategy as well. In the face of the dominance of the
Nehruvian Congress, the Jana Sangh had, as mentioned, adhered to its RSS roots
of cultivating a cultural strategy on the ground, without overt concern for elec-
toral success. But divisions within Congress opened up between Indira Gandhi
and her older colleagues in the late 1960s, and the Jana Sangh was confronted
with a choice. It could retain its old strategy or it could move in a more populist
direction to benefit from any possible re-alignment with Hindu traditionalists
opposed to Indira Gandhi.
Populism brought its own difficulties, as was evident during the “cow protec-
tion agitation.” The cow being considered sacred, Hindu nationalists had always
asked for legal provision against cow slaughter. In a bid to further their agenda,
Hindu nationalists attempted to mobilize Hindu public opinion in the mid-1960s
against the government’s refusal to allow for such provision. This included
appeal to Hindu religious organizations and holy men. Such a form of populism
drew on the ideological roots of sangathanist strategy, by mobilizing people on
the basis of cultural appeal to Hindu values. However, as violence resulted from
the confrontation between demonstrators and the government, the Jana Sangh
realized that such populism hindered instrumental strategies aimed at forming
a coherent opposition to Indira Gandhi’s Congress, because her other opponents
were at least uncomfortable and usually hostile to Hindu nationalist concerns
like “cow protection.” So the Jana Sangh in Parliament had to try and build
bridges with anti-Indira Gandhi groups, and the agitation proved a failure.
Indira Gandhi’s adroit use of Indian nationalist sentiment during and after
the victorious war with Pakistan and the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 politically
marginalized the Jana Sangh. However, her drift into authoritarian rule, ending
in the declaration of an Emergency, in which political rights were suspended, led
to a recrudescence of Hindu nationalism. As legitimate leaders of the political
opposition were jailed, the extralegal activity of the RSS, now led by another
Maharahstrian brahmin, Balasaheb Deoras, had a chance to flourish. He ini-
tially tried to cooperate with her but she had no immediate gain in doing so, and
continued to target RSS workers as much as she did anyone else. The RSS then
traded on its old image as an organization willing to be exposed to political
danger and oppression. It became a focal point of resistance, organizing anti-
governmental activity alongside socialists and others by drawing on a new
membership that was thrown, by Indira Gandhi’s actions, into underground
contemporary political hinduism 535