Religious Political Parties and their Welfare Work: Relations between the RSS, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vidya Bharati Schools in India

Abstract

Based on existing sources and extensive interviews with key informants in Madhya Pradesh, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was in power at the time of the study, and Uttar Pradesh where it had been ousted some years previously, this study seeks to understand why the BJP and the RSS 'social organisation' need each other, and to what extent the BJP, as the political offspring of the RSS, is influenced by it. It also examines relationships between the BJP and the VBABSS, the educational affiliate of RSS, in order to obtain a better insight into the BJP's role in furthering RSS's Hindutva agenda.

Citation

Working Paper No. 37, Religions and Development Research Programme, University of Birmingham, UK, 80 pp. ISBN 0-7044-2722-3

Religious Political Parties and their Welfare Work: Relations between the RSS, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vidya Bharati Schools in India

Published 1 January 2009