Word: bjp
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...ASIA Avian Flu: Asia on High Alert India: The BJP's New Look Viewpoint: Moderate Victory? Timeline: History of the BJP Pakistan: The Monster Within...
When India's Hindu-Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first took office eight years ago, some Indians wondered if it marked the end of their country as a tolerant, secular, democratic nation. After all, the BJP had come to power on the back of a violent and emotive campaign to destroy the Babri mosque at the sacred Hindu site of Ayodhya, so bringing religion into the very heart of politics. Moreover, the BJP was allied to many extreme Hindu-fundamentalist groups. Indeed, it was founded as the political associate of a neofascist paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh...
...Today, as the BJP heads toward what it is convinced will be its third term in government, the doomsayers' more apocalyptic predictions have proved unfounded. India has not become a Hindu state and is still the world's largest democracy. Its press is still remarkably free and its judiciary by and large as independent and outspoken as ever. Peace has broken out with China, and even seems possible with nuclear archrival Pakistan. Moreover, India's economy is booming. Its growth rate has passed 7%, the stock market is on a roll and foreign-exchange reserves exceed $100 billion...
...Nevertheless, like the Likud in Israel, the BJP embraces a wide spectrum of right-wing opinion, ranging from mildly conservative free marketeers to raving ultra-nationalists and religious radicals. For now, the moderates?led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Finance Minister Jaswant Singh?are firmly in the driving seat, and the clear popularity of their policies has strengthened their hand. But far more extreme figures are waiting for their moment...
...this day, many senior BJP figures, including the Prime Minister, have RSS backgrounds and hold posts in both organizations. The RSS and the BJP still believe that India is in essence a Hindu nation and that the minorities may live in India only if they acknowledge this. After all, the RSS was founded in imitation of European fascist movements, and its early ideologue, Madhav Golwalkar, drew direct inspiration from the Holocaust. "To keep up the purity of the nation and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging of its Semitic races?the Jews," he once wrote. "National pride...