In heydays of Mandal politics during the late 1980s, as BJP’s aggressive Hindutva was being challenged by the rising tide of backward caste politics, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was confronted with an immediate challenge — how to propel with Hindutva along with the rising caste politics? The brilliant answer came in form of Kalyan Singh. The backward caste leader from the Lodhi community, an emerging Hindutva face was pitched in as a “natural leader” by the RSS.
The “natural leader” soon went on to become the first chief minister of the Bhartiya Janta Party government in 1991. With one brilliant stroke, the saffron politics till then largely seen to be aligned with the Hindu upper castes, was redefined. The Kalyan Singh era went on to become the starting point of BJP’s caste calculations and broadening the Hindutva base across the caste fault lines.
FROM JANA SANGH TO BJP—THE TEACHER WHO MASTERED POLITCS
Born in 1932, Kalyan Singh in his youth was pulled towards the ideology of Hindutva. Back then when the political landscape was dominated by the Nehruvian Congress, it was not easy to venture on a new road. However, for this young teacher of social science at the Raipur inter-college of Atrauli in Etah, traveling on an uncharted territory was no deterrent. As a Bharatiya Jana Sangh activist, he soon made name for him and went on to contest and win the Atrauli Vidhan Sabha seat on Jana Sangh ticket in 1967.
Kalyan Singh was among the first line of leaders who had started propelling the Jana Sangh’s ideology. Firmly rooted to the political vision of his party, Singh was also getting a grip on the caste dynamics of the region. The Hindutva face was also emerging as a big backward caste Lodhi leader.
From then till 1977 in the post-emergency era, Singh kept a firm hold on his constituency and won successive elections. The first significant break for then three-term MLA came in 1977. In the elections held after Emergency with Congress being crushed in Uttar Pradesh, Janata Party government came to power. Singh now a Janata Party MLA was made the minister in the first non-Congress government of the state. Existence of Jana Sangh was lost as the party merged with other anti-Congress parties to form the Janata Party.
Though the Janata Party experiment came as a bubble in Indian Politics, with government being voted out in next assembly elections in 1980, the Emergency and the JP movement had given a new lease of life to the nationalistic majoritarian politics of the RSS and erstwhile Jana Sangh. As Bharatiya Janata Party was born in 1980, Singh was at its helm of affairs in the state that was in years to come would be the biggest laboratory of BJP’s experiments in contemporary politics.
THE RAM MANDIR MOVEMENT AND THE RISE OF KALYAN SINGH
With the inception of BJP, the stage was set for radical push to Hindutva politics. By mid-1980s, RSS and BJP were already building the momentum for liberating the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya, right at the spot where stood the Babri Mosque. The dispute that was languishing in courts since India’s independence was coming central stage of political discourse.
In 1986 as the locks at the Babri Mosque were opened by a court order, the new lease of hope was generated for the RSS-BJP. The party with just two MPs in Lok Sabha had found the cause that will drive it to 85 seats in the next general elections in 1989. Amidst the new politics, Singh, the party MLA from Atrauli, was the key figure.
However, for this emerging Hindutva mascot, there was also another social phenomenon at play; emerging backward caste politics was also giving Singh a unique positioning within his own party.
For the Sangh and the BJP, which have not mustered much around the caste dynamics, necessity to counter the rising tide of Mandal politics was making it imperative to look towards their own leaders for an answer to the new challenge. Singh a prominent OBC face was best suited. He was the personified the synthesis of Kamandal and Mandal.
KALYAN AS CHIEF MINSTER
As BJP stormed to political power in 1991, winning a clear majority in assembly elections, the RSS natural leader became the preferred choice for the post of chief minister. Singh as the CM, was pulled by both the concerns of governance, the promised new deal to the people and the commitment towards the cause of Ram Mandir.
As the government went ahead acquiring 2.27 acres around the disputed site in Ayodhya and building the Ram Chabutra close by, frenzy around the issue was alarmingly high. With VHP and BJP announcing the ‘karsewa’ for Ram Mandir, concerns for safety of the mosque was raised. Singh tried to allay the fear. He gave an affidavit in Supreme Court, promising to ensure that no damage will be done to the structure. A promise he failed to keep.
As the Babri mosque was razed on December 6, 1992, his government was dismissed and state was placed under the President’s rule. With the first BJP government gone, there was trouble for the state party and Singh.
THE LEADER AT UNEASE WITH HIS OWN PARTY — THE EXIT
The next few years post demolition came as a reality check both for the BJP and Singh. With the mosque being demolished and backward and Dalit caste-based identity politics on the rise, political spectrum was increasingly dominated by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In 1997, BJP was again come to power but only in an alliance with the BSP.
In the time of coalitions, Singh did become the CM once again, but the original charm was lost. Party rivalries and Singh’s style of politics paved way for more of his detractors. Differences reached a breaking point in 1999 when Singh walked out of the BJP and founded the Rashtriya Kranti Party.
An experiment which didn’t yield much success and the once ‘natural leader’ of the BJP was now marginalised. Though he came back to the BJP fold in 2004, but a lot had happened in between.
Unable to find the lost ground, Singh once again left the BJP in 2009 to form the Jan Kranti Party. Once the temple mascot, Singh now entered an alliance with the Socialist, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the SP, who was portrayed as a villain by the BJP for ordering to open fire on Karsewaks in 1989 during his government.
THE GHAR WAPSI AND THEREAFTER
With the advent of Narendra Modi at BJP’s centre stage, it was time for the one-time Hindutva poster boy to do a ‘ghar wapsi’. The emerging “Hindu hriday samrat”, Modi had no love lost for Singh.
Singh came back to the party fold and promised to serve it with all his might. Withered by age, Singh refrained from electoral politics and BJP replaced him by his son Rajveer from his constituency of Etah.
After assuming office as the Prime Minister of India in 2014, Modi soon appointed Singh as the governor of Rajasthan. A post he held for five years till September 2019.
A year later in September 2020, a CBI special court acquitted him and 32 others in the long standing case of Babri Mosque demolition. It was big moment for Singh during whose tenure the mosque was razed.
The acquittal came a year after the historic Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya title suit, whereby the entire disputed land was handed over to the Hindu side, thus paving way for the construction of the Ram temple.
Singh told media, “I can now die in peace”. It was no exaggeration from the man who had once been the very proponent of the temple movement was so deeply impacted by its course.
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