RSS, inside out

The BJP's abstention had substantially to do with the bitter memories of party leaders, who felt targeted in the erstwhile Janata Party due to its association with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

The RSS: A View to the Inside
Walter K Andersen and Sridhar D Damle
Penguin
405 pages; Rs 699
 
The Indian political terrain was completely different almost three-and-a-half decades ago. The Congress system of politics held sway, and the 1984 elections, when voters handed out an emphatic mandate, erased prospects of the re-emergence of an opposition conglomerate on the lines of the Janata Party. An anti-Congress outfit eventually crystallised in 1988, partly because of Rajiv Gandhi's errors and mishandling of crucial issues, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stayed out of the Janata Dal, as the new outfit was