The perennially ruling party

The BJP's narrative has strengthened over the past three decades, and it's easy to see why its dominance will continue

The standout feature of India’s democracy has been the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This rise has come in two phases. The first was the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the political unit tasked with protecting the interests of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 after an internal debate concluded that the RSS had been wrongly attacked for Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination (its head M S Golwalkar had been jailed for months) and needed a voice in electoral politics.
 

The Jana Sangh was not especially popular electorally for two reasons. The first was that many