What Vinay Sitapati Has Missed Out –The BJP-RSS’ View of India As seen in Fictional Writings by Deendayal Upadhyaya
There has been a lot of discussion about Vinay Sitapati’s book on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the pre-Modi era, especially the Jugalbandi of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. From the excerpts available online , one is wont to feel intrigued by the manner in which there has been a fresh take on the party and its activities, unlike the lazy trope of communalism, Hindu nationalism, cultural fascism that gets thrown around rather casually. The problems with these narratives, and where Sitapati differs distinctly from the face of it is the fact that there is an attempt to look at the moorings of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from their paradigm, giving space for a change for an emic viewpoint. Moreover, he has been prescient in pointing out, in not so many words, that the BJP and RSS can’t be called right-wing in the traditional European sense; rather, they would qualify better with a term ‘non-left’ for a variety of reasons. However, the excerpt