When protests became stepping stones for BJP
The supreme irony is that the BJP and its earlier incarnation, the Jana Sangh, often spearheaded or supported the very mass movements it now seeks to study.
THE BJP government at the Centre has been fortunate that barring two significant protests — one by the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh and the other by Haryana's wrestlers — it has not had to grapple with challenges on the ground. Even these protests did not have far-reaching electoral implications for the BJP, except in Punjab.