In early December, five Indian states went to the polls and, and in three of them, the chief minister candidates from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) scored impressive wins. Besides their party affiliation, there’s another trait that the trio of new chief ministers share – they were all members of a right-wing, staunchly nationalist student organisation that has become increasingly influential in Indian politics and academia.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), has more than 5 million members and is considered to be the world’s largest student organisation. It is the student-wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right Hindu nationalist organisation that is also the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.
Many political elites within the BJP, including Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, were either groomed by or have strong links to ABVP. More than a dozen ministers in Modi’s current administration were members of the organisation in their formative years.
“I am an organic product of ABVP,” said Shah, the country’s second most powerful person, while inaugurating the student organisation’s annual convention in early December.
“I cannot express how proud I feel today,” he said as he was honoured as the chief guest at the 69th ABVP Conference.
This story was originally published in scmp.com. Read the full story here .