Balraj Madhok (25 February 1920 – 2 May 2016) was an Indian political activist and politician from

Jammu Jammu is the winter capital of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is the headquarters and the largest city in Jammu district of the union territory. Lying on the banks of the river Tawi, the city of Jammu, with an area of ...

. Originally an activist of the

nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...

organisation

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...

(RSS), he later worked as a politician in the

Bharatiya Jan Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, full name: Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh; ) ( ISO 15919: '' Akhila Bhāratīya Jana Saṅgha '' ) was an Indian right wing political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was the po ...

(BJS). Madhok was instrumental in launching the RSS in the princely state of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

and later the political party

Jammu Praja Parishad The Jammu Praja Parishad (officially: All Jammu and Kashmir Praja Parishad) was a political party active in the Jammu Division of the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It was founded in November 1947 by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activ ...

for representing the interests of Jammu Hindus. He eventually rose to become the president of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and led its successful contest in the general election of 1967. He resigned from the party afterwards due to political differences with

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

and

L. K. Advani Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...

Early life

Madhok came from a

-based

Khatri Khatri is a caste of the Indian subcontinent that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade, they were the d ...

family with

Arya Samaj Arya Samaj ( hi, आर्य समाज, lit=Noble Society, ) is a monotheistic Indian Hindu reform movement that promotes values and practices based on the belief in the infallible authority of the Vedas. The samaj was founded by the sann ...

leanings. His father Jagannath Madhok was from Jallen in the

Gujranwala Gujranwala ( ur, , label=none; ) is a city and capital of Gujranwala Division located in Pakistan. It is also known as "City of Wrestlers" and is quite famous for its food. It is the 5th most populous List of most populous cities in Pakistan, c ...

district of

West Punjab West Punjab ( pnb, ; ur, ) was a province in the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955. The province covered an area of 159,344 km2 (61523 sq mi), including much of the current Punjab province and the Islamabad Capital Territory, but exclu ...

, and worked as an official in the Government of

in the

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu a ...

division. Balraj Madhok was born in

Skardu , nickname = , motto = , image_skyline = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Gilgit Baltistan#Pakistan , pushpin_label_position ...

Baltistan Baltistan ( ur, ; bft, སྦལ་ཏི་སྟཱན, script=Tibt), also known as Baltiyul or Little Tibet ( bft, སྦལ་ཏི་ཡུལ་།, script=Tibt), is a mountainous region in the Pakistani-administered territory of Gil ...

and spent early childhood at Jallen. He studied in

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its ...

, the Prince of Wales College in

and the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College (DAV College) in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th List of largest cities, most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is th ...

, graduating with B. A. Honours in History in 1940.

Personal life

He married Kamla, who was a professor at the

Delhi University Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) ...

. He had two daughters. He died at the age of 96 on 2 May 2016. He was unwell for some time and had been admitted to the

All India Institute of Medical Sciences The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes h ...

in New Delhi for a month. His death was condoled by many including the

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

and several others including

Lal Krishna Advani Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...

. Prime Minister Modi visited Madhok's residence to pay his last respects.

Jammu and Kashmir

While studying in Jammu, Madhok joined the

(RSS) in 1938, which he found to be close to the Arya Samaj way of thinking. He became a

pracharak The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family") ...

(full-time worker) for the RSS in 1942 and was appointed as a worker for Jammu. He is said to have worked in this position for about eight months building up the RSS network. He then moved to

in 1944 as a lecturer in history at the DAV College and continued to work as an RSS organiser. He established the RSS network in the

Kashmir Valley The Kashmir Valley, also known as the ''Vale of Kashmir'', is an intermontane valley concentrated in the Kashmir Division of the Indian- union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The valley is bounded on the southwest by the Pir Panjal Range and ...

. When the Hindu refugees started arriving in Srinagar after the Partition, they also joined the RSS branches.

Mehr Chand Mahajan Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan (1889–1967) was the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to that he was the Prime Minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir during the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh and played a key role in the ...

, the Prime Minister of Jammu & Kashmir from 15 October 1947, was the Chairman of the managing society of the DAV College. After the state joined India and

Sheikh Abdullah Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (5 December 1905 – 8 September 1982) was an Indian politician who played a central role in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir Abdullah was the founding leader of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (later re ...

was appointed as the Head of Emergency Administration in the Kashmir Valley, Madhok moved back to Jammu. He worked to form the Praja Parishad party, founded in November 1947, in collaboration with Hari Wazir.

Prem Nath Dogra Prem Nath Dogra (24 October 1884 – 21 March 1972), also known as Pandit Prem Nath Dogra, was a leader from Jammu and Kashmir who worked for total integration of the state with India. He is commonly referred to as ''Sher e Duggar''. He was inst ...

also joined later. The party demanded the complete unification of Jammu and Kashmir with India, in opposition to the loose autonomy negotiated between Abdullah and

Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

(later embodied in the

Article 370 Article 370 of the Indian constitution gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, a region located in the northern part of Indian subcontinent and part of the larger region of Kashmir which has been the subject of a dispute between India, ...

). Madhok was extended from Jammu and Kashmir by Sheikh Abdullah as a result of his political stance. Madhok moved to Delhi in 1948 and started teaching at the Panjab University College, which was established for the education of refugees from West Punjab. Later, he was a lecturer of history at the DAV College in Delhi affiliated to the

.P.G.D.A.V. College (Evening)
, University of Delhi, retrieved 2015-05-08. In 1951, Madhok launched the student union of the

Sangh Parivar The Sangh Parivar (translation: "Family of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh" or the "RSS family") refers, as an umbrella term, to the collection of Hindu nationalist organisations spawned by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which r ...

, ''viz''., the

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) () is a right-wing all India student organisation affiliated to the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). History The ABVP, founded in 1948 with the initiative of the RSS a ...

Bharatiya Jana Sangh

In 1951, Madhok joined

Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Syama Prasad Mukherjee (6 July 1901 – 23 June 1953) was an Indian politician, barrister and academician, who served as India's first Minister for Industry and Supply (currently known as Ministry of Commerce and Industry) in Jawaharlal Nehru' ...

in the formation of what later become the political party of the

, the

Bharatiya Jana Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, full name: Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh; ) ( ISO 15919: '' Akhila Bhāratīya Jana Saṅgha '' ) was an Indian right wing political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was the po ...

. The Bengal branch of the Jana Sangh was established by Mookerjee on 23 April 1951 and the Panjab and Delhi branch was established by Madhok a month later, on 27 May 1951. Madhok served as the secretary of the Panjab branch and later, a member of the Working Committee of the national organisation. He was part of the RSS-dominated Working Committee of the Jana Sangh in 1954, which ensured the ouster of the traditional politician wing led by the President M. C. Sharma. The Delhi branch of the party was dissolved and then reconstituted with RSS pracharaks at the helm. Madhok continued to be active in the Delhi branch of Jana Sangh, and won the Lok Sabha seat for Delhi in 1961. In 1966–67, Madhok rose to become the President of the Jana Sangh. He led the party in the general election of 1967, when the party won 35 seats in the Lok Sabha, its highest tally. Madhok tried to create a coalition of rightist forces along with the

Swatantra Party The Swatantra Party was an Indian classical liberal political party, that existed from 1959 to 1974. It was founded by C. Rajagopalachari in reaction to what he felt was the Jawaharlal Nehru-dominated Indian National Congress's increasingly soci ...

. He saw the split in the

Congress party The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

in 1969 as an opportunity to expand the role of Jana Sangh. However, the strategy was opposed by A. B. Vajpayee, who represented the hardline RSS faction inside the party. Madhok denounced what he called the party's `leftist' leanings and the influence of the RSS on its functioning. His stand led to his marginalisation in the party. In 1973,

, who became the president, expelled Madhok from the party for three years. Madhok was arrested during the

Emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

and was imprisoned for 18 months, (1975–1977). He joined the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

, into which Jana Sangh merged, but resigned in 1979 and tried to revive Jana Sangh under the name Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh. However, the party was not successful. In an interview with the ''

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia. It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...

'' in 2010 on the occasion of his 90th birthday, he claimed that his then opponent

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 and was al ...

had offered him the post of a central Minister in 1980 on her return to power.

Later career

Right from his expulsion in 1973, Madhok remained a pungent critic of

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

leaders

and their policies. During his last years, he resided in the New Rajinder Nagar area of

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Hous ...

. The road where his house is located stands named as ''Jagannath Madhok Lane''.

Works

Madhok has authored over thirty books. A good number of them were on the

Kashmir conflict The Kashmir conflict is a territorial conflict over the Kashmir region, primarily between India and Pakistan, with China playing a third-party role. The conflict started after the partition of India in 1947 as both India and Pakistan claimed ...

: * ''Kashmir Problem: A Story of Bungling'' (Bharti Sahitya Sadan, 1952) * ''Kashmir: Centre of New Alignments'' (Deepak Prakashan, 1963) * ''Kashmir: The Storm Center of The World'' (A. Ghosh, Texas, 1992) * ''A Story of Bungling in Kashmir'' (Young Asia Publications, 1972) * ''Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh: Problem & Solution'' (Reliance Publishing House, 1987) * ''Kargil and Indo-Pak Relations'' some on

Hindu nationalism Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

: * ''Indian Nationalism'' (Bharati Sahitya Sadan, 1969) * ''Indianisation? What, Why and How'' (S. Chand, 1970) and others on general political affairs: * ''Hindustan on the Cross Roads'' (Mehta Brothers, Lahore, 1946) * ''Political Trends in India'' (S. Chand, 1959) * ''Portrait of a Martyr: Biography of Shyama Prasad Mukerjee'' * ''India's Foreign Policy & National Affairs'' (Bharatiya Sahitya Sadan, 1969) * ''Murder of Democracy'' (S. Chand, 1973) * ''Reflections of a Detenu'' (Newman Group, 1978) * ''Stormy Decade: Indian Politics, 1970–1980'' (Indian Book Gallery, 1980) * ''Punjab problem, the Muslim connection'' (Hindu World Publications, 1985) He also wrote in Hindi: * ''Jeet Ya Haar'' (in Hindi) * ''Jindgi Ka Safar'' parts 1, 2 and 3 (in Hindi)

Christophe Jaffrelot Christophe Jaffrelot (born 12 February 1964) is a French political scientist and Indologist specialising in South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan. He is a professor of South Asian politics and history the ''Centre d'études et de recherch ...

has included extracts from ''Indianisation? What, Why and How'' in his ''Hindu Nationalism - A Reader''.

References

; Sources * * * * * *

External links

Profile at Jana Sangh's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madhok, Balraj 1920 births 2016 deaths People from Jammu and Kashmir People from Gilgit-Baltistan India MPs 1967–1970 India MPs 1957–1962 Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Delhi Janata Party politicians Delhi University faculty Lok Sabha members from Delhi People from South Delhi district People from Skardu District Bharatiya Jana Sangh politicians from Jammu and Kashmir Indians imprisoned during the Emergency (India) Punjabi Hindus