Seventy-five years ago, on 21 October 1951, a political organisation was born without a printing press, a rented office, or even a vehicle — only an idea. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta marked that founding moment on Wednesday, sharing a reflection on the Bharatiya Jana Sangh's diamond jubilee that cuts straight to the bone of the BJP's self-image as a grassroots movement built from nothing.

Gupta quoted what she attributed to BJP National President Shri Nitin Nabin: '75 साल पूर्व, 21 अक्टूबर 1951 को जब जनसंघ की स्थापना हुई, तो उस समय न हमारे पास रसीद छपवाने के पैसे थे, न ही कार्यालय के लिए कोई परिसर था और न ही आवागमन का कोई साधन था।' — 'Seventy-five years ago, when the Jana Sangh was founded on 21 October 1951, we had no money to print receipts, no premises for an office, and no means of transport. There was only one thought: to carry our ideas to every person.'

How the Jana Sangh Was Born — and What It Became

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was established on 21 October 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the Bengali politician who had resigned from Prime Minister Nehru's cabinet over the Nehru-Liaquat Pact. Mookerjee envisioned a party anchored in cultural nationalism and committed to reaching ordinary citizens — a sharp ideological contrast to the Congress establishment of the time.

The party's material poverty at birth is now a foundational myth within the BJP's organisational culture. No receipts. No office. No transport. That trio of absences has become a rhetorical touchstone — proof, as the party frames it, that ideology alone can build a national movement.

From Jana Sangh to BJP: The 75-Year Thread

The Bharatiya Janata Party was formally established in 1980 as the explicit political continuation of the Jana Sangh, after the Janata Party coalition experiment collapsed. It inherited the Jana Sangh's organisational network and ideological focus, positioning every anniversary of 21 October as a moment to reinforce that unbroken lineage.

The hashtag #जनसंघ_से_जनजन_तक — 'From Jana Sangh to Every Person' — frames 75 years not as institutional history but as a living relay race, with today's party as the current leg-runner. For the BJP, the anniversary is less about nostalgia and more about asserting ideological continuity at a moment when it governs at the Centre and across multiple states.

From an idea too poor to print its own receipts to one of the world's largest political organisations — that is the arc the BJP wants Indians to hold in mind as it enters its 76th year.