Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Its links to BJP
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is a right-wing Indian student organization affiliated with the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It claims to be India’s largest student organization. ABVP has more than three million members as per its data.
Akhila bharathiya Vidya Parishat (ABVP) bio history.
The ABVP was founded in 1948 on the initiative of RSS activist Balraj Madhok. It was officially registered on July 9, 1949. Its main purpose was to counter the communist influences on the university campuses. Professor Yeshwantrao Kelkar, a lecturer in Bombay, became his main organizer in 1958. According to the ABVP website, he expanded the organization. He is today and is considered “the real architect of the ABVP”.
Various ABVP departments have been involved in Hindu-Muslim communal unrest since 1961. In the 1970s, however, the ABVP increasingly dealt with issues of the lower middle class, such as corruption and inertia. Some were also taken up by communist student groups. The ABVP played a leading role in the agitation policy of the 1970s during the JP movement. This led to a collaboration between student activists in Gujarat and Bihar. The ABVP benefited significantly from such post-emergency efforts and saw membership growth.
By 1974, the ABVP had 160,000 members at 790 locations. IT had control of several major universities through student elections, including the University of Delhi. By 1983 the organization had 250,000 members and 1,100 branches. The demolition of Babri Masjid and the economic liberalization by PV Narasimharao government helped ABVP. It gained foundation in many areas. United Progressive Alliance came to power in 2003. ABVP continued to grow and tripled to 3.175 million members in 2016. It claims to be India’s largest student organization.
Links to the Bharatiya Janata Party
The ABVP spokesmen insist that the ABVP is not affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They describe it as the “student wing” of the RSS. Both the BJP and the ABVP are members of the Sangh Parivar. They are “family of (related) organizations” of the RSS. Many people say ABVP structure benefits BJP. Several BJP politicians, including former Treasury Secretary Arun Jaitley, had their ideological basis in the ABVP. Several observers make no distinction between the RSS and the BJP. They consider the ABVP to be a student wing of either or both.
In 2017, the ABVP suffered numerous losses in the student body elections. These included not only Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University, but also Allahabad University and Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat University and Gauhati University. The loss in Kashi Vidyapeeth was considered particularly significant because it was Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency. This is said to have caused concern at the BJP. BJP set up a committee to investigate the problems that caused the ABVP to decline. ABVP was revived in 2018. It has won key positions from the President, Vice President and Joint Secretary of Delhi University Student Surveys. Abvp had won the surveys of the student association in Hyderabad after eight years.
ABVP activities
The ABVP manifesto contains agendas such as educational and university reforms. It competes in college and university student elections. Students for Development (SFD) is an ABVP initiative. It promotes the “right perspective for the need for holistic and sustainable development” among students. The official ABVP magazine is Rashtriya Chhatrashakti, which is published monthly in Hindi in New Delhi.
ABVP has been in the news several times due to violent university and college incidents
Disclaimer :- The author of this article has got nothing to do with the activities of ABVP. The author has not written this to promote abvp activities. This is only to show light on its bio data and history based on its data from wiki2 Source of the article :- https://wiki2.org/en/Akhil_Bharatiya_Vidyarthi_Parishad