Indian nationalist student organisation ABVP: from university campuses to BJP’s corridors of power
- ABVP’s influence in Indian politics grows as former members rise to power in BJP-led states
- Critics have voiced concerns over the organisation’s growing impact on academia and national policy
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.
“Only a person who began his journey by sitting at the last row of the pandal [makeshift shelter] of the Rajkot ABVP National Conference can truly understand.”