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    You are at:Home » Blog » The two different machines of Modi’s BJP and Congress
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    The two different machines of Modi’s BJP and Congress

    Nalin MehtaBy Nalin MehtaSeptember 9, 2022Updated:July 26, 2023No Comments1 Min Read
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    Today, it is possible to find dedicated men and women — karyakartas — in brand new Bharatiya Janata Party offices across India. It is relatively more difficult, however, to find a large cohort of dedicated ideological workers in older Congress offices anymore. (HT Photo)
    Today, it is possible to find dedicated men and women — karyakartas — in brand new Bharatiya Janata Party offices across India. It is relatively more difficult, however, to find a large cohort of dedicated ideological workers in older Congress offices anymore. (HT Photo)
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    From grassroots cadre to a digital army, from aspirations to ideology, the BJP’s party structure – much like the Congress of the past – is now fortified. How the Congress decides to contend with this hegemon, as it gears up to elect a new party president, will be crucial for its survival

    When political scientist WH Morris-Jones visited the Congress party office in Bhopal in 1967 to research what held the party together, he was waved off by a committed party worker “hard at work over a desk” who told him he was “busy”. When Morris-Jones persisted, the worker responded, “I am working for the party and nobody can interfere with this work”. The political scientist later recalled that this encounter “opened” his eyes. There were, he wrote, “several of his (the worker’s) kind to be found in dusty Congress offices up and down the country, slaves dedicated to the cause”. These party workers were legatees of Mahatma Gandhi’s exhortation to the service ethic, which harnessed the “traditional call of seva to the modern party machine”.

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    Read full opinion on Hindustan Times

    This article was first published on Hindustan Times |  Sep 03, 2022 

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    Professor Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media, UPES; Advisor, Global University Systems and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University Singapore. He is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major Indian media companies; international financing institutions like the Global Fund in Geneva, Switzerland; taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia (ANU, La Trobe University), Singapore (NUS), Switzerland (International Olympic Museum) and India (IIM Bangalore, Shiv Nadar University).

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    Professor Nalin Mehta is Dean, School of Modern Media, UPES; Advisor, Global University Systems an Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University Singapore. He is an award-winning social scientist, journalist and author who has held senior leadership positions in major Indian digital, print and TV news companies; been a communications expert with international financing institutions and the UN in Geneva, Switzerland; taught and held research positions at universities and institutions in Australia, Singapore, Switzerland and India.

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