How Advani’s Rath Yatra rescued the BJP from the Mandal dilemma

In 1990, BJP president Lal Krishna Advani set out on a Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat towards Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The campaign, launched as the country was convulsed by the Mandal Commission decision, changed the course of the party and of Indian politics.

The yatra and its symbolism

The 10,000-km journey, made in an air-conditioned Toyota vehicle turned into a chariot, was the idea of Pramod Mahajan, then a rising BJP leader. Its aim was mass contact to build support for a grand temple at Ayodhya, which some Hindus believe is Ram’s birthplace.

The choice of Somnath as the starting point was heavy with religious and political meaning. The temple had been a prime target of Mahmud of Ghazni, who raided India repeatedly between AD 1001-26. In his autobiography, ‘My Country, My Life’, Advani recounts how the temple came to be rebuilt after independence: the Nawab of Junagadh left for Pakistan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad resisted the reconstruction, but Sardar Patel stood firm and the Nehru Cabinet approved it.

Why the yatra was launched

On 7 August 1990, the VP Singh government accepted the report of the Mandal Commission, set up by the Morarji Desai government and given extensions under Indira Gandhi. It recommended 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes, mainly non-Dalit lower-caste Hindus, in government jobs; this meant 52% of the population would become eligible for reservation. Upper-caste and other students protested, and the agitation intensified after a 19-year-old Delhi University student, Rajeev Goswami, set himself on fire.

The BJP, which had risen from 2 to 85 Lok Sabha seats in 1989 with the backing of the RSS, was supporting Singh’s National Front government from outside. It could not endorse Mandal without upsetting its upper-caste base, yet did not want to be seen as opposed to the lower castes. Advani’s answer was to move the debate from caste to religion, uniting Hindus around Ram, Ayodhya and a Ram temple.

How it ended

Days before the yatra was to culminate in kar seva at Ayodhya, Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, then in his first term and a member of the Janata Dal, which was part of the National Front, had Advani arrested at Samastipur. Advani was held at an undisclosed place for a week. The BJP withdrew its support from the Centre, leaving the country politically unstable and divided along communal lines.

The BJP remained in opposition for the next two years while the RSS and affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad drove the temple movement. The yatra set off a chain of events that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid two years later and reshaped the debate around secularism and nationalism.

What happened next

The Supreme Court delivered its Ayodhya judgment on 9 November 2019, and the Ram temple at Ayodhya was consecrated on 22 January 2024.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party

Originally published on 6 April 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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