Hindu Mahasabha



Akhil Bhāratīya Hindū Mahāsabhā (Hindi: अखिल भारत हिन्दू महासभा, English: All-Indian Hindu Assembly), a Hindu nationalist organization, was originally founded in 1915 to counter the Muslim League and the secular Indian National Congress. The president of Hindu Mahasabha was V.D. Savarkar. K.B. Hedgewar served as vice president of the organisation and later left the Mahasabha to form Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Soon after India's Independence, and the subsequent assassination of Gandhi, a good number of Hindu Mahasabhaites joined Bharatiya Jana Sangh under the leadership of S.P. Mukherjee, who had left Hindu Mahasabha and joined hands with the RSS to float a political party under the control and supervision of RSS. Mukherjee had left Mahasabha after his proposal to allow Muslims to gain membership was turned down by the followers of V.D. Savarkar. The relationship between Savarkar's Mahasabha and RSS was strained mainly because the then chief of RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, felt overshadowed by the influence of Savarkar over the Hindu populace. Officially Mahasabha is still a distinct political entity but its election symbol has been withheld as it has not been getting enough votes. So now the party fights elections on different symbols in different constituencies.

Bishan Chandra Seth from Shahjahanpur was one of the longest serving parliamentarians from Hindu Maha Sabha. Other long serving parliamentarian from Sabha was Mahant Avaindnath.

See also

• Nikhil Manipuri Mahasabha
• Nirmal Chandra Chatterjee, president of the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha and the vice-president of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha
• List of Hindu nationalist parties

External links

This article about an Indian political party is a stub. See the WikiProject Politics of India for article coordination. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.