Murli Manohar Joshi

Who is Murli Manohar Joshi?

Murli Manohar Joshi is an Indian politician and a leading member of the Bharatiya Janata Party of which he became the President. Later he became the Union Human Resources Development minister of India in the NDA regime. He is best known for his views on Indian socio-politics and for his affiliation with the RSS.

He was born in Nainital on 5 January 1934, hailing from the Kumaon Hills region of Nainital northern India which today form a part of the state of Uttarakhand. Joshi had his early education in Chandpur, District Bijnore and Almora. He completed his B.Sc. from Meerut College and M.Sc. from Allahabad University. Here one of his teachers was Professor Rajendra Singh, who later became RSS Sarsanghchalaks. He did his doctorate from Allahabad University. The subject of his doctoral thesis was Spectroscopy. He published a research paper in Physics in Hindi, which was a first of its kind.

After completing his PhD, Joshi started teaching Physics at Allahabad University. He came in contact with the RSS in Delhi at a young age and took part in the Cow Protection Movement in 1953–54, in the Kumbh Kisan Andolan of UP in 1955, demanding halving of land revenue assessment. During the Emergency period in India, Joshi was in jail from 26 June 1975 until the Lok Sabha elections in 1977. He was elected Member of Parliament from Almora. When the Janata Party came to power forming the first non-Congress government in Indian history, Joshi was elected General Secretary of the Janata Parliamentary Party. After the fall of the government, his party came out of Janata Party in 1980, and formed the Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP. Joshi first looked after the Central Office as a General Secretary and later became Party Treasurer. As General Secretary of BJP, he was directly in charge of Bihar, Bengal and North-Eastern States. Later, when BJP formed a government in India under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Joshi served as the Human Resource Development Minister in the cabinet.