When the VHP launched its Ram-Janaki rath yatra in Uttar Pradesh to mobilise support for its Ram Janmabhoomi movement, it set up a task force to provide security to the yatra. And the Bajrang Dal was born in October 1984.

Vinay Katiyar, an RSS pracharak who had a successful stint as organising secretary of the ABVP from 1970 to 1974, was picked up to lead the Bajrang Dal—the name chosen to invoke Hanuman while undertaking the temple project in the name of Ram. The public call to the youth found a resounding response and Karsevakpuram, the sprawling VHP campus at Ayodhya, soon filled up with boys eager to sign up.

The initiation was complete with some lectures (baudhiks) by RSS-VHP leaders on the “wrongdoings of Muslim invaders” and the “oppression of Hindus during Muslim rule”. A bit of physical training and the soldiers of Hindutva were out sporting their trademark headbands with the slogan ‘Jai Sri Ram’.

Two years later, in 1986, the VHP made the Bajrang Dal its youth wing. In 1989, the outfit made headlines when it threatened to recite Hanuman Chalisa at Delhi’s Jama Masjid. Later when L.K. Advani set off on his Somnath-Ayodhya rath yatra, Dal activists walked along his chariot. Sporting saffron headbands and shouting frenzied slogans, they were ready to charge. And charge they did, demolishing the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. A ban on the RSS, VHP and the Dal followed four days later, only to be lifted by a tribunal.

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