Central to the BJP's political philosophy was the idea of restoring the splendor of India's ancient Hindu civilization. This ancient civilization was destroyed during the successive conquests of India by the Muslim Mughals in the 16th century and the British Empire during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Bharatiya Janata party leaders reasoned that only by reestablishing a Hindu state would India regain the prestige and prominence of its pre-Muslim and pre-colonial past. As a result, leaders of the BJP called for the end of secular rule in India, which had been established by post-independence leaders, and instead favored the formation of an official Hindu state. In addition to its pro-Hindu platform, BJP officials also vowed to restart India's long-dormant nuclear weapons research program to increase India's potential as a regional power and to protect India from future encroachments by foreign armies.

In its appeal for Hindu nationalism, the Bharatiya Janata party drew on a long history of intellectual and political movements that placed the idea of a mythicized Hindu state at the center of their ideology. Like most modern political movements in India, this tradition of Hindu nationalism was forged during the independence movement of the early 20th century. In 1925, Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar drew on pro-Hindu sentiments to establish a loosely knit Hindu organization known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteers' Organization. Composed primarily of upper-caste Hindu traders, the early RSS concentrated its efforts in building grass roots welfare and social programs for India's Hindu population. As the independence movement in India gained momentum during World War II, the fortunes of the RSS also began to climb as membership in the widespread organization grew.

The outbreak of Hindu-Muslim violence in India following the establishment of Indian independence in 1947, coupled with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi at the hands of a Hindu extremist, diminished the prestige of the RSS. Members of the RSS were accused of inciting anti-Muslim violence throughout India following independence. Officials from the Congress party—the dominant political party in post-independence India—also accused the RSS of having played a complicit role in the assassination of Gandhi. As a result of these allegations, the Congress party banned the RSS. Leaders of the RSS charged that the allegations leveled against them were politically motivated. To deflect future political attacks, the RSS formed a political wing to provide a nationwide platform for the movement. This political wing, known as the Bhartiya Jana Sangh (BJS) (Indian Peoples Group), was the immediate predecessor to the Bharatiya Janata party.

Due to its reputation as an upper-caste, Hindu nationalist organization the BJS failed to establish a wide national base of public support, but it quickly became a powerful political organization in predominantly Hindu regional strongholds. This regional support made the BJS a powerful player in India's often divided parliamentary politics. In 1977, when allegations of corruption diminished the standing of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Congress party government, the BJS came to power as part of a coalition party known as the Janata party (People's party), which won a majority of the seats in parliamentary elections held that spring. The Janata party, headed by Morarji Desai, held power for only 30 months before Indira Gandhi's followers in the Congress party managed to topple the government and restore Indira Gandhi to power.

The collapse of Desai's government led to the breakdown of the BJS. A large number of BJS members—headed by hard-line Hindu nationalist Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee—formed a new political party, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). From its inception, the BJP filled the void left by the collapse of the BJS as the main mouthpiece of the RSS. During the first years of its existence, the BJP won minimal support and managed to claim only two seats in the Lok Sabha (India's lower, but more influential, house of Parliament) during 1984 parliamentary elections, held following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Toward the end of the 1980s, however, the prestige and prominence of the BJP began to increase, and the party succeeded in winning 86 seats in the Lok Sabha during 1989 parliamentary elections.

Anti-Muslim sentiments among portions of India's Hindu population helped to spur on the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata party. During the early 1990s, the BJP and the RSS joined a campaign to demolish a mosque in the town of Ayodhya, located in the northeastern state of Uttar Pradesh. Members of the BJP argued that the mosque had been built on the site of an ancient Hindu temple dedicated to the Hindi god Ram. Confrontations broke out between Muslims and Hindus in Ayodhya, leaving more than 350 people dead. The BJP experienced yet another surge in popularity in late 1992, when renewed violence broke out in Ayodhya. Hindu-Muslim violence exploded in Ayodhya when Hindu militants razed the Babri Mosque and called for the restoration of the Hindu temple at Ayodhya. The demolition of the Babri Mosque set off weeks of rioting between Muslim and Hindu followers that left some 3,000 people dead. Government officials, in an effort to stem the rising tide of Hindu militancy, arrested 2,600 members of the BJP, including hard-line party leader Lal Krishna Advani, and banned several Hindu nationalist groups, including the RSS.

Rather than stem the upsurge of Hindu nationalism, the violence in Ayodhya succeeded only in bolstering grass roots support for the BJP. As a direct result of the Ayodhya incident, the BJP—which had remained a predominantly upper-caste Hindu organization through much of its existence—began attracting a broader constituency, as many working class and poor Hindus from India's urban centers began to throw their support behind the nationalists. This additional support proved decisive for the BJP, which scored a significant victory in 1996 when it won 185 seats in the Lok Sabha, making it the largest party in the lower house of Parliament. Following its election victory, the BJP attempted to form a government under Atal Behari Vajpayee. Despite Vajpayee's reputation as a moderate within the party, the BJP failed to gain support from other parties in the Lok Sabha, and the BJP government collapsed in a matter of weeks. Following the collapse of the BJP government, power passed to two successive but short-lived coalition governments of 13 parties known as the United Front coalition.

The collapse of the second United Front coalition government in November 1997 set the stage for yet another bid for power from the BJP and Vajpayee. During Lok Sabha elections, held in February and March of 1998, the BJP won its most resounding mandate for power when it captured 178 seats in the Lok Sabha. Combined with support from various allied powers, the BJP increased its share of seats in the Lok Sabha to 253, still 20 seats short of a majority; however, Indian President K.R. Narayanan offered the BJP the leadership of the government if it could demonstrate its ability to form a stable governing coalition. In mid-March, the BJP succeeded in piecing together a coalition backed by various regional political parties whose combined strength provided the necessary majority in the Lok Sabha. In exchange for this political support, however, the BJP was forced to withdraw many of its anti-Muslim campaign promises. The BJP leadership also had to give in to numerous demands for greater national autonomy from several of the regional political parties. The fragile coalition fell apart in April 1999, when one of the smaller parties defected, forcing the collapse of the government. Vajpayee was asked to stay on as a caretaker until new elections could be held later in the year.