ABVP was started in 1948, a year after Indian Independence, with the objective of channeling students' energy toward the task of national reconstruction. It was founded by a group of students and teachers who drew their inspiration from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the premier nationalist organisation of the country, and was registered on 9 July 1949. Its growth process was slow and sporadic i
n its first few years, but accelerated after Professor Yeshwantrao Kelkar, a lecturer in Bombay (now Mumbai), became its main organiser in 1958. He built the organisation into what it is now, and is considered to be the real architect of the ABVP.[5]
ABVP gradually spread its work across various universities in India.[6] Though ABVP insists that it is not a student wing of the right-wing Indian political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and is related to it only because of the RSS,[7] many of the BJP's current leaders (e.g. Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley)[8] were originally members of the ABVP.
