The newly–elected BJP  president,Bangaru  Laxman’s Nagpur state- ment that Muslims are  “flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood” and his invitation to them to make his party their new home has sent political analysts and commentators guessing the possible reasons behind the BJP’s “change of heart”. In order of decreasing scepticism, the explanations being offered are as follows: 

One: The BJP president’s pro-Muslim posture was nothing more than a PR stunt on behalf of his mentor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, on the eve of the latter’s foreign jaunt — UN summit and the US. The Prime Minister, understandably, did not want to face “awkward questions” from the international press. 

Two: Laxman’s call, though addressed to Muslims is, in fact, aimed at the liberal Hindus to ensure they do not get alienated from the sangh parivar, because of the unsavoury words and deeds of the ‘hard–line’ VHP and Bajrang Dal. It also will help keep the BJP’s allies in the NDA in good humour.

Three: Through Laxman, ‘moderates’ in the BJP, led by Vajpayee, are building the party’s distance from the embarrassing members of the same parivar — the parent RSS and siblings, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.
Four: Laxman is merely articulating the BJP’s political compulsion. The BJP cannot hope to rise above the plateau it has reached if Muslims, who constitute around 12 per cent of the national electorate (in major states like UP and West Bengal, it is closer to 20 per cent), remain alienated from the party. For once, Laxman and other BJP leaders are quite candid about the fact that its vote–bank politics they are talking about: “This is not an appeasement, this is an appeal; There are 12 crore Muslims who vote en bloc, so we cannot afford to ignore them”. 
Five: The BJP president’s statement reflects the broad vision of the BJP. The 1999 Lok Sabha election results have led to “an unhealthy situation of Muslims not having a stake in the power structure. Laxman’s initiative is an attempt to broaden the social base of the ruling coalition. A legitimate political exercise”. 

Political analysts and commentators may continue their debate on the real intentions behind the BJP’s latest exercise in wooing Muslims. But it is more than evident that few among India’s Muslims have taken Laxman’s invitation seriously. 

(Curiously, little attention has been paid to other statement made by Laxman, a Dalit, in Nagpur, about the city being the ideological epicentre of both Hegdewar, a high priest of Hindutva and the founder of the RSS, and Dr. BR Ambedkar, who led half a million Dalits to convert to Buddhism on October 10, 1956 at Nagpur, because in his analysis “there can be no social and political emancipation for the Dalit within the Hindu fold”. 
Laxman believes that the participation of Dalits in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and in the riots in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and elsewhere has helped forge an “all Hindu identity” and resolved the tension between Hindutva and Amedkarism forever. But the poor electoral support to the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in 1999 suggests that the vast majority of India’s dalits do not share Laxman’s love for the sangh parivar. (See box, ‘The BJP’s new social bloc’ and the comment piece by Kancha Ilaiah in this issue).

The many reasons for the lack of Muslim enthusiasm to the BJP president’s call are reflected in the responses of several prominent Muslims who spoke to Communalism Combat. (See box). The gist of these responses could be reduced to the following proposition: 

Depending on their political convenience, BJP leaders say one thing and mean another, say different things on different occasions, or speak with forked–tongues. Others from the saffron brotherhood — VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, Hindu Munnani, and a host of outfits floated by the RSS — are more honest and consistent. They say what they do and their hostility towards Muslims and other religious minorities is equally evident from their word and deed. 
Not for nothing is the BJP an integral part of the sangh parivar, ideologically and organisationally speaking. Every time there is ‘action on the field’ — demolition of Babri Masjid, targeting of the life and property of minorities in engineered communal conflicts — the cadre of the BJP and those of the others are invariably on the same side. 

From bitter lived experience, Muslims have learnt the truth contained in the saying: A man is known by the company he keeps. When matching word with deed, their experience indicates that the saffron soldiers draw their inspiration not so much from the conciliatory, poll–eve statements of leaders like Laxman but from stalwarts of Hindutva such as the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS, Guru Golwalkar.

“The non–Hindu in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu religion or may stay in the country wholly subordinate to the Hindu nation claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizens rights,” Golwalkar wrote in his We or our Nationhood Defined in 1936. 
“Muslims are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood”. In speaking thus at the BJP national council meeting in Nagpur in late August, Laxman was merely repeating what the then Jana Sangh leader, Deendayal Upadhyaya, had said in his presidential address to the Jana Sangh in Calicut, way back in 1967. 
But actual developments on the communal front in the next few years are best summed up in the findings of judicial commissions, appointed by different government’s to inquire into the causes of the communal riots that have plagued the country since the ‘60s:

• Report of the Justice Jagmohan Reddy Commission on the Ahmedabad riots, 1969: “Here was not only a failure of intelligence and culpable failure to suppress the outbreak of violence, but (also) deliberate attempts to suppress the truth from the Commission, especially the active participation in the riots of some RSS and Jana Sangh leaders.”
• Report of the Justice DP Madon Commission on the Bhiwandi, Jalgaon and Mahad riots of 1970: “The organisation responsible for bringing communal tension in Bhiwandi to a pitch is the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal. The majority of the leaders and workers of the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal belonged to the Jan Sangh (the BJP’s predecessor) or were pro–Jan Sangh and the rest, apart from a few exceptions, belonged to the Shiv Sena”. 
• Report of the Justice Joseph Vithyathil Commission on the Tellicherry riots, 1971: “In Tellicherry the Hindus and Muslims were living as brothers for centuries. The ‘Mopla riots’ did not affect the cordial relationship that existed between the two communities in Tellicherry. It was only after the RSS and the Jana Sangh set up their units and began activities in Tellicherry that there came a change in the situation. Their anti–Muslim propaganda, its reaction on the Muslims who rallied round their communal organisation, the Muslim League which championed their cause, and the communal tension that followed prepared the background for the disturbances.
• Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Communal Disturbances at Jamshedpur, April 1979: “The dispute on the route of the procession became sharp and agitated reactions from a group of persons calling themselves the Sanyukt Bajrang Bali Akhara Samiti who systematically distributed pamphlets to heighten communal feelings had organisational links with the RSS.” 

Closer to the present time, who can forget the bloody yatra (from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990) that none less than the then BJP president and now the Union home minister, LK Advani, chose for his party’s rise to power? 
In seeking Muslim votes to lift the BJP above the plateau where it finds itself, Laxman may now be using different words, but he is saying nothing new. Since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the countrywide riots that followed, in every election season, the BJP has come up with attempts to wash off its communal taint and woo Muslims. (See box). 

But the actual experience of the last few years is proof to the Muslims that the BJP’s promises and ‘guarantees’ of security amount to very little. 

Firstly, the fact that across the country, it is Christians who have been the more obvious targets of Hindutva in the last few years is of little consolation to Muslims. They see in these sustained assaults on yet another religious minority in India a deliberate Hindutva ploy to keep the saffron brigade fighting fit. Who is to know when these ‘kar sevaks’ will be asked to revert to the old battlefront and go for the ‘Babar ki aulad’? Or will it be ‘Jinnah ki aulad’ and ‘ISI agents’ next time? 

There have been enough indications in the last few years to make Muslims believe that their fear is not mere paranoia. Gujarat, a state where the BJP rules unchallenged and where no effective opposition is presently in sight, is proving to be an ideal ‘laboratory for Hindutva.’ For others, the state offers an insight of what India’s minorities can expect in Ram Rajya of the Hindutva variety. For Christians and for Muslims, too, Gujarat has increasingly turned into a nightmare state in the last few years. (See box).

Gujarat’s Muslims, however, are not the only ones who need to worry. For the RSS mouthpiece, Panchjanya, the war over Kargil last year was not a conflict between two countries, but a link in the 1,000–year–old clash between ‘barbaric’ Islam and ‘Hindu tolerance’. The Bajrang Dal chief went on to say that no peace is possible between Hindus and Muslims until the Quran is banned.

Since April this year, arms’ training is being given to activists of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP. The reason, according to the chief of UP’s VHP Purushottam: “anti–Hindu forces are very active in UP…The ISI has spread its tentacles in the state. To counter these forces, Bajrang Dal activists are being trained”. Outlook magazine reported that the Dal activists being trained at ‘Karsevakpuram’ near Ayodhya began their morning with the chant: “We will demolish all mosques.” 

No sooner had he returned from the BJP’s national council meet in Nagpur, where Laxman made all the right noises, that the BJP stalwart from UP, Kalraj Mishra, went rushing to Ayodhya. What else does this mean except that the BJP identifies with the VHP’s agenda of commencing building of the Ram mandir in Ayodhya soon and court orders be damned?

Muslims and Christians, who feel insecure in today’s India, would certainly welcome a friendly gesture from the BJP. But not if it looks like a tactic with an eye on votes. Or a strategy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound.

But if the hollowness of the BJP’s intention to woo Indian Muslims needs no further emphasis, Laxman’s comments on Hindu–Dalit mobilisation and unity with the caste Hindu need careful scrutiny because they do, in fact, reflect the competing pulls on the nationwide Dalit movement today. This could prove pivotal in future Dalit mobilisation.

Besides linking Hegdewar and Ambedkar, Bangarau Laxman went further on Dalit and caste Hindu alliance building. When asked by journalists to comment on the Ayodhya movement, Laxman praised the movement saying it was one in which “people from all walks of life participated and moreover a movement where all caste feelings receded.”

The fact that the sub–text of the campaign to build a temple in the name of Lord Ram at Ayodhya was the demolition of a 400–year–old mosque that was systematically portrayed as a symbol of Babar ki aulad (who are deserving of summary treatment) was left unexamined. 

The Ayodhya movement has made a hitherto unique achievement in terms of all–Hindu mobilisation. From many parts of the country, the movement managed Dalit participation in pogrom–like attacks on Indian Muslims. The very same, all–Hindu kamandal project is today being aggressively promoted not only in Gujarat — where Dalit women interviewed by Communalism Combat have testified to Dalit youth being attracted to Bajrang Dal shakhas for arms training on ‘salaries’ of Rs. 5–10,000 per month — but all over India. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 1

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Jan 24, 1993, The Indian Express 
‘Advani promises Muslim welfare’ 
AHMEDABAD: The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) president, Mr. LK Advani warned Muslims to be aware of both Congress and their leaders and repose faith in the BJP…When a newsman sought to know the measures the BJP was contemplating for the welfare of Muslims to win their confidence, Mr. Advani said, “The BJP will protect their lives and they will enjoy equal justice.” Asked why he chose to skip the Muslim affected areas (due to riots) or relief camps in Ahmedabad, he quipped, “It’s a good suggestion for action.”

April 15, 1994, The Economic Times 
BJP bid to shake off anti-Muslim image
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have begun to feel concerned over the anti-Muslim tag that has come to stick to it and it likely to embark on an exercise to shake it off. A serious effort in that direction was made at the recent Sariska conclave of the BJP’s top brass with the senior vice-president, Mr KR Malkani, spelling out the concern over the party having been branded as an anti-Muslim outfit. 

March 29, 1995, The Statesman
Muslims have nothing to fear under BJP rule: Keshubhai
NEW DELHI: Muslims have nothing to fear under the rule of the BJP government in Gujarat and can look forward to getting a much better deal than what they got during Congress(I) rule, the state chief minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel has said. “You will see how well we treat Muslims and other minorities under our rule”, the new chief minister said, adding that his party believed that Muslims were as patriotic as Hindus, but had been “misled and misused by the Congress(I). 

April 21, 1995, The Indian Express
BJP tries to win over Muslims with Sanskrit Koran
BOMBAY: The Koran in Sanskrit? The idea is not as bizarre as it may seem. His is the spoonful of honey for the Muslim minority in the country… The in-camera convention of top BJP executives, including chief ministers, deputy chief ministers and leaders of Opposition, which got underway on Thursday, has been called to finalise poll strategies for the Lok Sabha elections which the BJP expects might take place earlier than scheduled. High on the agenda is a follow-up of the resolutions with regard to the minorities at the Goa convention of the party early this month whereby, following BJP president LK Advani’s call to “remove misconceptions (about the BJP) in the minds of the minorities”, the party resolved to revive the earlier Congress slogan of Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai. The more well-known of the resolutions were the three Ts – taaleem (education), tanzeem (organisation) and tijarat (employment) for Muslims.

May 2, 1996, The Telegraph
Advani ‘guarantees’ justice to Muslims
MUMBAI: The BJP president, Mr. LK Advani, today extended a “guarantee to every Muslim” of “security, justice, equality and full freedom of faith and worship.” Going all out to woo the community in the last lap of the party’s campaign, he said “no BJP government will tolerate any dilution of this guarantee.”

May 19, 1996, Mid–Day
Full protection to Muslims: Vajpayee
NEW DELHI: …In a long interview to a private television channel, Vajpayee said that all Muslims should be able to live with self-respect and honour. “For this, Muslims should give all support to my government”, he said  adding that he could not understand why the community was keeping away the mainstream”. 

June 16, 1997, The Times of India
Advani uses every trick to woo Muslim voter
BHOPAL: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, LK Advani, on Friday praised Jawaharal Nehru for his secular policies and promised to create a riot-free, violence-free and discrimination-free India when the BJP comes to power at the Centre.

November 15, 1997, The Asian Age
BJP plans a grand Muslim convention
NEW DELHI: In what will be a show of Muslim support for the BJP, the party’s youth wing, headed by Ms Uma Bharati, is planning a grand convention on December 4 which will be attended by over 5,000 members of the community.
According to the party, such a large number of Muslims attending a BJP conference itself will send the signal that the community was not averse to it any longer. “In a scenario where elections are expected any moment, such a message will be crucial for us. We will use the opportunity to wash the communal taint”, BJP sources told The Asian Age. 

May 3, 1999, The Hindustan Times
BJP’s image as anti-Muslim party blunted: Vajpayee
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee today said his bus initiative to Lahore had greatly blunted the “false image” of the BJP of being an anti-Muslim party. 
May 8, 1999, The Times of India
‘BJP will get Muslim votes’
NEW DELHI: The BJP finds a “radical change” in the attitude of Muslim voters and is confident of getting “a major share of their votes” in the coming Lok Sabha polls as the party has given them a feeling of national pride unlike the so-called secular parties which always portrayed them in a poor light”, minister for information and broadcasting Mukhtar bbas Naqvi said. 

September 8, 1999, The Times of India
PM appeals for Muslim votes
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on Tuesday asked voters to make the Opposition “pay the price” for bringing down his government and give a clear decisive majority to the BJP-led coalition…Making a special appeal to the minorities (during his election broadcast on Doordarshan), Mr Vajpayee said national unity without a firm commitment to secularism was unthinkable. He said that contrary to the propaganda of “our adversaries”, the past 17 months have been remarkably free from communal tension. 

September 11, 2000, The Asian Age
BJP trying to woo Muslims for more votes: Sher Khan 
Former Union minister Aslam Sher Khan has blamed Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Union home minister LK Advani for not keeping their word about upliftment of minorities and said the BJP’s new incarnation is a well-calculated move to mislead minorities and dalits on the eve of Assembly elections in five states. Mr Sher Khan, who had joined the BJP in 1997 said that he quit the party within one year after realising that the BJP had no love for Muslims and dalits and wanted to use them as a ladder to achieve power.
 

…and performance

Two states, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, both under BJP rule, have truly imbibed saffron values of governance. For Muslims, Christians and Dalits inhabiting these two states in northern and western India, the past two years have meant living in vastly altered circumstances — always under threat, sometimes physically attacked. 
What has been the lived experience of India’s minorities in these two ‘laboratories of Hindu rashtra’?

• Since 1998, when VHP-Bajrang Dal squads hounded Muslims out of their villages in Randhikpur and Sanjeli, life for the Muslim in Gujarat is marked. Where he lives,  what he eats, how he celebrates his festivals – everything is under close surveillance.
• Last month, ‘retaliation’ against Gujarat’s Muslims for the killing of Amarnath yatris in Kashmir by Pakistan-inspired mercenaries, meant a loss of Rs 20 crore worth of Muslim property in Surat (powerlooms), Sabarkantha (printing presses) and elsewhere in the state. 
• In July 1999, the Kargil war had its spillover in Ahmedabad’s own ‘war zones’ as BJP’s Yuva Morcha splashed provocative graffiti in Muslim areas to taunt and provoke Indian Muslims – “Ab to nagara baj chuka hai, sarhad pe shaitan ka/ Nakshe par se nam mita do, paapi Pakistan ka/ Khun se tilak karo, goliyon se arti/Pukarti hai yeh zameen, pukarti Ma Bharti”.
• Muslims are forcibly prevented from buying property in ‘secular’ areas of Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Baroda and other Gujarat cities and forced to reside in ‘ghettoes’.
• At the Hindu-managed VR Somani and Bhakta Vallabh schools, where 95 per cent of the students are Muslims but the teachers are Hindus, the teachers have adopted a unique technique of getting at the students: they just do not teach.
• Muslim students and teachers in schools in many cities in Gujarat are forced to sit, or be invigilators, for examinations on Eid day.
• In many Gujarati-medium schools run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, at the beginning of the class, Muslim students are asked to sit separately. 
• A recent circular by the Gujarat Education department will force all students to write their names on examination sheets of school and government examinations. This will leave the religious identity of the student in no doubt, making discrimination possible and introduction of the religious element in the assessment of answers. 
• Dozens of prominent politicians belonging to the ruling BJP in Gujarat and its allied organisations, like the VHP and Bajrang Dal, have been named in police FIRs (see Communalism Combat, October 1998 and April 2000. The Gujarat DGP, CP Singh, even admitted to the culpability of these organisations but needless to say no action has been taken.
• Since 1998, more than 200 Christian institutions – both secular and religious — have been attacked and Christian religious persons killed or assaulted; a vast majority of these attacks have taken place in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
• A virtual curfew during Christmas at the Dangs in south Gujarat in 1998 was a shameful travesty of the Indian Constitution. In December 1999, too, despite protests, Christians in the area had to suffer protests and terror.
• The echelons of the higher judiciary and the police and paramilitary are being filled with devoted RSS followers committed to a sectarian and inequitous polity.
• Not a single educational institution has been granted minority status during the entire tenure of the BJP in UP, off and on since 1990.
• As of now, not a single district magistrate or a superintendent of police in UP is a Muslim.
• The UP state Minorities Commission was scrapped during Kalyan Singh’s first tenure. Under pressure of a coalition partner, the Gupta-led ministry has now revived the commission; but only in name.
• In 1998, Kalyan Singh’s tenure was marked by gross human rights violations, wherein most of the victims of brutal encounters by the state police were Dalits and Muslims;
• In 1998, the UP minister of state for home announced an insidious plan linking every state-run school to the local RSS sarsanghchalak (known as the kulp yojana, it ran into rough weather after a storm of protests but it has not been formally withdrawn); Neither Keshubhai Patel’s promise of 1995 — “You will see how well we treat Muslims and other minorities under our rule” – nor LK Advani’s 1996 ‘guarantee to every Muslim” — “security, justice, equality and full freedom of faith and worship,” — has been of much help to the hapless Muslims and Christians of Gujarat. Bangaru Laxman’s invitation to Muslims notwithstanding, apparently, Hindutva and religious minorities simply don’t mix!

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It is evident from the tables reproduced here (Courtesy: Frontline and CDS) that:

• The BJP has certainly come a long way from is identity as a Bania-Brahmin party. But the fact remains that as one goes down the caste ladder, electoral support for the BJP declines consistently and dramatically. The post–poll, all–India survey conducted by the CSDS showed that as against 46 per cent of the upper caste Hindus who voted for the BJP, the party could get only 19 per cent votes of the adivasi and a much lower 12 per cent of the Dalit votes. In sharp contrast to these figures, 49 per cent adivasis and 40 per cent dalits voted for the Congress. Even the BJP’s allies in the NDA coalition could manage only 12 per cent of the total adivasi and 10 per cent of the Dalit votes.

The CSDS analysis observes: “Although both these figures (percentage votes of Dalits and adivasis for the BJP) are higher this time (1999 polls) compared to the 1998 elections, it is clear that these groups are not the primary constituents of the new social bloc”. 

• A mere 6 per cent of the ‘Upper (Caste) Muslims’ (Ashrafs) voted for the BJP, while the ‘Lower (Caste) Muslim’ votes for the BJP were almost negligible (2 per cent of the total). This contrasts even more sharply with Muslim support for the Congress — 59 per cent ‘Upper Muslim’ and 58 per cent ‘Lower Muslim’. The alienation of the Christian community from the BJP, is equally evident from the figures. 

Considering that between them, Dalits, adivasis, Muslims and Christians, make up for around 37 per cent (well over one–third) of the total electorate, the BJP’s political compulsion in wooing them is evident. Equally well, the existing hardcore support of the BJP has come through its identification and association with the strident Hindutva pursued consistently by other segments of the sangh parivar — the parent RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and its allies such as the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and the Hindu Munnani in Tamil Nadu. 

In other words, the BJP is being pulled in two diametrically opposite directions — ideologically towards a strident Hindutva, and electorally towards centrism and an inclusive agenda. So far, the BJP has tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. But the limits of such realpolitik is becoming increasingly obvious. The saffron brotherhood is showing signs of growing disenchantment because of the BJP’s conciliatory gestures towards the minorities, while the minorities continue to be suspicious of the party because of its continued attachment to the saffron brotherhood. Is there a danger that the BJP might end up falling between two stools? 

• The CSDS analysis also clearly shows that in the perception of the voters, the BJP remains a party of the rich. The poorer an upper caste voter is, the lower his preference for the BJP; the richer an adivasi or Dalit is, the greater his attraction to the BJP. Taken together, “both caste and class converge in the BJP’s support base”.

In short, despite its impressive growth, the BJP continues to be seen as a party of the  upper castes/upper classes. The new social bloc has helped elevate the BJP from its position of “majestic isolation” to the political high ground it presently occupies. But the existing arrangement, is, obviously, not good enough for the party that aspires to rule India on its own. The apparent disenchantment of the OBCs in the electorally critical Uttar Pradesh only compounds the situation. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 3

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On the very day that Laxman extended his invitation to Muslims he and Vajpayee went to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to renew their pledge that they remain committed to their RSS roots. How can we take them seriously?

Laxman has also said that the ‘controversial issues’ are not relevant today but they remain on the BJP’s agenda. And his mentor, Atal Behari Vajpayee has stated in the Lok Sabha that his party has not abandoned those issues. In that case, do they want Muslims to help them come to power on their own so that they can then implement Hindutva’s agenda?

In any case, what standing does Laxman have in the BJP? The sangh parivar, very conveniently, has 25 different organisations, so that different leaders or different organisations can say different things at the same time. How can Muslims believe one of them and not the others?

Now that elections are due in UP, every few days, they catch some Muslim and dub him an ISI agent. Assuming that some of the Muslims arrested are, in fact, involved in passing on information to the ISI, the fact remains that they are mere carriers. Who are the big culprits, those occupying important government positions and have access to sensitive information that they pass on through these carriers? Why are none of them caught? This is nothing but a ploy to terrorise and demonise ordinary Muslims.

Now the RSS has announced it will act as ‘secret police’ to identify ISI agents and report them to the police. RSS volunteers have been provided the mobile phone numbers of the state’s director general of police and the home secretary so that they can pass on information directly to top officials. In other words, the RSS will now decide who is an ISI agent and who is not. Can you imagine what this means?

Some years back they had talked of taaleem (education), tijarat (employment) and tanzeem (organisation) for Muslims. If the UP experience is anything to go by, they have done nothing at all.

Take taleem, for example. Their main contribution is this field is to have declared that Muslim madrassas where children get some education are all ISI addas. Secondly, not a single Muslim educational institution has been granted minority status in their entire tenure.

They talk of fairplay with Muslims. Let them name one district in UP today where either the district magistrate (DM) or the district superintendent police (SP) is a Muslim.

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 7

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If Laxman tells us that the BJP president determines the policies of the party, he must explain how when Vajpayee was the BJP president and talked of ‘Gandhian socialism’, other leaders of the BJP were openly hobnobbing with Gandhiji’s assassin, Nathuram Godse and the RSS mouthpieces, Panchjanya and Organiser, were singing a different tune.

If Laxman really has a different attitude to India’s minorities, why has he not uttered a single word about Christians who are the main target of the sangh parivar today? As a part of India’s minorities, I would say that if Laxman really wants to take Muslims into confidence, he should first of all win the confidence Christians. To do that convincingly, he will have to openly condemn the Bajrang Dal and the VHP for targeting Christians.

Besides, a BJP MP from Orissa is openly raising money for Dara Singh’s defence. The concerned MP should be immediately expelled from the BJP. And finally, on the Babri Masjid issue, is Laxman prepared to make an unequivocal statement that he will ensure that the BJP respects the court’s verdict.

We do not expect any satisfactory answer from the president of the political wing of the RSS. Therefore, the only conclusion is that Laxman is making these statements merely to hoodwink some Muslims. Basically, all that the BJP is interested in is some ‘bonus’ Muslim votes for its own political benefit.

In my view, just as hostility towards India is the very basis of Pakistan’s existence, the BJP is founded on anti–minority sentiments. How can either be expected to undermine the very foundation of their edifices?

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 7

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Take the example of jobs for Muslims in the police force. Muslims need to know that the first step in getting a police constable’s job is to get your name registered with the employment exchange. If your name is not registered with the employment exchange, how will you get jobs?

We placed ads in Urdu papers, told them to go. They went, they got jobs, there was no hitch at all. In this connection, I must say that three successive police commissioners of Mumbai, under different governments, have been equally positive and supportive.

Similarly, in the matter of jobs in the army, I had a very positive, encouraging response from a colonel. He was very clear that people of all communities are equally welcome in the Indian army. We did not face any special problem at the level of government servants while the Shiv Sena–BJP government was in power in Maharashtra or because the BJP was or is leading the government in New Delhi.

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 7

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Pakistan says we have nothing to do with extremism in Kashmir. Similiarly, the BJP says we have nothing to do with what VHP, Bajrang Dal says. Should we listen to Laxman or to Kalraj Mishra, Acharya Giriraj Kishore and Pravin Togadia? Ultimately the BJP has to make a choice. So long as they keep their relations with these fellows, how can they expect Muslims to take them seriously.

I think we should respond to Bangaru Laxman’s statements the same way that the Indian government responds to Musharraf’s statements. We have justifiably have told Musharraf that no dialogue is possible until his deeds match his words. As long as Pakistan continues supporting terrorism, there is no point in talking to Pakistan because it shows they are not really interested in dialogue. We should treat Laxman’s statements similarly. We should treat all fundamentalists on par; we should not communicate either with Musharraf or with the BJP.

Archived from Communalism Combat, September 2000 Year 8  No. 62, Cover Story 5

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