The BJP's chase of the Muslim voters is looking like the chase by a jilted lover of his long lost beloved.But there has never been a love-affair, not even a love-hate relationship, between the BJP and the MuslimIndians, even going back to its earlier incarnation the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS). It seems that the foundingfathers of the BJS/BJP - the Savarkars and the Golwalkars - and even their successors, right down to Sudarshan,never thought much of the Muslims; indeed, they thought, and not only thought but wrote, awful thingsabout the Muslims which need not be repeated.
Every politically literate person in India, on this or that side of the political fence, is fully aware of thevilification, the demonisation, the vituperation, the distortion and the falsification by the Grand Mahants ofHinduvad or Hindu Rashtravad or Hindutva, to give their ideology its latest title, as they claim it is dulysanctified by the Supreme Court. Essentially, they built up their concept of Hindu renaissance as a zero-sumgame between the Hindus and the Muslims by preaching that particularly after the Partition in 1947, for whichthe Muslims were held solely responsible, India that is Bharat, was too small for both Hindus and Muslims tolive in peaceful coexistence. Either the Muslims had to be forced out or converted to Hinduism, by persistentpressure, punctuated with force and turned into 'Mohammadi Hindus' or made to learn to live as vassals and tobehave in accordance with the dictates of the Hindu majority, since India was essentially the land of theHindus. Their slogan: 'one country, one people, one culture'. 'Culture' being an euphemism for religion.
Governments came and went, but this pressure was maintained, sometimes with the collusion of theadministration, more often with the active support of the guardians of law and order. The administrativemachinery and, particularly, the security services were deliberately penetrated; the mass media wasinfluenced; bias and prejudice, scorn and hatred were sown in the mind of the common man through massivepropaganda. Thousands of incidents of anti-Muslim violence were incited, the Gujarat genocide was staged withfull participation, of the police under the direction of the state government, accompanied by the onslaught ofSangh Parivar, to teach the Muslims a lesson, to force them into making a 'choice between Pakistan andQabristan'.