Editor, Jadeed Markaz

Bangaru Laxman’s invitation is nothing but a stunt. Their intentions are dishonest. On the one hand, he issues a daawat to Muslims; on the other, Laxman maintains that the BJP remains committed to Hindutva. If they are still committed to Hindutva, they must be committed to Golwalkar’s vision on the place of minorities in ‘Hindu India’ (see main copy).

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.