"The communal explosion in the country today is all deliberate. People for their narrow-vested interests, just to get votes, are willing to exploit emotional passions and it is easy to exploit religious passions.

Hindu emotions are being provoked deliberately by the BJP purely for political gain. Issues like whether a mosque should be demolished and a temple should be built will it solve any economic problem; does it bring down the price of any essential commodity?

Take Ayodhya. What is the dispute? How did the problem grow? Initially a dispute started in 1949. Whether the site of that mosque had earlier belonged to a Ram Temple. The matter went as a civil dispute. And because it had this communal nature, Govind Ballav Pant felt (and he referred to Sardar Patel) that until the dispute is decided by the court, it should be locked.

As I see it today, if that mosque really had ancient Hindu architecture in it, those pillars etc. all that the court was required to state on that evidence, was it could have taken further assistance or archaeologists if this is the historical and archaeological fact, then this is an unfit place for a mosque and let this mosque be demolished and nothing is lost. No grace is gone, no prestige is lost, no religious feelings are hurt. Because it is irreligious to pray at a place where there are symbols of Goddesses and others on the pillars. If that evidence is there, it should be enough for any court to give a verdict. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that the Muslim leadership would show tremendous wisdom and sagacity, if they themselves see that evidence and give up their claim. It will be such a graceful act on behalf of the Muslim leadership with this let us pass a law from parliament saying that whatever was there before 1947, before India became free will not be disturbed. It will be part of history. Let history be history. We have enough to do in this country.

We allowed the thing to linger. But unfortunately, this kept on growing and festering like a wound. In the first flush of partition, the Muslim population of the country was somehow feeling depressed. Why, because they (felt) they were vicariously to blame for having divided the country. Therefore, they were lying low. They knew the Congress was fair to the minorities and was even leaning backwards to protect minority interest.

In the Congress, an attitude was growing that to keep ourselves in power all that we had to do was to ensure the support of the SCs and STs and the Muslim minority and if we can take certain measures which will emotionally keep them happy, then we will be assured of their support. In Muslim minorities, majority of them being illiterate, those who dominated the mind were the religious leadership And, therefore, we also felt that whenever an appeal is made to a sentiment or an emotion it seems to keep them happy. So, if a question came of declaring Urdu the second language of the state in UP or Bihar, we thought well. If we do that, we will please the Muslims.

Then came the Shah Bano case. We in Congress ourselves thought if we can undo the effect of the Supreme Court decision, even in the matter of maintenance to a divorced wife- which was the law of the land, the Criminal Procedure Code that was common to all. But then we said no, no, no- if we can change this and allow the personal law to prevail, it would make every Muslim very happy. So, we went to the extent of changing criminal law and bringing in personal law. This whole concept of treating a community as a vote-bank instead of trying to help them as poor or educationally backward and giving them educational and economic facilities we kept on identifying these communities as religious castes. I want the Congress to take the blame squarely, completely for giving importance, even while giving tickets, to caste. So, politically we were already implementing the Mandal Commission Report.

The BJP has taken advantage of this phenomenon. There is no such thing as a Hindu majority in India. What you call a Hindu society is a birth-based caste society. Every caste taken individually is a hopeless minority. Now the only real majority as a community, as a religion is Muslim. Muslims are the largest majority in India.

Hindus have never voted as a religious community until now.

By and large the (Muslims) used to vote end bloc. And that is why we treated them as a vote bank. This is where the backlash came. And when (BJP) found an emotional issue like Ram Janmabhoomi they exploited it. That became a rallying point. We are also responsible for pampering. You keep on playing these cards for the sake of votes, then your credibility as a secular party gets affected, becomes questionable. We allowed shilanyas, we allowed opening of the lock (of the temple). Like this we have been playing, on the one hand with Muslim sentiment and on the other with Hindu sentiment, hoping that this will please the Hindus and the Muslims both and we will be assured of these emotional votes. BJP went one step further. They flared up Hindu passions. Faith begins when reason ends...

It is nonsense to say Hindus are insecure in India. It is utter nonsense. Insecure from whom?"

(Source: The Indian Express, New Delhi, 17 December 1990)