This is without question a defining moment in Indian politics. Sooner than later it is bound to change the political complexion of the country ... Symbolically at any rate, (the BJP) can now boast of a pan-Indian presence.

The BJP's geographical spread has gone hand in hand with the expansion of its social base.

To function as a truly umbrella organisation – as the Congress once did - the BJP will still need to make a big effort to win over the Muslim minority. A token presence of Muslims in its list of candidates will not be good enough. Nor can this presence consist of the most backward looking elements of the Muslim community ...

This also pre-supposes the shedding of BJP's exclusivist rhetoric. At the recent meeting of its national executive ... L.K. Advani ... accepted without reservation the plurality of India's culture, pointedly kept away from controversial issues such as Ayodhya, the uniform civil code and the scrapping of Article 370 ... Atal Behari Vajpayee was even more forthcoming on the need – and indeed the duty - to protect all religions.

To pooh-pooh this development would be an act of political irresponsibility. It is nobody's case that the BJP has overnight emerged as an avatar of pristine secularism. But not to take note of its shifting ideological stance - even if this is under electoral compulsion - would be akin to committing a terrible mistake.

Why deny the BJP the chance to attempt something similar? The party is bound to face opposition from within to its efforts to reorient hindutva in the direction of pluralism. But if its leadership holds firm and acknowledges that not only is India pluralistic but that each Indian is a bearer of multiple identities, not only the BJP but the country's political system as a whole could effectively tackle majority and minority communalism and casteism ... The Congress began as a movement, turned into a party and ended up as a cabal. The BJP appears to be moving in the opposite direction: from a coterie to a cadre-based party and an electoral machine to a movement ... It is endeavouring to recast Indian nationalism in another mould by going away from a narrow and retrograde definition of what constitutes the basis of the national community towards another more flexible and open definition ...

The Constitution ... should remain the sole reference. (It) is a document which is at one and the same time deeply Indian in its texture and yet pre-eminently modern. It is a reservoir of ideas and ideals that lends meaning and substance to democracy. ...

On the question of cultural nationalism ... it is vital that every community acknowledges what it admires and respects in the cultural contributions made by another community. If credit is given where credit is due, the danger of looking at other people in terms of stereotypes should decline by and by .... The BJP ... a long way to go before it establishes its credentials as a pragmatic, modern and humane political formation which has discarded its baggage of prejudice and ... insecurity.                         (Source: The Times of India, 29 December, 1997)