The critical question that faces the country today is whether social violence has become endemic and assumed uncontrollable proportions.

Social violence, whether communal or caste in origin, has gripped Society in a permanent state of tension, with numerically weaker social groups (call them minorities, if you like) in every village or mohalla in a state of siege. This sense of insecurity is neither ephemeral nor localised. It is permanent and universal. People are in a state of terror; at home or on the road, their minds are full of apprehension and fear at the physical attack that may come, any moment, not necessarily from strangers but even from their neighbours, the people they have known all their lives.

The State has laws adorning its books but they are not applied; the State has police machinery at its command but it dare not discipline it.

In any case when communal and caste polarisation has reached every nook and corner of the country and vitiated the social environment, can the security forces be or remain for long immune from the virus? Can the executive, the magistracy or the judiciary be immune and act as the custodians of public interest, free from bias and prejudice, function in a non-partisan manner, without fear or favour?

In any case, the coercive power of the State is also finite.

In an era of social upheaval, political parties having nexus with anti-social elements and being anxious to carve out and maintain their social constituency, cannot be neutral. This is the crux of the problem.

BJP has arrived - thanks to the successive Yatras undertaken successfully to mobilise and consolidate the Hindus in the name of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtrawad and to organise them en bloc against the non-Hindus. Its strategy is to unite the Hindus in the name of common symbols - Gangajal, Bharat Mata or Ram. Its modus operandi is to keep the fire burning, pour fuel over it from time to time to keep it ablaze, inject fear and hate in the mind of the Hindu against the Muslim as the historic adversary. Thus the Hindus are expected to vote as Hindus and therefore, en bloc for the BJP. To prevent this all political parties bend over backward to placate the Hindu community and compromise with Hindu communalism, at best become deaf and mute spectators and at worst apologists and defenders and even supporters of Hindu aggression, and state violence against the non-Hindus.

This explains why the Governments fail to take a clear stand on the Babari Masjid question, give freedom to the RSS, the VHP and the BJP, to organise Yatras, to hold the country to ransom, to organise militant processions with provocative and inflammatory slogans, to give fiery speeches, to publish and distribute blatantly false communal literature as well as video and audio cassettes, to defy the law and to incite the Hindus and insult the Muslims. What is worse, even in the face of violence, the authorities appear be numbed, dazed and helpless, permit known culprits to go scot-free, allow the police force and the magistracy to act as the participants in Dharmayudh.

Communal violence is no longer inter-communal violence, it has acquired the dimension of State violence, of genocidal pogroms, in which the state machinery plays the leading role and provides logistical support to the organisers and fire cover to the mobs. In the eyes of the common Muslim, the secular character of the State stands eroded and for all practical purposes the Indian state has become a Hindu state, in which the non-Hindus are second class citizens and do not enjoy any Constitutional guarantees, not even the most fundamental right to life.

Pious declarations which are made from time to time by the State authorities or by the eminent citizens have lost their value. Appeals make no impact. Both sides treat them with contempt; the aggressor, because they are not followed by any determined action; the victims because they do not make any difference to their sufferings.

The State is losing credibility, the Constitution, its sanctity, the laws their respect; the political executive is overwhelmed by democratic and demographic considerations; the judiciary fails to defend human and fundamental rights; the legislature occasionally debates the situation with the government shedding a few tears and recycling its last reply.

In the eyes of the Muslim youth, the State which cannot apply its own laws has no right to be; the State which cannot protect the life of its citizens has no right to exist; they see no difference between State power and Hindu Shakti; they have become synonymous in their eyes.

How does the Muslim community react?

- With growing feeling of alienation, with dwindling confidence in the State, the national parties and their Muslim leaders, the Muslim parties, the executive, the judiciary, the Constitution, with rejecting the system.

- With emotional attachment towards any demagogue with a word of solace towards them or a strong word against the system.

- With occasional pleas for surrender of legitimate rights, if only they would at least let us live.

- With calls for armed resistance.

All these reactions: Alienation, rejection, acceptance of fate, resistance are natural. But since no political party, not even the communists, would stake their future for them, and since demagogues would fail them in the long run and since the system is not likely to become sensitive or responsive, alienation is bound to grow and lead to armed resistance. Already the State armed constabulary is persona non-grata in Muslim localities and its posting is feared and its entry is resisted, howsoever foolish and whatever the cost. Already every Muslim family is shifting to Muslim concentration localities. Already the Muslim youth is speaking aloud in terms of taking to arms. Already at times of tension, every Muslim house, every Muslim mohalla makes defensive preparations against the mobs, against the police. Already, funds are being collected to purchase arms and ammunitions for collective, organised use. For many of them, police repression and mob violence are but two faces of the same coin. A civil war has begun and it has been forced on people. Those who take to arms feel morally justified in doing what they can to save themselves, their families, their community, their locality, their places of worship. Can anyone restrain them? Not the state, not the secular parties, not the Muslim leadership, religious or secular. In fact the Muslim leadership may soon become irrelevant and constitute the first target. Can anyone overcome them? Not the police force, not the army, once they take to the cult of the gun and the method of the urban guerrilla and forge links with other disaffected elements in the country and with sympathetic forces abroad, if they are prepared to take losses, as they will be.

Can the state, based on a secular order, regain its credibility? Can the secular parties regain the initiative they have lost to the fascist and the chauvinists? Can the secular citizen assert themselves to stop the dance of insanity?

Yes, a stable government can. Such a government in today's context is possible, only if all secular parties join hands and launch a relentless struggle against the RSS-VHP-BJP.

A 'national' government would not do because a national government by definition, shall include the killers and the sympathisers but a 'secular' government might.

Justice to minorities at all levels, whatever the religious or caste label, prompt state intervention to save their life, limb, property and honour and to subject those who today violate the law with impunity to the rule of law and to the discipline of office and a systematic campaign through the mass media to educate and inform the people may still save the day.

Shall Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Jyoti Basu bury their differences and come forward today to save the country from organised hate and fear, from violence and confrontation, from tyranny and injustice, from anarchy and civil war by forming a stable and winning alliance?

Tomorrow shall be too late.

Tomorrow the sun may not rise on a democratic, secular India; on a socially just and peaceful society.