The Sangh Parivar felt it had to establish a dialogue with the Muslims and Christians to remove all misunderstandings. Such dialogue had already commenced at various levels and would continue. The ways of building bridges were discussed at the contemplation camp but the major question was who should take the initiative and how.

We cannot leave out and ignore over 12 crore Muslims and three crore Christians after all they are our people and have not come from abroad. We know that even among the Muslims, particularly the new generation, a section thinks the relations should improve.

During the emergency the RSS and Jamaat-e-Islami members were together in jails and the attempts had begun to understand each other and the process would have continued. But ... the late President, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed wrote to Mrs. Indira Gandhi that if these organisations came together, the Congress would be wiped out and that resulted in propaganda (among the Muslims) ... Source: The Hindu, 15 December, 1998)