During your Swarna Jayanati Rath Yatra, you had issued an appeal to the Muslim Indians urging them to understand Cultural Nationalism and forge "heart-unity with their Hindu brethren". Since your appeal went largely unnoticed by the target group, out of political compulsions, you repeated your appeal at the BJP's "Muslim Youth" Convention in New Delhi on 4 December, 1997.

Shorn of rhetoric and verbiage, your thesis may be summarised as follow :-                           

1. BJP's basic ideology is Nationalism. India is One  Nation, One Culture and One People. Since one culture is the basis of national unity, BJP believes in Cultural Nationalism. While recognising the cultural diversity presented by Sub-Cultures, based on region, religion, race, caste and language, the BJP equates National Culture with Hindu Culture.

2. BJP supports the construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya, not only because of the religious sentiments of the Hindu community but also because Ram is a symbol of India's culture. If Muslim leadership withdraws all claims to the Babari Masjid, you are willing to help Muslimshave a fruitful dialogue with the VHP so that the Kashi & Mathura disputes are sorted out amicably.

3. BJP stands for communal harmony and Hindu-Muslim unity; it is against fanaticism, fundamentalism, communalism and terrorism.

4. BJP is opposed to any discrimination among people of India on the basis of caste, creed and ideology.

5. BJP stands for justice for all and appeasement of none. BJP is opposed to minorityism.

6. BJP finds it repugnant that Muslims have less than proper representation in the political affairs of the nation.

7. BJP recognises that Muslim Indians face poverty and employment and lack of educational facilities.

8. BJP would like Urdu to grow.

9. BJP regards communal riots as a blot on India's culture and civilisation and is committed to building a riot-free and violence free India.

10. So-called Secular parties - UF/LF and Congress -have used Muslims as a vote bank to keep themselves in and BJP out of power. They are hypocrites as they have done nothing for Muslims. The BJP is not a hypocrite; "what is in our mind, is what is on our tongue, is in our.

IDEOLOGY OF HINDUTVA OR HINDU RASHTRAVAD

Advaniji, the crux of the problem is your ideology of Cultural Nationalism. Once you equate Indian Culture with Hindu Culture, your Cultural Nationalism is exposed as nothing but Hindu Nationalism. Indian people are largely but not wholly Hindu. The core of the composite Indian Culture is Hindu culture but many peoples, religions, languages and cultures have contributed to building its superstructure.

National Culture is not static; it is dynamic, ever-evolving; it is not today what it was when Islam appeared on the scene or when the British colonised the country. Today the Indian Culture is a Composite Culture. The BJP defines Culture in Static terms. This is a call for obscurantism and goes against the Indian genius.

India is one nation-state today, but equally the homeland of many nationalities, sub-nations and communities, big and small. Indian society is not homogeneous; it is plural, multi-segmented, multi- layered, multi-ethnic. Even the Hindu community is divided by region, caste, race, language, geography and history. So is the Muslim community. But it is also pan-Indian like the Hindu community. As a minority group, it tends to be more consolidated.

Incidentally I feel grateful to you, Advaniji, for having recognised the existence of the Muslim Indians as a community and as a religious minority. At least you regard it, unlike Shri Golwalkar, as theoretically equal. You have not dubbed it as "guests" in a Hindu home.

FUNDAMENTALISM AND CHAUVINISM

All political parties project the same self-image -they are all for virginity and motherhood! But was it not a fanatical chauvinist and fundamentalist act to raze the Babari Masjid? Is it not majoritarianism to threaten to demolish Mathura Idgah and Gyanvapi Masjid and to occupy hundreds of other Masjids throughout the country? Isn't it chauvinistic to treat other religions as 'panths' of your religion and seek to absorb them through education, mass media and terrorisation?

BJP: MAJORITARIAN AND COMMUNAL

India, belongs to not only to the Hindu community but also to all non-Hindu communities which are rooted in it and love it as their motherland though they may not worship it as Bharat Mata. India's unity lies in acceptance of diversity and not in imposing uniformity, of language, culture or religion. Your ideology – the ideology of assimilation - creates apprehensions, assumes Hindu state, based on Hindu culture, in which other religions are merely 'Panths' i.e. denominations of the Hindu Dharma. It is this narrow vision which makes BJP a Hindu and, therefore, a communal and majoritarian party.

MUSLIM BACKWARDNESS

Advaniji, thank you also for recognising the political, economic, social and educational backwardness of the Muslims. Yet you charge that they have been pampered and 'appeased'! This implies that they would have been worse off, if your people been in power since 1947.

It is not our case that the Muslim Indians have made no economic progress but that despite their progress, in 50 years after independence, they are a deprived community. There are complex reasons for this. One factor is educational backwardness. Another is hostile discrimination. You know well that all minority groups, at all levels of governance, irrespective of religion, caste, language or race - are subjected to hostile discrimination and lump it as the state is powerless to provide protection. The only known anti-dote to hostile discrimination is Reverse Discrimination and Positive Affirmation. But you do not go into the root causes of their backwardness, their permanent state of deprivation or suggest remedial action. You promise non-discrimination but you know that there can be no equality among unequals and that unequals deserve special supportive measures like reservation and quotas. But such thoughts are blasphemy to you and your party would condemn them as 'minorityism'. Advaniji, how can you perch yourself on a moral high ground, if you support reservation for SC, ST and OBCs but oppose it only for Muslims. Yet you say you are not communal.

Muslim backwardness, for which Advaniji you have shed a few crocodile tears has many historical and contemporary reasons. The test of equality in a secular democratic society is that in each income-group, in every sphere of human activity, at every political or administrative level, one should find more or less a proportionate percentage of different religious, caste and ethnic groups. This is the ideal. We cannot reach it but can't we try to reach it in good conscience and without any mental reserve.

EDUCATION AND URDU

If you are concerned about our educational backwardness, why does not your party demand educational facilities in accordance with national norms in areas of Muslim concentration? On the other hand, it demands the abolition of Article 30, even though if already stand diluted by administrative and legal means. In Hindi State, your party deprives Muslim children from learning their mother-tongue Urdu and uses the oducational system to Hinduise them by Hinduising school culture, by making them study Sanskrit in lieu of their Mother-Tongue, by propagating Hindu religion in the name of moral education and by imposing Hindu Sanskars. All this alienates Muslims from the educational stream.

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

I must also thank you, Advaniji, for your statement on communal violence. But riots after. riots have been instigated by persons who believe in your ideology or work for your party. In riot after riot the administration and police personnel imbued with your philosophy have joined hands in killing Muslims. I have been in politics since 1979. I have never heard you or any other leader of your party condemn the culprits, not even after the cold-blooded massacre of the Hashimpura youth, not even after the Nellie or the Bhagalpur massacres or the post-Demolition killings. How many riot-affected towns and cities have you visited or organised relief in? In how many riots have you demanded compensation for loss of life, honour and property? Your government in UP is sleeping on Hashimpura Report. Your government in Maharashtra sought to stop the Sri Krishna Commission of Inquiry and has filed away thousands of riot cases. The fact is that you and your party have never shed a tear or said one word of sympathy or applied even a healing touch on the bleeding wounds. On the other, your party and colleagues have always shifted responsibility on the Muslims and denounced the victims as "aggressors"! Indeed your promise to build a riot-free India is itself a confirmation of the fact that the riot squads are under your command. Who knows whether you will not arm and unleash them, once you are in power?

POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

Please tell us, Advaniji, what you and your party have done so far to ensure proper representation for the Muslim Indians in the political affairs of the nation? Please let us know the number of Muslim candidates of BJS, and later the BJP, have put up for the central and state legislatures since their foundation? And particularly for the ensuing election? Please let us know how many Muslims you have inducted in your party structure (barring the Minority cells!). And if the Muslim representation is indeed pathetically low, as a responsible party hoping to run the country, please spell out what you propose to do to ensure due representation of 12 per cent of our people. The least you can do is to stop the 20 year long campaign of summary disenfranchisement against the Muslims on one pretext or the other, without due process of law, in Assam and elsewhere.

VOTE BANK - MUSLIM OR HINDU?

The Muslim Indian understands the political game. They have not served as an exclusive vote bank to any party; they have voted for different parties in different states and in different constituencies in the same State. Muslims tend, as all minority groups all over the world do, not to divide their votes at constituency level and cast it as unitedly for a candidate of their choice who is rarely a Muslim. But you forget, Advaniji, your own constant endeavour to consolidate and maintain your Hindu vote- bank. Certainly it does not lie in your mouth to accuse your adversaries of trying to create a Muslim vote bank. We may have been fooled by other parties, just as you are trying to fool us now, but the real question is that when there is a gap between their profession and practice, as there has been because all parties are hypocrites to some extent or the other, not only towards Muslims but towards the people as a whole, we can argue with them, we can shame them. But since your communal and majoritarian approach is blatant and clear and clad in the garb of Hindu Nationalism and since you do, what you say and you say, what is in your mind - how can we ever argue with you?

BJP: A THREAT TO ISLAMIC IDENTITY

Advaniji, we are not afraid of the BJP. We have learnt to live with riots. We know that we cannot be liquidated, nor thrown into the sea, nor driven across the border. But under BJP rule, we shall be brainwashed and harassed and humiliated and pressurised to give up our Islamic identity. It is in this sense that BJP is perceived as a threat by the Muslims. If the secular order survives, one day, the Muslim Indians shall get his due; if Hindu Nationalism takes over, the Muslim Indian is doomed!

RELIGIOUS INSECURITY AYODHYA, MATHURA AND VARANASI

Now Advaniji, let us come to your gracious offer on Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi. You and your party as masters of double-speak have been speaking variously on the Babari Masjid question. But one thing is clear. Since you have no case in law, you have threatened, time and time again, to change the law and take over the site by legislation. This, you have affirmed, you will do once you have a majority in the Parliament. Let me advise you, Advaniji, such a law will be unconstitutional because it violates its basic structure. A secular state cannot take over the place of worship of one religious group to hand it over to another. Of course, once you have a 2/3 majority, you can even change the Constitution! But that is not very imminent.

You believe in the rule of law. Why are you mortally afraid of letting the law take its course? The site is under judicial protection but in the custody of the central government. Even when you form the central government you cannot fulfill your commitment. You will have once again to violate the sanctity of the Constitution and the majesty of law.

Your modus operandi in Ayodhya has been well-structured. First you ask your brothers in saffron – the RSS and the VHP to prepare the ground. Then you incite religious sentiments of the Hindus by undertaking a Yatra; then you install a government in the state which gives a free hand to Ram bhaktas and orders the police not to interfere and in collusion with Narasimha Rao, you demolish the Masjid; then your Kar Sevaks create a new reality, the make-shift temple on the debris of the Babari Masjid. But now you get stuck. Already your colleague Uma Bharati is threatening Muslims with another 'humiliation'. So while your party threatens us, you plead with us to sign on the dotted line.

You say that Mathura and Kashi are not on your agenda, not just yet. Until 1989, even Ayodhya was not but suddenly it became a question of Hindi, honour, dignity and awakening.

You are asking Muslims to forgo their constitutional and legal rights out of fear. Is it fair, Advaniji? Why don't you commit yourself to accept the judicial verdict and join us in pressing for expeditious hearing of the title suit?

RIGHTING HISTORIC WRONGS - WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE?

Assuming that Babari Masjid site is indeed the birthsite of Shri Ram Chandraji, assuming that a standing Ram Janambhoomi Mandir was demolished to build Babari Masjid on that site in 1528, assuming that it was a dilapidated place of worship, assuming that the Muslims had not offered Namaz in it "since 1934", as you allege, does it give you the legal right to take it over, to demolish it and to build a temple in its place? No law in any civilised country permits vandalism against a historic monument. No law anywhere permits desecration of a original place of worship. Once the law of "might is right" or your principle of the majority is right prevails, how will you silence claims on thousands of temples built on Buddhist viharas and indigenous shrines. How many Vaishnav and Shaivinite shrines will have to be restored to each other? How far back and forward in history are you prepared to go? When do you demolish the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Parliament House – both symbols of slavery? And would you spare the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort?

If you are a true nationalist and a patriot if you believe in India's destiny as a great nation, you would not open the Pandora's box and strive to waste national energies on rewriting our history in blood and tears?

Advaniji, in all you speech, you have not uttered one word of regret about the past, one word of retraction from you exclusivist philosophy of Hindutva, one word of remorse over what happened. Nothing that you have stated raise any hope of equality and dignity for which the Muslim Indian yearns.

POLITICAL COMPULSION

Advaniji, your well-written speech is nothing more than an electoral gimmick. You know that your party commands only 20 per cent of the votes; with all your allies, you may command 30 per cent but that is not enough for you to capture Delhi. You have reached a plateau; your majoritarian Hindu vote bank will not give you the quantum jump you need. You need the support of other groups like the Muslims. You need the floating voters; you need the votes of the secular, liberal Hindus. So this Convention was nothing more than a scene in the drama enacted by your party for electoral benefit.

NO POSITIVE AND CONCRETE MEASURES

Had you been prepared to announce positive and concrete measure for the welfare and development of the Muslim community - on employment, education, political representation, religious security, cultural and linguistic progress, had you expressed regret at the demolition of the Babari Masjid and closed the chapter of revanchism for all times to come, had you supported teaching of Urdu to Urdu-speaking children and their primary instruction through Urdu-medium, had you defined national culture as composite culture, with a Hindu core, had you proposed statutory compensation for all loss of life, property and honour in communal riots and other form of social violence and summary punishment for the culprits, you would have indeed deserved a heart-response from us, Muslim Indians.

As it is we thank you for the verbal morsels you have thrown at us - your recognition of Muslim Indian as a community, as a minority group, your acknowledgement that they face serious problems and handicaps, your admission that Muslims have made some valuable contribution to the national culture, your respect for Muslim freedom fighters and achievers.

MUSLIM ASPIRATION

But we ask for no special rights; we want participation in equality, our place in the sun, our share of the national bread, our physical security and the right to be what we are - Muslim Indians, Indians who profess Islam, who will never trade off Roti with Masjid.

The BJP does not enjoy the monopoly of Nationalism or patriotism. All Indians who see their life and the destiny unbreakably linked with that of their motherland India, are nationalists and patriots.

The Indian Nation is not a Hindu nation.

The Indian Culture is not Hindu Culture.

The Indian people are not the Hindu people alone.

INDIA is not HINDUISM

Hindutva is not Bharatiyata.

Advaniji, you are a learned man. Please do not confuse integration with absorption or unity with uniformity. Please do not equate a part, howsoever big, with the whole. Please do not try to change the gorgeous multichrome of India to a dull monochrome. Please do not row against the current of History - which is taking all mankind towards Social, Justice, Human Rights, Minorities Rights, Multi-Ethnicity, Multi-Culturalism and Universal Participation in Governance. Please do not reduce our Democracy to "Majorityism", the perpetual dominance of a "permanent majority" over "permanent minorities".

Please jettison the mental baggage of hostility, distrust and hatred, so that we, all of us, can move forward, shoulder to shoulder and make India, our motherland, a model for the world of the Future.

RSS: Golwalkar's Thoughts

We (Hindus) began to class ourselves with our old invaders and foes under the outlandish name - Indian. The result of this poison is too well-known. We have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing our foes to be our friends and with our own hands are undermining true nationality. That is the real danger of the day, our self-forgetfulness, our believing our old and bitter enemies to be our friends.

The non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language ... So long, however, as they maintain their racial, religious and cultural differences they cannot but be only foreigners ... there are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at the sweet will of the national race ... they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen's rights ... In this country, Hindus alone are the Nation and the Muslims and others, if not actually anti-national are at least outside the body of the Nation".

Those who declared 'No swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity' have thus perpetrated the greatest treason on our society. These leaders were telling the Hindus to ignore, even submit weakly to the vandalism and atrocities of the Muslims.

Forget all that the Muslims have done in the past and all that they are now doing to you ... If they carry away your wives and daughters, let them. Do no obstruct them. That would be violence."