The RSS's strategy of riding roughshod over India's diversity is part of a wider objective of making India more Hindu. Having taken on the Muslims and Christians, it has now turned to the Sikhs. Some time ago K.S. Sudershan told a convention of an RSS front organisation, the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, that Sikhs were basically Hindus.

Sikh organisations protested against the RSS's attempt to deny Sikhs their separate identity. And representations are being made to the Akal Takht jathedar about RSS designs. What should worry the saner elements - if there are any - in the Hindutva brigade is that the RSS's rhetoric could trigger off a Sikh backlash ... Militancy has died down, but it would be unwise to assume that scars have healed or that the militants' cause is dead. Punjab has traversed years of bloodshed, which it must want to forget.

The RSS's assimilationist rhetoric will certainly not help Punjab to move in that direction ... The movement for Khalistan was ... fuelled by a sense of an identity besieged by majoritarian invasiveness. What Punjab needs now is good governance (and) strengthening of the moderate, liberal political space, so that (it) can move more rapidly towards political normalisation. If the RSS goes forward with its assimilationist programme, Sikhs will resist ..: It will also force moderate elements into extreme postures.

Among them will be the BJP's ally - the Akali Dal ...