Mrs. Sonia Gandhi is at it again. Speaking ... in Pune, she is reported to have "invoked Hindu scriptures to interpret the essence of Indian thought in an effort to seek the support of the Press in the battle against the Sangh Parivar". In this connection, Mrs. Gandhi is reported to have stated that "Lokmanya Tilak reinterprated the essence of Indian thought. To him the Bhagavad Gita was not a recipe for passive renunciation of the world, but was a call for active participation" ...

.. The really striking thing is that ... the Ramakrishna Mission and the Kesari-Maharatta Trust chose to invite herto speak on the cultural regeneration of the Hindus. They would never dream of inviting Bal Thackeray. The reasons are not far to seek. With people like Thackeray leading us, there can be only one end: disgrace and disaster. As an anguished Delhi-based professor of Sanskrit told me some time ago, "these people are doing incalculable harm". ...

Many Hindus today are seriously concerned about a number of issues. Some, like the activities of the ISI in India, have to be taken very seriously indeed ... It is foolish to dismiss these as non-issues. ... Had they in fact been non-issues, the BJP would not have grown so phenomenally over the past fifteen years; matters would not have taken such an ugly turn.

Clearly the underlying urges are so strong, so desperate, as to make people like Advani clutch at dangerous illusions like thinking that our problems with Pakistan can be just blasted away. So desperate as to push a large number of ... decent people into applauding even the actions of the musclemen who have managed to place themselves at the lead of the Hindutva movement. It is because they think that that they have the support of this large constituency that people like. Thackeray' are able to indulge in all sorts of outrageous behaviour, confident that they will be able to get away with it. ... It is time for people to rise in disgust and say that they will have none of it; that they will be exploited no more; that they refuse to be led into disgrace and disaster by cranks who are incapable of leading us to anything else; that these people are in fact the best 'agents' of the ISI in India. Sensing this mood, Vajpayee quite rightly tried to bring about the necessary realignment at the meeting of the BJP's National Executive at Bangalore. But he seems neither to have the self-confidence to persist, nor the energy that will be required to travel this long and arduous road. No other centre of gravity is yet in sight. Be that as it may, I am amused at the thought of. Sonia Gandhi championing the cause of Hinduism. The idea of Bal Thackeray or Murali Manohar Joshi doing so scares me to death. (Source: The Hindu, 31 January, 1999)