The continuing furore at home and abroad over the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, and the likelihood of the Ayodhya issue coming centre stage politically and in terms of jeopardising civil harmony ... pose severe challenges to the BJP government. Their capacity to inflame jingoistic emotions and to be dangerously divisive is heightened by the Bomb and the Mandir being article of faith with the BJP and its most fanatic supporters, the RSS and the Sangh Parivar. Any attempt to say that BJP and RSS are autonomous bodies, not accountable to each other, will not wash. They are a jekyll and Hyde composition personality. Hindutva and Ayodhya are the core of their ideology for all times. The withdrawal of these from the BJP manifesto is a temporary compromise meant only to last till they come to power on their own strength in a parliament dominated by them. The response of the Government to the news of hectic preparations by the VHP to build the Mandir is less than honest, evasive: Madan Lal Khurana says the Government has no information; the Prime Minister and the hawkish Home Minister say that they will abide by the court order about maintaining the status quo at Ayodhya. They are not saying that they will stop others from flouting the Supreme Court order or curb the VHP from keeping the issue alive by its inflammatory, militant talk about building the temple at any cost ... In fact, the PM has expressed his reluctance to rein in the sangh parivar. Their words and deeds today are becoming increasingly ominous, and defiant of all authority as in the days leading to their vandalism ... on December 6,1992 ... After Babari Masjid and Pokhran II, BJP seems to believe that its sure path to achieve its aims in the face of the inconvenient constraints of India's egalitarian, democratic and secular polity is from fait accompli to fait accompli. If it succeeds in exploding the Mandir bomb by conniving at VHP raising a pre-fabricated structure ... at Ayodhya, we might as well say good-bye ... to national growth and development, and a united pluralistic India.