Some who helped to bring the BJP to power have been trying to justify or rationalise their disastrous choice .. looking up to the leaders to throw them something - some small evidence of civilised intentions - which could be quickly flung over the unmistakable, the obscene spectacle of bigotry. Embarrassment has turned to alarm, and now to fear and revulsion as the Frankenstein monster going by the name of 'Hindutva' (which is nothing but pseudo-Hinduism) exposes itself.

To understand how 'Hindutva' functions, necessary to look at those whom 'Hindutva' serves. The core constituency of the BJP is the mercantile class rooted in the North and the West, but with branches all over the country and strategic alliances of all kinds with other elite groups (including the 'thinking class' which so prides itself on its independence). It finds the major political parties, national and regional, but the BJP has a claim on the major part of its munificence. This is because more than any other party, it is free of socialism and egalitarianism (and) has a Hindu majoritarian agenda.

Toughened by its RSS education, the BJP is more willing than any other party to reach inside the teeming cornucopia of Indian life for anything it can feed into the maw of the majoritarian agenda.

Along with its fraternal organisations ... the ruling party is committed to grinding up everything to the uniform consistency demanded by a majoritarian vision of the Indian nation-state. Art, literature, music, cinema, science, history, education, sports (yes, even cricket!), fundamental rights, the Constitution. - even gods and goddesses, symbols and myths which they claim are exclusively "Hindu" - everything is grist to the mill. One minority after another has been sent a message: You do not belong! You had better behave!

... this synthetic khaki religion ... this new cult has been spliced together out of certain contradictory urges among the Hindu 'thinking' classes. One is to boast about the past and congratulate themselves on the superiority of Hindu culture and religion; another to denounce other creeds for their 'backwardness', their 'fanaticism' and other offensive propensity to convert others. A third urge is to imitate those very creeds, seeing in them the organisational strength which Hinduism lacks, and secretly admiring them for their doctrinal exclusivism, so useful for creating a 'community of the faithful' ... (Source: The Hindu, 2 February, 1999)