Why does the 'Christian menace' keep (Sudarshan) awake at nights? His supporters offer the familiar responses. Christianity ... converts people. Missionaries lure tribals to the church ... The Vatican does not regard Hinduism as being a means to find God. And missionaries have played a dubious role in the North-east.

For the purpose of argument, let us concede that each of these points is well-taken ... All the complaints that the RSS has about Christians may well be valid - but here's the thing: they were as valid 15 years ago as they are today.

And yet. 15 years ago -- or even a decade ago when the Masjid fever was at its height - nobody of any consequence within the Parivar raised these issues with any great conviction.

Instead. we were told about how Muslims had never really accepted an Indian identity, how they all secretly identified with the evil Babar and all those terrible foreign invaders who had so humiliated the Hindu samaj, and why in any case did they get to keep four wives when the rest of us had to be content (or not so content) with only one?

Has the Christian community done anything so dramatically different over the last five years that it now warrants Sudarshan's ire? ..

My guess is that Sudarshan is still exercised by the Muslim menace. But he has been told, to lay off that subject. at least in public ... The current spell in government and the ability to win moderate alliances is directly linked to the yards of masking tape pasted securely across the mouths of Sudarshan and his Sangh Parivar pals. The anti-Muslim rhetoric has served its purpose. Now it is time to shut up.

From Sudarshan's point of view, this may all be very well for the BJP but it robs his organisation of its raison d'etre. The RSS flourishes only when it can unite Hindus against a threat. For decades, it remained in business by re-opening the wounds of centuries of Muslim rule.

How can it still unite the samaj without attacking Muslims? How does it identify an enemy who is striking at the core of our society and who must be defeated? easy enough: it falls back on the 'Christian menace' The problem is that even the most imaginative demagogue finds it difficult to suggest that the road to national ruin lies ... the Lord's Prayer ...

But the RSS gets around this objection nicely. Indian Christians. by themselves, may not seem menacing. So it suggests that they are not really Indian at all. They are part of a global conspiracy run by our former colonial masters who cannot bear to see Hindu India rise again and so, bribe hapless tribals into embracing Christ, and then stir up trouble in the North-east.

If Christians wish to prove their patriotism, says Sudarshan, they must forsake their Western masters, send all white missionaries packing and run a purely swadeshi church like China's ...

All this may seem silly ... What can he possibly hope to achieve? To answer these questions we need to cast our minds back to the mid- 1980s. When the Babari Masjid campaign began, 99 per cent of Hindus had never even heard of the Masjid and it was considered preposterous to believe that a political party could win votes by focusing on some medieval mosque.

The reason why the Babari Masjid campaign succeeded beyond our wildest expectations was this: all such campaigns provoke a reaction from the other side. Muslims felt threatened by the rhetoric. Their religious (and political) leaders saw this as a perfect opportunity ...

... Angered by these positions, even liberal Hindus began to think: My God! May be Advani is right! Perhaps these people are fanatics after all!

Much the same sort of thing could happen with the Christian community. So far, at least, Christians have reacted just as Muslims did ... So don't laugh at Sudarshan. He knows what he is doing. The boys, in khakhi have done it once before in the 1980s. And judging by the early results, they are well on their way to doing it again. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 22 October, 2000)