It is hardly surprising, therefore, that no help reached the housing colony where Jafri lived and the massacre there remains a testimony to the apparently deliberate dereliction of duty by the state government.

The second instance was Mohan Bhagwat's cold-blooded observation in a television interview that there was no need for Modi to apologise because he (the RSS chief) had been told that the riots had been brought under control fairly quickly. Considering that more than 1,000 people, of whom a vast majority were Muslims, had died during the outbreak, it might be instructive to quiz the sarsanghchalak what in his view would have been a delay in the matter of checking the riots. Is it the deaths of another one thousand people, again mostly Muslims, or more?

Clearly, there is no sense of remorse in the saffron brigade about the bloodshed in Gujarat, which was described soon after the outbreak by a member of the VHP as the outcome of an “awakening” of the Hindus. It is heartless comments such as these which confirm the essentially fascistic nature of the parivar, which first gloats over the deaths of minorities and then sees no reason to express any sorrow or a sense of repentance for them.

The reason, of course, is that to the saffronites, the minorities, whether Muslims or Christians, are unpatriotic aliens who really have no place in the country. Hence, the riots in Gujarat, the burning of churches in Orissa and Varun Gandhi's hate speeches - incidents and statements which should put any civilised society to shame, but which induce no introspection in the Hindutva brotherhood.

The contrast between Bhagwat's insensitivity and the apology tendered by Manmohan Singh and the Congress for the anti-Sikh riots is obvious. While Bhagwat's behaviour points to the mindset of a fascist, the Prime Minister's sorrow is in consonance with the norms of a social democrat who believes in the rule of law and not in a country dominated by a single religious group.

It is this difference between the BJP and the Congress which explains why the Sikhs have forgiven the latter and even elected the Amarinder Singh government to power in Punjab while there is no question of the Muslims ever supporting the BJP in Gujarat or elsewhere. The Sikhs know that the anti-Sikh riots were an aberration whereas the Muslims know that hounding them forms a part of the saffron world-view in line with Golwalkar's categorisation of them as Internal Threat No. 1.

Bhagwat's interview contains other insights, too, into the parivar's majoritarianism which makes it singularly unsuitable for a multicultural democracy. His refusal to accept L.K. Advani's view of the Babri masjid demolition as a “national shame” is understandable in the context of his endorsement of Modi's handling of the Gujarat riots. But the reiteration of the parivar's concept of an akhand Bharat by the incorporation of Pakistan and Bangladesh shows that the Nagpur patriarchs remain immersed in their dream world which has no relevance to the present-day reality.

It would have made some sense if Bhagwat spoke of achieving a confederation of the three countries of the subcontinent on the basis of mutual amity and brotherhood. But his advocacy of military action against Pakistan because of its suspected role in fomenting terrorism means that such an intention is far from his mind. Instead, his proposed return to the pre-1947 borders seems based on the creation of a larger Hindu rashtra than the one which the parivar apparently has in mind at the moment.

Again, the absurdness of this concept is obvious. All that it can achieve is to create more bad blood between the governments of the three countries and provide further encouragement to the terrorists. It is not unlikely that it is the resultant turbulence to which the RSS and other constituents of the parivar are looking forward to since such unsettled conditions can help them garner support among the Hindus.

Considering that the RSS is now preparing to virtually take over the BJP by dictating who can be the next party president - not Arun Jaitley or Sushma Swaraj or Venkaiah Naidu or Ananth Kumar - the signs are not propitious for the evolution of a consensus between the Congress and the BJP on the matter of maintaining social peace in India and a diplomatic engagement with Pakistan. (IPA Service)