Whether the NDA survives after the BJP's abject surrender to the RSS is yet to be seen. However, what can be seen is that the BJP is back to square one: the mandir issue. The country may see secular forces arrayed against communal forces. It is a pity that the Congress is yet to frame its strategy for the battle of tomorrow. And incidents like the one at Bangalore will be used by communal forces to divide the society.***

WHEN I met Prime Minister Manmohan singh and his security

Adviser MK Nayarayan, barely 24 hours before the Bangalore shootout, they were worried over the terrorists' attack in the country because such were the intelligence reports. Narayanan was more specific and said that the target could be Bangalore or Hyderabad because the two cities had come to symbolise in the world India's high technology and fast growth.

The Prime Minister said that despite the promise by President General Pervez Musharraf to him last August not to allow crossborder terrorism, it had not stopped. The training camps were intact and the apparatus of terrorism had not been dismantled in any way. Narayanan said that the infiltration had increased and the cross-border terrorism was "higher than before."

There was anguish in the Prime Minister's voice when he said that he was prepared to talk to Pakistan on any subject, Kashmir or whatever else, and try to find a solution, but what could he do in the face of unabated cross-border terrorism? "I still have faith in General Musharraf and hope he will do something to stop it," said the Prime Minister.

My plan was to use the entire conversation with the Prime Minister in my next week's column because I wanted to comment on the BJP's session at Mumbai this

week. The terrorists' attack on the Indian Institute of science at Bangalore made me depart and write a bit about the apprehensions the Prime Minister and his security Adviser expressed over the terrorists activities one evening before they stuck.

Talking about the BJP, the party is in mess. The 25th birth anniversary coincides with the unearthing of mass burials from the pogrom in Gujarat. The Rss, the party's founder, chides it through its weekly, organiser, for not having "a clearer vision of its political understanding." The Rss point man in the BJP, sanjay Joshi, resigns from the party's general secretaryship following the videotapes of his sexual escapades.

The BJP has also the distinction of having in its ranks six MPs who were ousted from the Lok sabha for accepting bribe for asking question in the House. And relatively lesser known person, former UP chief minister Rajnath singh, takes over

the reins of the party from LK Advani who quit the presidentship unceremoniously but assures the Rss that it was like water without which the BJP, a fish, could not survive.

Yet, the party confidently says that it is the only alternative to the ruling Congress. The BJP believes that people will turn to it because, between now and the next general election in three and a half years' time, even a miracle cannot change the plight of the common man. He may vote negatively but will be to the BJP's gain. The economic angle may well be true. Benefits of the 7 to 8 per cent annual growth in the 18-month-old Congress rule have not trickled down to the lower half. It is also true that the BJP has emerged over the years an all-India party with 137 seats in the present Lok sabha.

Where the BJP's calculations go awry are in its failure to appreciate the strength of India's secular ethos as well as the constitution. The party was defeated at the Lok sabha pollsit lost 43 seats and it was mainly because of its parochial Hindutva image. The party's HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi created scare among the minorities when he changed history books and appointed the Rss-minded people to top position in the field of education. Indeed, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's planned killing of Muslims in the state was another reason to drive the minori-

ties and a substantial number of lower castes to the Congress.

No doubt, he won Gujarat but made the BJP lose the rest of India. The party is averse to criticise him even when mass burials have been unearthed because the Rss, which provides the BJP with workers at the grassroots, is behind him. Modi is a typical example of an order where one man changes people. He has proved to the BJP that ethnic cleansing is the way to polarise the society and get votes. But how can the party which wants to come to power at New Delhi afford to do so? No single party can get a majority in the Lok sabha in the foreseeable future.

The National Demcoratic Alliance (NDA) which the BJP leads and which has ruled the country is shaky. Nitish Kumar, who defeated Lalu Yadav in Bihar, has distanced himself from the BJP. This was seen in the last session of parliament. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh parted company with the BJP several months ago. The National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir jettisoned the BJP the day it lost power at the centre.

In fact, the BJP is impaled on the horns of a dilemma. It cannot do without the NDA. Nor can it cut its umbilical cord with the Rss. Most of its members who have imbibed the Hindutva from the childhood find themselves without clothes in the absence of links with the Rss.

The BJP has also a grievance against the secular forces. They did not support it when it was keeping itself aloof from the Rss.

Giving an undertaking to the NDA constituents not to build a temple at the site where the Babri masjid stood before destruction was a big affront to the Rss. so was the promise not to touch Article 370 which gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The two are the main planks of the Rss. still the BJP kept them aside to form the NDA government. However, the BJP found to its dismay in the last general election that its image continued to remain as a Hindu party. The BJP does not realise that the reason for its defeat was the suspicions about its secular stance. The party has not been bold or consistent enough to confront the Rss. Its one stern glance makes the BJP look for cover.

Whether the NDA survives after the BJP's abject surrender to the Rss is yet to be seen. However, what can be seen is that the BJP is back to square one: the mandir issue. The country may see secular forces arrayed against communal forces. It is a pity that the Congress is yet to frame its strategy for the battle of tomorrow. And incidents like the one at Bangalore will be used by communal forces to divide the society.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.