Rise Of The Fringes: Narendra Modi Government Faces Acid Test

NEW DELHI: Are the fringes pulling at the centre from many directions? Is the NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi facing its first major political challenge, not from a depleted opposition, but from its own ranks? Or is it just a political ploy of the Hindu right, led by the RSS, to push its nationalist agenda through a government it considers its own?

Answers are difficult, but statements and actions of many BJP lawmakers, in parliament and the state assemblies, the actions of its allies and of various front organisations, have led to wide apprehensions that the country's secular principles, enshrined in its constitution, might be under attack. And this has found echo in parliament and the media in recent days.

The first major instance occurred on June 2 when a Muslim techie Shaikh Mohasin Sadiq was killed in Pune, allegedly by Hindu Rashtra Sena activists over the uploading of "derogatory" pictures of Maratha icon Shivaji and Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray on a social networking site.

Reacting to the killing, Pune BJP MP Anil Shirole commented that "some amount of repercussions was natural". Later, it was found that Sadiq was not connected with the mischief.

The recent attempt to force-feed a fasting Muslim employee of Maharashtra Sadan by Shiv Sena MPs when he was observing Ramadan fast, Telangana BJP leader K. Laxman's questioning tennis star Sania Mirza's Indian-ness, and Goa cabinet minister Deepak Dhavalikar's exhortation to Modi to make India a Hindu state and supported by his cabinet colleague and state deputy chief minister Francis D'Souza that India is a Hindu nation and he considers himself a "Christian Hindu", have rekindled debate whether the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has the ability or the intention to carry all communities together.

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