Imam Bukhari's job to lead congregational prayers, not politics

It turns out that there is no leadership worth the name which can mediate between people and the government on this as on any civic issue. The problem becomes severe in Muslim enclaves. People, after having voted on Election Day, are left to their devices. Come Election Day and again the Imam is required to pull out his grand apparel.

For decades Muslims remained regular Congress voters. This was their respite from the trauma of partition and its aftermath. The first intimations of political mortality for Indira Gandhi came in 1967: she lost in eight northern states.

Then came the first indications of a Nehru-Gandhi figure becoming saffron-positive: Indira Gandhi began to canvass Hindu support. The “Muslim appeasement” chant of the Sangh Parivar had begun to corrode the secular façade of even Indira Gandhi.

This anxiety became even more pronounced in the Rajiv Gandhi years. V.N. Gadgil, Congress general secretary, told me in 1985, that “Hindus were beginning to fear that Muslims were appeased by successive Congress governments”. How “appeased” the minorities were became clear in the Sachar Committee Report in 2006. But the Congress had already set into motion steps to woo Hindu sentiment. In 1986 it opened the locks to the Mandir in Ayodhya. Climax was reached with Rajiv Gandhi promising “Ram Rajya” while kicking off the party's 1989 election campaign from Ayodhya.