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The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), issued a written threat to the students of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, against inviting Sheetal Sathe  –  a singer of the Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural organisation working among dalits and working classes of Pune, but branded by the state as the Naxalite outfit  –  to their annual inter-collegiate youth festival Malhar. The Maharashtra Police declared that they would not provide security, and so Sheetal had to withdraw from the panel that was to discuss “Invisibility of Caste” on 14 August.

While Narendra Modi has set himself on a fast track to accomplish the neo-liberal development agenda of the Congress, which the United Progressive Alliance II government under Manmohan Singh hopelessly failed to advance, the hydra-headed Sangh Parivar, intoxicated with Modi’s dazzling win, has begun its old monkey tricks to drive its Hindutva agenda. Even accounting for the fact that some of these sharp practices are part of the conscious strategy for the forthcoming assembly elections, one suspects that much of these ploys are natural to the Parivar constituents, which see their dream coming true in the present political situation. It is their moment to accomplish the “Hindu Rashtra”, whatever that means.