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Mr Vajpayee, please go!

To say that Saturday's macabre incident, in which an Australian missionary and his young children were set afire by a frenzied mob, deserves to be condemned in the strongest possible terms -- as the President of India has done, in an unusual display of his power -- would be stating the obvious. And, to say that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre has lost its moral right to govern, as the Telugu Desam Party has stated, would be stating the most apt course of action.

It would seem a strange demand to voice, to call for the central government's resignation on the basis of what has happened in a state, that too one ruled by a different party, especially since law and order is a state subject. However, the Orissa incident would not have come to pass, had not the Sangh Parivar, which includes the BJP in its umbrella, winked at the anti-Christian sentiment that was being fanned across the country, had it not sent the subliminal message to its cadres across the country that the missionary's activities were to be targeted.

The point about campaigns of hatred, which the Sangh Parivar has specialised in since its inception, is that they have a momentum of their own, rather like a Concorde that is out of control. The pilot may satisfy himself that he is after all in the cockpit, but there is little beyond that is within his power. The prime minister, no less, is in a similar position. He can press the eject button to save his skin, but the aircraft is a write-off.

Violence is no stranger to India, even if we take pride in the fact that we won our independence from the foreign yoke through a non-violent struggle. Perhaps because of this, since freedom the country has been doing little but disembowelling itself, in the name of religion, language, caste, boundary, you name the issue and the solution seems to be blood-bathed. That there has been a tectonic change in the country's polity in the 50 years since is evident from the decline in the electoral fortunes of the Congress, the vehicle of the freedom movement, and the rise in the stock of the BJP, whose previous incarnation had been roundly rebuffed both during the national movement and later. Obviously, divisive politics has an appeal that cannot be matched.

For the Sangh Parivar, the early hate figure was the Muslim, who thanks to the past, did not have much of a future in the land of his choice. But as the poison that the various components of the Sangh Parivar planted in the minds of the people took effect, the political landscape too began to change. The 1989 election, in which the BJP had used V P Singh's appeal as a crutch to reach a position from where it has not looked back, showed the virulence of the BJP's election campaign. Slogans openly abusive of the Muslim community, were the order of the day, and it was the same dichotomy in the Sangh Parivar's constituents that the BJP used to justify the hate campaign.

Today, when the prime minister or his alter-ego the home minister, wash their hands of the violence against Christians, be it in Dangs or elsewhere, with the glib explanation that the perpetrators of the violence belong to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or the Bajrang Dal, which are different entities, it is part of the piece that was finalised in the run-up to the 1989 election. At that time too, when questioned about the offensive electioneering done by the likes of Sadhvi Rithambara and Uma Bharti, the BJP leadership had taken refuge behind the argument that they did not belong to it.

The Muslim community was the BJP's first choice for electoral cannon-fodder. It did reap the fruits of its campaign, as a more assertive Hindu community rallied behind it, having become sick and tired of the Congress's mixture of soft communalism and pro-minorityism, and disappointed with the non-Congress formation's ability to deliver the goods. The BJP was thus the last refuge of the voter.

The downside to hate campaigns was evident from the disastrous events of December 1992, and its aftermath that culminated in the Bombay blasts of March 1993. The South, which had hitherto been immune to the communal brand of politics fashioned by the BJP leadership, was also in the meantime starting to sway to its appeal, as is evident from the recurrent instances of communal trouble and their culmination, the Coimbatore blasts on the lines of the ones in Bombay.

Realising that the Muslim community has served its purpose, which was to consolidate its hold over the Hindus, the BJP was all set to turn moderate, become a middle of the road organisation on the lines of the Congress. But two factors put paid to its ambitions. One, the frequent shocks from its new-found political allies which showed the BJP the need to capture power on its own and not depend on its obstreperous coalition partners. The second, tandem factor was the emergence of Sonia Gandhi, a Catholic, as not only the Congress's president but also its vote-catcher as well as prime ministerial candidate.

Ergo, the attempts of the last one year to paint the Christian community as villains, anti-nationals, and to project religious conversions as something forced, something that ought to be resisted, and where possible reversed.

This is rather like assembling a thousand-strong crowd at the base of a dilapidated mosque and then expecting them not to tear it down, especially after having treated them to sermons on the need to reinforce Hindu claims to the plot of land.

Mob psychology shows that a mere hint of exhortation, by the time it filters down to the street level, assumes the status of a command to direct action. We saw it many times over with the Muslim community, and we are seeing a similar shameful saga unfold vis-à-vis the Christians.

But there is a difference between what the BJP and its cat's paws had winked at earlier at the Muslims, and now at the Christians. Earlier, the BJP was an opposition party, arguably a position that afforded it greater leeway. Today, it is the government, and as such is responsible for the safety, wellbeing of each and every citizen of the land, without regard to caste, community, language, region, religion. Its actions and words are open to scrutiny, challenge.

In the 11 months of governance, it can be no one's case that the wellbeing of the minorities has been guaranteed, and that not only have perpetrators of heinous crimes been punished, but also the government has sent an unequivocal message down the line that those who cross the line will be dealt with severely under the law of the land.

The prime minister, no less, had a glorious opportunity to set out his government's stand when he visited Dangs after the violence there. Instead of pulling up the state administration headed by his own party, instead of ordering it to crack down on perpetrators of such violence, instead of censuring it for its inability to safeguard its citizens' interests, the prime minister called for a national debate on conversions, as if this were the panacea.

In terms of mob psychology, this clear winking at the anti-Christian violence, by the time it reached the street level goons of the Sangh Parivar, was a go-ahead for more violence. It is a cinch that the pyromaniacs who ended Graham Stain's life took a cue from the prime minister's refusal to condemn the Dangs violence.

It is now a little late in the day for wringing hands, or for apportioning blame. It is my contention that the BJP government has shown itself incapable of governing a complex, multicultural, multiethnic country like India. It has ignited a spark that is setting the countryside aflame, that cannot be contained by those who started the conflagration in the first place. It has poised the nation on the brink of international stigma and internal opprobrium. It is headed by a well-meaning prime minister who nevertheless is unable to have his way, who is incapable of enforcing his will on not only his allies but even his party organisation.

The sooner such an administration is replaced, the better it is for India.

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Saisuresh Sivaswamy