Miyan Atal Bihari?

Ever since its inception in the early 1950s as the Jana Sangh and then its re-branding a quarter century later, the BJP has avowedly been a party of the Hindu majority.

It has espoused its understanding of their cause vis-a-vis the minorities in a zero-sum way. Its main targets were the Muslims, but from 1998 the Christians also became targets "" perhaps because of Sonia Gandhi's formal entry into politics.

This being so, it is strange to see some prominent (if ineffectual) minority politicians such as Najma Heptullah, Arif Mohammad and Purno Sangma either join hands with the BJP or toy with the idea.

Perhaps encouraged by this, the BJP has launched a campaign to invite and reassure the Muslims that they are welcome.

As the saying goes, Sau choohay khakar, billi chali Haj par (The cat goes on the Haj after eating 100 mice). The question is: are we at an inflection point in Indian politics?

Arif Mohammad would not be the first Muslim to endorse or join the BJP, of course. There was Sikandar Bakht, who passed away just a few days ago.

There are Shahnawaz Khan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. All, however, are seen as show boys and opportunists, or Uncle Tom equivalents. In the 1930s the Muslim League used to describe Muslims in the Congress as bhaday ke Mussulman or Muslims-for-Hire.

People can therefore be forgiven for wondering if Arif Mohammad and others like him are not trying to postpone the inevitable irrelevance by renting themselves to the BJP.

The BJP's tactics too are a little surprising, in as much as it runs the risk of annoying its core constituency, which views Muslims in pretty much the same way as the Nazis viewed the Jews.

In any case, the welcome laid out to Muslims by the Prime Minister competed for headline space with the Central Bureau of Investigation confirming to the Supreme Court that there was in fact police complicity in various Gujarat outrages.

Elsewhere, attention has been focused on how the MP government under Uma Bharati is being forced to play a partisan role in two different communal situations.

So Mr Vajpayee's claims of communal harmony and even-handed treatment of all communities will sound hollow to his target audience.

The BJP move could, however, be seen as a reflection of the Muslim electoral dilemma, since stalwarts like Mulayam Singh Yadav are clearly re-examining their positions and perhaps readying to align with the BJP, while the Congress is still not forgiven for its sins of the past.

So the BJP may have spotted an opportunity here which it quickly tries to exploit. At the same time, by asking why the Muslim League is not being seen as communal, Mr Vajpayee conveys his implicit acknowledgement that the BJP is a Hindu party.

Perhaps the Muslim League should now go out and ask for Hindu votes, and both parties can then claim to be non-communal.