COMMUNAL riots have always been part of India’s social fabric. In fact, some of the major riots, including two in Gujarat took place when the Congress party was in power all over India. But there were no attempts at official level to promote communal polarization, as is the case after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power.

All top leaders of the party including Prime Minister Narendra Modi have at one time or the other played this divisive game. They cast aspersions on minorities and their supporters. At one stage in his election campaign in Gujarat in 2017, Modi made the stunning charge that the opposition Congress and elements in Pakistan may be working in cahoots to prevent a BJP victory in the state.

If such tactics don’t vitiate the atmosphere, there are the activities of the so-called cow protection groups (gau rakshaks). They attack Muslims and low-caste Hindus suspected of eating beef or slaughtering cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.

This is the context in which the US State Department singles out India for criticism in its annual religious freedom report. The report, released on Tuesday, refers to “several violent incidents by so-called ‘cow protection’ groups against mostly Muslim victims, including killings, mob violence, assaults, and intimidation. Authorities often failed to prosecute those committing the attacks.”

The report comes days after Delhi’s Archbishop Anil Couto wrote a letter to all parish priests and religious institutions in the Delhi archdiocese calling for a yearlong prayer campaign to save India from the “turbulent political atmosphere.”

Bishop Couto did not mention any political party. Neither did he refer to more than 700 cases of attacks on Christians across India between 2014 (when the BJP came to power) and 2017. Still, the BJP leaders and a section of the media condemned the archbishop, saying he was urging the people to vote along communal lines. Some saw in it a much larger Vatican conspiracy to discredit Modi.

Pakistan takes the place of Vatican when the targets of attacks are Muslims. BJP leaders and ministers regularly accuse Muslims of being disloyal to India or taking orders from Pakistan. Some repeatedly talk about Muslims trying to outnumber Hindus in India. Another charge against Muslims is “love jihad” — the proposition that young Muslim men try to lure Hindu women into marriage and convert them to Islam.

All this is a boon to “gau rakshaks” who prowl the streets, round up suspected cow smugglers and often administer their own retribution on “offenders” who may include beef eaters, real or suspected.

When there is too much hue and cry in the media, the national government sometimes speaks out against such incidents of violence, but local political leaders often do not, and some actively encourage those who indulgence in such activities.

Now that Modi’s aura of invincibility is on wane, many fear that BJP will try to implement its core ideology of Hindutva, based on hatred of minorities, even more vigorously. But the results of recent by-elections (the opposition parties on Thursday won 11 of 14 assembly and parliamentary seats, including the Kairana parliamentary constituency in UP held by BJP) show that people are more concerned about sugarcane prices than a portrait of Mohamed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, in an Indian university. It also shows that the best way to defeat the BJP’s dangerous agenda is for the opposition parties to unite and avoid splitting votes.

In the Kairana result there is a lesson for the Congress too: India’s grand old party kept out a Muslim Congress leader from the election campaign in Gujarat in 2017 fearing a Hindu backlash. But Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a regional party in UP, took courage in both hands, fielded a Muslim woman candidate in Kairana and got her elected. The Congress should realize that stealing BJP’s clothes is one thing and looking elegant wearing them is yet another.