We hold it to be a self-evident truth that BJP and secularism are incompatible. We therefore oppose whatever BJP does or wants to do, right or wrong. We took potshots at each of the four hobbyhorses fielded by BJP so far, namely national consensus, nuclear explosion in Pokharan, debate on Article 356 and finally Sanskrit and Saraswati Vandana.

Prime Minister Vajpayee's two hobbyhorses, national consensus and nuclear explosion, are doing the rounds but we claim as political bookies that they are not likely to hit the jackpot. Without batting an eyelid, we willadvise the voters not to put a bet on them.

Not to be outdone, Home Minister L K Advani brought his own hobbyhorse of debate on Article 356. He had assured every chief minister that it was only a horse and not a tiger but we aroused the fears and suspicions of the chief ministers. They were afraid that the horse could turn out to be a tiger and one or the other of them might end up in its belly. After all, jockeying for power is not the same as riding a tiger masquerading as a horse.

Vying with the Prime Minister and the home minister, the minister for human resource development (HRD) came up holding the reins of a handsome white horse, pedantically called human resource. A horse is a horse is a horse. How can human resource be a horse or vice versa? The HRD minister said he simply planned to introduce the teaching of Sanskrit in Indian schools. Not so innocuous as it may sound. Being worshipers of power, we know that horse is a metaphor and measure for power.

It is an embarrassment for us to bereminded that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had once acknowledged the greatness of Sanskrit as a language and wished he had studied it. It is equally embarrassing for us to be reminded that Jawaharlal Nehru was popularly called ``Panditji'', a usage which ought to be prescribed in secular India. That prefix sends the wrong signals.

We have been working hard for the last fifty years to exercise the ancient ghosts of the so-called heritage of India. We nearly succeeded in our mission by putting Indian languages on the backburner and by pushing Sanskrit into the oblivion. The three-language formula was our momentous masterstroke. Killing at least two birds of culture and Sanskrit with one stone. We had decreed that the teaching of Sanskrit as an elective subject shall be discontinued. Happily, in the wake of that formula, schools began dismissing Sanskrit teachers and putting parents on notice that the teaching of Sanskrit would no longer dilute modern curriculum of modern India. But then, the Supreme Court steppedin with a stay order as it always does in matters in which it has no business to interfere. For a moment we were down but not out.

We regrouped our forces and went to the Supreme Court to fight our battle against Sanskrit and for secularism. A battle against Sanskrit and Goddess Saraswati is after all a battle for secularism. The unkindest cut of all came finally from the Supreme Court from which we had expected an unqualified approval of Lord Macaulay's policy. But the Supreme Court in its wisdom handed down a thumping judgment in favour of Sanskrit and its teaching in schools. To add insult to injury, another bench of the Supreme Court defined Hindutva not as a religion but as a way of life.

We reject Hinduism, Goddess Sara-swati and Sanskrit, because we have a lurking suspicion that BJP acquired some intellectual property rights over them while we were cheering Americans who were helping us to get rid of neem and turmeric. We would now encourage the Americans to patent Sanskrit, Goddess Saraswati andHindutva also. India would then be safe for secularism. That is not much of a price to pay for our secular credentials.

The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP