In a recent column on this website, my friend and senior journalist, Javed Ansari, expressed the hope that the Rashtriya Swayamseva Sangh (RSS), “the ideological fountainhead of the Sangh Organization”, is “ideally suited” to “rein in the hotheads in the government and also among its ideological fellow travelers like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal”.

His hope was expressed in the context of the recent meetings of the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, with five prominent members of the Muslim community. Two days later, Bhagwat went to a mosque in New Delhi to meet with the chief of the All-India-Imam Organization, Dr Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi. He also interacted with students of a madrasa. Ilyasi was sufficiently overwhelmed by this gesture to call Bhagwat the ‘Rastra Pita’, the father of the nation, a label hitherto used only for Mahatma Gandhi.