India, Dec. 15 -- When Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood in Parliament to mark the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, did he actually know he was completing a historic cycle of division? Of course, no one can claim that it was a commemorative act.

He was weaponising a song associated with anti-colonial resistance, turning it into a tool of partition-tricks from his ideological forefathers over a century ago.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP's ideological nucleus, was founded not to fight the British Raj, but to organise Hindus against Muslims. Its founders, inimical to the Indian National Congress's attempts at Hindu-Muslim unity, chose a path of communal polarisation. This foundational divisiveness is the core mission, ...