The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are at loggerheads in the western Indian state of Gujarat, known as the original laboratory of Hindutva. Interestingly, the reason for the quarrel is a church, which has become a bone of contention between the ideological partners of the Hindutva project that seeks to define India in terms of Hindu values.
It all began with a story carried last month by a Gujarati daily news-paper about a church constructed in Amba Jungle village with the “bless-ings” of Hiraben Mahala, a BJP member of the Kaprada taluka pancha-yat (a block-level administrative division) in the southern tribal district of Valsad.