Kozhikode, Sept. 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the BJP's prime ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya today to articulate in public his views and reflections on Muslims at some length for the first time.
At the conclusion of the BJP's national council here, Modi contextualised his thoughts, drawn from Upadhyaya's writings, in the current debate on the interpretations of the word "secularism".
Upadhyaya was a founder of the Jana Sangh, the BJP's predecessor. The national council was convened to launch the commemoration of Upadhyaya's birth centenary this year and, more important, to enshrine him in India's political pantheon and place him on the same pedestal as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Addressing the council delegates, Modi said: "Pandit Upadhyaya used to say no ' ang' (part) of society is untouchable for us. But many people misunderstand the BJP and project us wrongfully. The definition of secularism in currency is distorted. It runs down the 'desh bhakts' (patriots). At such times, let us see how we look at the minorities."
He turned to his ideological mentor. "Fifty years ago, Pandit Upadhyaya said 'do not reward/appease ( puraskrit) Muslims, do not shun (tiraskrit) them but purify ( parishkar) them'. Do not treat Muslims like vote ki mandi ka maal (vote banks) or ghrina ki vastu (object of hatred). Unhe apna samjho (regard them as your own)," Modi said.
Upadhyaya's views on Muslims were anchored in the Sangh's classical perspective on minorities. "Purification" was premised on the Sangh theory that Indian Muslims had not come from a foreign land but were Hindus who had been coerced into conversion to Islam.
Upadhyaya had said: "The Muslims are the flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood." K.S. Sudarshan, a former RSS sarsanghachalak, had once said that Muslims had the "blood of Rama and Krishna coursing through their veins".
According to the RSS, "purification" involves a process called " shuddhikaran" that calls on Muslims to "reclaim" their "Hindu origin" by forsaking Islam and embracing Hinduism.
Modi's Upadhyaya citation was not confined to Muslims. He recalled the ideologue to take the BJP back to its roots.
In 1967, Upadhyaya was anointed as the Jana Sangh president at Kozhikode, then called Calicut.
"Our yatra (journey) has been from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh to the BJP, from Calicut to Kozhikode. Calicut's name was changed because it was important to connect the place to its roots. Somehow Calicut did not have a sense of being rooted. Similarly, we may have journeyed from the Jana Sangh to the BJP but it is important to rediscover our roots, to rekindle the mantra that Pandit Upadhyaya gave us to fire our hope and enthusiasm," Modi said.
"For any other political party, touching the seat of power means the end of a yatra. I am not a yatri (traveller) on that sort of a yatra. We did not set out to grab power and seat ourselves in a government. If that were the case, we would not have stagnated in the Opposition for 50 years. The party's character and its future are founded on Pandit Upadhyaya's principle, which (urges one to) dedicate oneself to the people's welfare."
In a leg-up to the BJP workers, for whom the Modi government has been a mixed bag of hits and misses, he spelt out the main challenge ahead of them as one of "converting a cadre party to a cadre-based mass party".
"Today we have over 11 crore members. If we can transform this mass of workers to cadres, it will be a big achievement," he said.
Modi reminded a generation of workers and cadres to whom Upadhyaya was just a name that the Jana Sangh's symbol was a lamp.
As he twirled a lotus, he said: "The Jana Sangh was fired by a lamp. The BJP is energised by the powerful rays of the sun. The lotus opens its petals only after it absorbs the first rays of the rising sun at dawn. But the strength of the rays alone can arouse our collective consciousness. Think about it, we are the only party in India having such a vast army of workers."