I will be honest with you. When I first heard Suvendu Adhikari say, moments after he won his constituency, that he would work only for Hindus, my instinct was the same as that of any citizen of India who firmly believes in this country’s cherished tradition of unity in diversity — a profound sense of pain and concern. The kind that does not come from wounded pride but from something deeper, something that has been quietly accumulating for years, watching communities that were once neighbours become strangers, watching a political class discover that division is more electorally profitable than governance. I have felt this before, many times.AdvertisementBut I stopped myself. Because I have learned, over decades of public life, that the response that feels most satisfying in a moment of provocation is rarely the response that actually helps the people you are trying to serve. And the people with a sense of Indianess I am trying to serve deserve something more useful than the comfort of a righteous statement that changes nothing on the ground.So let me tell you what I actually think, plainly and without theatre.Saturday, May 9, Adhikari was sworn in as Chief Minister of West Bengal. He stood before the Governor and he said these words, in Bangla, and I want to quote them in full because they matter: “I, Suvendu Adhikari, do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India, that I will faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties as the Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal, and that I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”AdvertisementI want to dwell on just four of those words. “All manner of people.” Not all Hindu people. Not the people who voted for him. All manner of people. That is what he swore before God, before the Constitution, and before the people of West Bengal. I intend to take him at his word. Completely.Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has built much of his political identity around a phrase that I have heard many times: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas. Everyone together, development for all, trust from all. It is a powerful formulation and, if it were practised rather than merely proclaimed, this country would look considerably different. When Adhikari announces that he will work only for Hindus, he is not merely contradicting the Constitution he just swore to uphold. He is contradicting his own party’s governing philosophy. Someone ought to ask Prime Minister Modi, directly, whether the new Chief Minister of West Bengal speaks for the BJP’s vision of Sabka Vikas. I would like to hear the answer.But here is what I want to say to Adhikari, and I want to say it without sarcasm, because I mean every word.Fine. Work for Hindus. Do it seriously, not rhetorically. Clean the Hooghly, which poisons every Bengali who drinks water downstream, and the river does not ask what that Bengali believes before it flows through his village. Lay roads in the districts that have not seen proper infrastructure in a generation. Make the schools of Murshidabad, Malda, and Purulia actually function. Bring investment that creates real jobs, not announcements. Ensure the farmer who grows jute or rice in the delta can get a fair price for their crop, and that the small businessperson in Howrah can get a loan without surrendering their dignity. Hindus are over 80 per cent of this country’s population. If the BJP truly develops them, genuinely and measurably, no force on earth can prevent that development from reaching the remaining 20 per cent. Development does not stop at the gate of the mosque and temple. Clean air does not check a man’s faith before entering his lungs. A functioning public hospital treats whoever walks through its door.Also Read | Lessons from hantavirus scare: No country can erect walls high enough to keep disease outWe are not asking CM Adhikari to work for Muslims. We are asking him to work for Bengal. If he does that, we will acknowledge it, openly, in our own name. Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has never been in the business of opposing governance for its own sake.But I must raise a question that goes beyond Bengal, and I raise it because I think the country is ready to hear it. If a man can take a constitutional oath to serve all manner of people, and then, within hours of that oath, publicly announce that he will serve only one community, what exactly is the legal and constitutional value of that oath? Is it ceremonial? Is it merely tradition? I am not looking for a confrontation. I am asking, as a citizen and as someone who has spent a lifetime in the service of constitutional India, whether the oath of office needs not merely to be stated but to be enforced, whether there must be institutional, legal, and electoral consequences for a public servant who violates the very commitment that legitimises his authority over others. This is a question for India’s courts, for the Election Commission, for Parliament, and for every citizen who has ever wondered whether the Constitution is a living document or merely a decorative one. Jamiat will be raising it through appropriate legal and democratic channels.I am not writing this out of emotion, but out of a sincere concern for the future of our society and the values that hold our nation together.I am, truthfully, tired of the cycle in which provocation produces outrage, and outrage produces more provocation, and at the end of all of it, nothing improves for anyone, Hindu or Muslim. My organisation was founded in 1919 by scholars who chose a united, plural India over a divided, religious one at a time when that choice was genuinely costly. They opposed the creation of Pakistan not out of weakness but out of a deep theological and moral conviction that citizens who share territory owe each other something that transcends faith. That conviction was tested many times. It has not changed in 107 years. It will not change because one politician won an election.Mr Chief Minister, we have heard you. We take you at your word. Now govern. Govern honestly, govern constitutionally, and govern for the people of Bengal, all of them, because that is what you swore to do today before God, before the Constitution, and before history. We will be watching. And we will have the patience, and the documentation, and the democratic conviction, to hold you to every word of that oath.The writer is president, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind