JYOTI Basu, a staunch opponent of communalism, famously labelled the BJP a "barbaric party" after the Babri Masjid demolition. Today the situation has worsened. Those whom Jyoti Basu had called barbaric were once at the threshold, but now they hold State power. They are trying to make Hindutva the State’s official ideology. Had he been alive, Jyoti Basu would have been at the forefront of the struggle against these forces of darkness.