You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is a prominent public voice and face of the ruling BJP Party in India.

Ram Madav has a long track record of activist involvement with the Hindu nationalist movement.

Before taking up his BJP post six years ago, he was a member of the national executive of the RSS,

the controversial grassroots organization

condemned by its critics as a hotbed of extremism and Hindu supremacism.

The BJP has enjoyed extraordinary political success in recent years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was re-elected with a thumping majority last year.

But his government has been dogged by accusations that it's stoking anti-Muslim sentiment and even violence.

And now, India, disfigured by rising communal tensions, faces a massive new challenge, the spread of coronavirus.

Mr Modi plunged the country into a sudden

and draconian lockdown in March, which limited the spread of the virus. But now the infection

rate is rising, and millions of India's poorest migrant workers have been left jobless and vulnerable.

Far from bringing the country together, the virus has perhaps exposed the

depth of religious and economic division should the blame be put at Mr Modi's door. Well, Ram Madav

joins me now from Delhi. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. Let us begin with the coronavirus

situation in your country. Officials in your government have

proclaimed the success of your lockdown policy, have pointed to a relatively low number of deaths,

but right now we see the curve, the infection rate curve in India, seems to be rising and rising

alarmingly. Do you think your government has been complacent?

We are 15% of the worst population. Yet, if you look at the rate of the affected people in India,

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