Within every Gujarati lurks a natural-born tourist. Pravinbhai Togadia, international general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and famous these days for his references to the canine population of southern Europe, epitomises the wandering Hindu, perennially in search of the next fount of wisdom, the next great cause, the next public meeting or, merely, the next television studio. He doesn't forget, though, to take his family on two weeklong vacations every year. A few months ago, the Togadias-Pravinbhai, wife Rashmitaben, daughter Ami, 20, and son Akash, 16-travelled to Gangotri, a brief respite in what was an action-packed summer.

At 45, Togadia is on the road three weeks out of four, answering to an itinerary that would be the jet-lagged corporate executive's despair. He is also churning out lines that would be the potboiler writer's envy.

PROVOCATEUR: Togadia's words make for a good copy, if not always good form

On Saturday, October 19, the Ahmedabad cancer surgeon outdid himself with his incursions into the animal kingdom. Referring to the criticism of the post-Godhra tumult-which the VHP is accused of masterminding-at a function in Bhuj's Lodia village, he said, "First, the puppies of Gujarat made noises ... When it was felt that this noise would not do, dogs from all over the country started coming here ... Then we heard a dog from Italy also made the rounds."

Expectedly, the slighting of Sonia Gandhi had the Congress going ballistic. Party cadre tried to throw black ink at Togadia in Pune. The man himself was unrepentant. "Did they protest like this," he asked, "when Imam Bukhari declared Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were heroes of Indian Muslims? Patriotism has gone out of the Congress' blood."

There were other perceptions of the party's anti-Togadia press conferences and demonstrations. "The Congress," grunted a cynic, "has made this joker a national figure. Who took him seriously?" Actually enough people did, not least among them the 20 lakh-odd VHP members. The figures are all there on Togadia's Pentium III-powered Sony laptop, his constant travelling companion, as much as his Nokia 7110 cell phone.

The remarks on dogs may have got the Congress' goat but to veteran Togadia watchers-at least Gujarat has no scarcity of them-it was part of a history of cultivated invective. He is usually polite and soft-spoken; if you saw him with his wife on the swing in their modest Ahmedabad home, you would never guess he was anything more than your laidback, henpecked neighbour.

Switch on the mike and you hear a new avatar. Togadia realised long ago that a suitably extreme statement got a rise out of people. The dig at Sonia is only the latest in a series (see box). As Jairam Ramesh, probably the most unflappable Congressman in tele-business, confessed to a newspaper recently, the one time he lost his shirt before the cameras was while appearing with the "offensive" Togadia. Alfred E. Neuman was worsted by Agent Provocateur.

Nevertheless, Togadia is not all bluff and bluster. When he took on his present job in the VHP four years ago, he epitomised a generational shift in the most influential religious pressure group in Indian politics. Ashok Singhal is still elder statesman and international president of the VHP but Togadia and the rest of the key office-bearers are all in their 40s or early 50s.

Togadia was always marked for a public role, it would appear. A Saurashtrian Patel-a caste identity he shares with Keshubhai Patel, former Gujarat chief minister-and son of a marginal farmer, Togadia came to Ahmedabad to study. He lived in a chawl but excelled in the classroom. This caught the attention of his school principal who, being an RSS worker, began the youth's association with the Sangh.

Togadia shone in medical college as well as in the Sangh sanctum. He was 22 in 1979, when he was appointed chief instructor of an RSS officers training camp. Among his students was a certain Shankersinh Vaghela, then 39, and now president of the Gujarat's Congress unit.

Togadia already had an appreciable practice when he was seconded to the VHP by the Sangh. He trimmed his medical career-he now sees patients for a week each month-for Parishad commitments. Even its opponents acknowledge the VHP is today a mass movement in Gujarat. It has units in 10,000 of the state's 18,000 villages, runs schools, has experimented with tele-medicine clinics that allow hamlets access to city doctors. It has also militarised Hindu society. To listen to the Savarkarites at the VHP's state headquarters carp about the revisionism of the Golwalkarites of the RSS is to journey to another reality.

In a broader perspective, the VHP's Gujarat project is a mirror image of the Christian missionary network. It is also Togadia's creation, flowing from the idea that religious fervour requires institutional backing to give the VHP lasting strength. It worked in Gujarat-where Togadia is the kingmaker determined to preside over the post-election coronation of his Hindutva twin, Narendra Modi. It is now Togadia's endeavour to replicate the "Gujarat model" nationwide, to create a "Hindu constituency" that will exercise the veto on government formation in Delhi.

If he fails, Togadia will be just another footnote in India's history. If he succeeds ... well, let's leave that for another day.