As for me, I am neither secular nor liberal when it comes to religious fanatics of any kind. So in the plainest words, I would like to say that there is no room for Islamists in India. They must be deported to a country like Saudi Arabia where life runs according to the laws of the Shariat, or so the Saudis tell us. Last week a 19-year-old girl, who was gang-raped because she was seen in the company of a man who was not her husband, brother or father, was sentenced to a punishment of 200 lashes. This is the sort of primitive justice that our homegrown Islamists approve of but they must be told firmly that this is not the Indian way. In secular India, secular laws apply and it is the rapist who gets punished and not the victim. In India women can hang about on their own and even with their lovers without being punished. Unlike in Saudi Arabia they are even allowed to drive cars.

On a more serious note, we need to pay close attention to the threat of homegrown, south Asian radical Islam. In the name of ‘secularism’ the prime minister has closed his eyes not just to the disturbing number of madrassas that have come up on our borders and in remote villages but also to the increasing number of organisations that shield Islamism. They function openly in our cities, and if they are not openly spreading poison against other religions, they are actively involved in promoting the idea that the only religion worthy of respect is Islam. That these organisations are dangerously influential is evident from the thousands of ordinary Muslims that pour into the streets to protest against whatever they are told is the new Islamist cause.

... contd.