There is always a hysterical edge to the protests that make the protesters link all sorts of grievances together. What does Taslima Nasreen have to do with Nandigram? What does Nandigram have to do with Islam? What does the All-India Minority Front that led the violence in Kolkata have to do with any of these things?

We need to protect India from this kind of religious hysteria. We have an economy on the verge of a boom, a stock market that goes up steadily, and a huge population of young Indians who seek modernity and prosperity. If there is one thing, in my humble view, that can bring all of our hopes and dreams crashing down, it is radical Islam. It is dangerous for our policymakers to continue to ignore the threat we face from the military-mullah dictatorships in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It is because they make no distinction between ordinary Indian Muslims and Islamists that no action has been taken so far against the front organisations of radical Islam. It is these organisations that are directly responsible for the kind of meaningless violence we saw in Kolkata last week. They must be stopped.