• Pratap Bhanu Mehta in ‘What’s religion?’ has brilliantly deliberated on the concept of religion in our country. All too often, we confuse religion as a personal belief system, and as a way to conform to group identity. There needs to be further debate in the media at the national level. While thinking of religion as a social structure, our Anglicised brains fail to understand it as dharma — an internal code.

— Jai Prakash Gupta

Ambala

• Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s article should be widely read and understood, including by the self-styled heads of many religious sects. Militants, who claim primacy of one religion over another, and use it to claim superiority, need to study these thoughts. Religion is being used not to understand the world but to exploit it for narrow self-gain. Mehta has cleverly worded his ideas to avoid violent response; yet he has brought out clearly where we have failed.

— Brig Vijay Dani

New Delhi

Only SIMI?

• This is with reference to ‘Look who hijacked Jamia’. While condemning SIMI, Arif Mohammed Khan does not explain why the government has produced so little evidence to justify a ban on the group. If SIMI is such a suspicious organisation, then why was the evidence thrown out by the Delhi high court? He also does not chastise non-Muslim extremist organisations like the Sangh Parivar groups, who are propagating lies against Jamia university — once nurtured by secular Indians like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Zakir Husain and Mukhtar Ansari. They are also attacking minorities in Karnataka and Orissa. May I request that Khan to denounce the murderous Bajrang Dal with equal vehemence.

... contd.