Since this column is often wrongly accused of nurturing ill-feelings towards Islam, I use the chance this week to show that I bear equal ill-will towards any religion that tries to occupy the public space. How someone chooses to worship in private does not interest me, but as the citizen of a secular country, I refuse to accept the right of priests and religious people to impose their faith, sartorial tastes, and morals upon the rest of us.

Last week it was the turn of Sikhs to launch forth into the public arena. They took to the streets in huge numbers wearing medieval costumes and brandishing swords because of some imagined insult to Guru Govind Singh. They looked like lunatics on the loose and as a Sikh, I was extremely irritated to see the religion I was brought up in turned into a mockery.

Who are these people? How dare they think they have a right to speak on behalf of all Sikhs? Personally, I was discomfited by the fanatical gleam in the eyes of young men who should have better things to do than to run around brandishing swords and unkempt beards. And over what? Some little Baba in some little Punjab town wears an outfit that supposedly resembles the clothes Guru Govind Singh liked to wear! And we are expected to believe that this was good enough reason for this public display of religious hysteria?

Where were the keepers of law and order? Is it not an offence to wander the streets waving swords? Why were these protests permitted in cities across Punjab? Is it because the Akali government is taking revenge on Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for urging his followers to vote Congress in the recent Assembly elections? If it is, then the Akalis have learned nothing from the mistakes of the past. Mistakes for which thousands of innocent people died terrible deaths at the hands of terrorists because some fools in positions of power thought religion and politics made a good mix.

... contd.