Raj Thackeray has at last been arrested. Supine governments in Maharashtra and Delhi have after many months decided to show a bit of force to assert the Rule of Law. After dithering in Jammu and Kashmir, Kandhamal and Karnataka, at least there has been some resolution in Mumbai.

The spectre that haunts Congress and indeed the secular establishment is the fear of insulting any sect, any movement, any gang that can raise the banner of religious or regional identity: This is why the movement in Jammu was treated as anything but law-breaking. Similarly for Orissa and Karnataka. The issue is not whether the conversions are genuine or obtained by bribes, but that the Bajrang Dal has broken the law. The same applies to Raj Thackeray. He may or may not reflect the legitimate grievances of the Marathi-speaking people of Mumbai, but he is doing so in an illegal manner. Any political vote bank calculus should be subordinate to the affirmation of the Rule of Law.

Indeed I would strongly argue that secularism is no longer the sound doctrine it used to be to settle these matters. Years of shoddy compromise by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao et al have left the doctrine in a sad state. It has allowed the BJP to mount a spurious attack on it as pseudo secularism. The issue then is not that we need to treat all religions alike. In a democracy, the majority religion will take the largest slice of the goodies. Its practices will be called normal and all minority religions will or can be made to look like deviants. Protection to communities gets compromised by their numbers being large or small. Suddenly they become vote banks rather than citizen communities to be wooed if their numbers justify and not if they don’t count.

... contd.