Vijay Tendulkar once wrote a powerful story about his experiences of studying in a school which had stereotyped Muslim children as “butchers” and “killers” of cows and animals. If this is the reality in government schools, you can only imagine the situation in shishu mandirs and madrassas. Cultural pluralism can never survive such a setting. It is never too late to mend matters and ensure that our schools impart a secular education that recognises the multicultural and multi-religious traditions of India. The crux of the issue is that if children are exposed to high doses of Islamic theology or Hindu mythology by teachers who are, in reality, religious preachers, the future of secularism is doomed.