No room for discussion or compromise. It is in these mosques that London’s suicide bombers (manque) found the inspiration to blow up transatlantic airliners. And, what were they going to use? Liquid explosives and mobile phones and iPods as detonators. Is it surprising that airline marshals on the Northwest flight to Mumbai should have panicked when they saw a group of Muslims refusing to turn off their mobile phones?

By the time you read this the garment exporters will be reunited with their families, but our Islamist problem will continue and grow unless we confront the truth that Indian Muslims have changed in recent years. Our political leaders and we of the ultra-liberal media refused to accept that we have an Islamist problem till the train bombers in Mumbai turned out to be Indian and not Pakistani. We have still not registered how serious the problem is or we would not have allowed the recent controversy over Vande Mataram. Muslim preachers like the rabid Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid have used nationwide television to stir Muslims up against a song that is patriotic and not religious. The word ‘vande’ does not necessarily mean to pray, it can also mean to pay tribute, which is what the song does. After A R Rahman turned it into a wonderful, modern song, you would have thought that Muslim objections to singing it would have died, but they have not. So the Minister of Human Resource Development had to declare that Muslim schoolchildren did not have to sing it when we celebrate its centenary next month.

... contd.