Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Rebuke is mild

Sir, — You are very right in your Editorial `Sectarian musings' (Feb. 22). Clearly, the Prime Minister is a Swayamsevak and is pushing the RSS agenda and Ram Janmabhoomi. The country's integrity and its secular and pluralist framework will be established only when Muslims are encouraged to do anything under the sun. Muslims have every right to create a vote bank and Mr. Vajpayee has no right to comment on it.

The PM's statement is much more serious, meriting sterner rebuke than ``in bad taste'' and ``unbecoming of a Prime Minister''.

The Muslim vote — electoral politics that postulates voting en bloc on religious lines by the minority community — is a very secular step and democratic step and `Hindutva' followers will never understand that they have no right to criticise or comment adversely on it. In his clarification, when Mr. Vajpayee calls the Muslims as ``Bharat mata ki santan...'', he clearly wants to convert them into Swayamsevaks and into Hinduism which is a violation of our Constitution.

Harihar Jha,
Melbourne, Australia

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• Governing India from Delhi will be tougher for Vajpayee
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• Rebuke is mild
• `Sectarian musings'
• Not unsecular
• In letter and spirit
• Question anarchy
• An earnest appeal

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