The Union Home Minister has spoken at Deoband about the majority community’s duty to protect the minority community. No one can take exception to this call. But why did he fail to point out that this rule has not been followed where Muslims are in majority, as in the Kashmir Valley from where all Hindu Pandits have been driven out? The selective application of this principle of duty of the majority community to protect the minority community is the fundamental shortcoming of our ‘secularists’ and their organisations.
It is this selective application of ‘secularism’ that is a greater threat to our national unity. This has emboldened sectarian leaders to push their communal agenda at the expense of nationalism. The Deoband meeting, for instance, has called upon the Muslim youth to emphasise their separate Muslim identity. And of all the people Mr Chidambaram should be aware as the Union Home Minister how ‘separate identities’ often turn into separatism.
