If the Hindu society is seeing the rise of "a new class of Pracharaks", a new class of Taliban has also arisen in the Islamic world. Their display of religious obscurantism, rigid orthodoxy and intolerance in Afghanistan has a chilling similarity with that of the Pracharaks. Both are not representative with that of the Pracharaks. Both are not representative of the majority of either the Hindu Society or the Muslim world ...

Syed Shahabuddin complains that "the rule of law or equality before law" is not for the largest religious minority in our secular democratic state. Why only the "religious minority"? What about the socially disadvantaged and economically depressed, a much larger minority cutting across the barriers of religion and caste?

Does the rule of law apply to them? Do they have the quality before law? ...

There is no denying that, for the survival of a liberal, pluralistic civilisation, "the honour and dignity of any social collectivity has to be protected against vilification".

But why narrow the focus to "religious vilification"? Why not rage against social and economic vilification? Why not fight for all those who are discriminated against by the State and the socially and economically dominant community? That would be in the larger interests of this nation ... Leaders like Syed Shahabuddin should shed their sense of paranoia and seek out the segment of civil society that is averse to "religious minorityism" .. (Source: The Pioneer, 6 September, 1999)

Shahabuddin's Reply to Bagchi, 6 September, 1999

In his 'Second Opinion' (The Pioneer, 6 September), Shri Ajoy Bagchi seems to assume that the Muslim Indians are to be treated as an extension of the Muslim world and that Hindu Fundamentalism in India is an apt response to Talibanism in Afghanistan. I maintain that while an 'extreme lunatic fringe' cannot be ruled out in any social group, it is unjust of the Indian State to ignore the deliberate and organised attacks on the honour and dignity of Islam, the Quran, the Holy Prophet and the Muslim Indian community which the Muslim Indians have to lump

The denial of rule of law or equality before law to all the socially disadvantaged and the economically deprived is indeed a fact of life and includes perhaps 60% of the Muslim Indians in its ambit. But the violence to his religious dignity that the Muslim Indian faces falls in a different category and he has a right to demand protection from the State in terms of the Constitution and the UN Declarations and Conventions. To do so and for the State and the Secular citizens to respond to his anguish is not 'minorityism'.

I do not know what Shri Bagchi means by 'social and economic vilification'. If he means social degradation and economic deprivation, he should know that I have always been in the forefront of a common, united struggle for social and economic justice.

I do not suffer from paranoia or hallucination but 1 must state that cordial inter-community relations and universal involvement in development would remain a far cry, if the honour and dignity of any social group, not just the religious or caste or linguistic minorities, are systemically and persistently targetted and no one lifts a finger and the state remains a silent spectator.