.. Most people recognise that when it comes to sport and popular culture, India is totally secular. This is especially true of the film industry where the days when Yusuf Khan had to change his name to Dilip Kumar are now a distant memory. Bombay's top stars are called Khan: Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan.

And nobody regards their religion of being of any consequence - or rather nobody did till the RSS and the Shiv Sena got involved.

The RSS journal Panchjanya features a bizarre cover story this week in which the Khans are portrayed as henchmen of Dawood Ibrahim who comprise a gang which dominates Bollywood ... while Hindu actors are  blocked by an 'international conspiracy'. Only brave Hindu Hrithik Roshan dares fight for the rights of his community. Not to be undone, Bombay's fading senapati. Bal Thackeray, has also contributed to this comical campaign by calling the three Khans 'puppets of the underworld' and urging his demoralised and defeated Shiv Sainiks to "wake up and do something".

If Panchjanya is to be believed then even soft-drink multinationals are part of this "pre-meditated communal mindset" and Muslims (code-named "a particular section") drink only Pepsi because Shahrukh advertises it and not Coke which is pushed by Hrithik ... More seriously though, the behaviour of the RSS and the Shiv Sena demonstrates how communalists ... cannot bear the success of Indian secularism. In the RSS's world view, Hindus and Muslims must be enemies. So, there can be no greater setback to its agenda than the discovery that millions of Hindus adore the Khans. The only way it can reconcile this fact with its world view is to conclude that the phenomenon must be the result of a criminal conspiracy. Fortunately, the vast majority of Indians laugh at these views.