Mr. Sultan Shahin after quoting rather selectively from my article in his article "Don't Repeat Jinnah's Follows", has deliberately twisted it to serve his motivated and partisan purposes.

My article focusses on the disinclination of the parties which swear by secularism and social justice to give due representation to Muslims in the party structure and in the candidates list. But I believe that if they did, their social base would understand the demands of justice. The first experiment has been carried out by the BSP in the last election and with success!

The two biggest parties should have set an example, if they had the will. The BJP put up only 3 Muslim candidates (not counting the symbolic 2 in the Valley) i.e. 0.8 per cent representation for a community of 12.5 per cent. And it calls itself a national party. Perhaps its definition of 'nation' excludes Muslim Indians. The Congress was ten times better at about 7.5 per cent. But it did not field a single Muslim in States like MP, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi and only one in Rajasthan and packed its list in UP with unknown persons in unwinnable places nothing. short of a fraud on the Muslim community. No wonder it feels cheated.

So, it is wrong of Mr. Shahin to impute the idea to me that all Hindus of all castes, of all parties are hostile to Muslims. What is needed is moral courage on the part of parties in keeping with their profession of secularism treating all religious communities alike.

It is historically incorrect to compare the current Muslim demand for reservation in legislatures to the pre-Partition situation. The focus then was on separate electorate. The Congress was not opposed to Muslim quotas in principle but to separate electorate. Today no Muslim organisation is asking for separate electorate.

Secondly, while Muslim masses are demanding a Muslim party out of frustration with secular parties, they realise that no Muslim party can get them due representation on its own, but only in alliances with one secular party or another whose non-Muslim social base plus Muslim votes can reciprocally add up to winnable situations on a common, non-communal platform.

Muslim Indians are indeed the worst victims of the Partition; they are still nursing the wounds of '47. They would like the Sub-continent to be reunited rather than be partitioned again and till then live in peace and amity with their Hindu brethren on terms of equality and justice.