Apropos of Mr. Sultan Shahin's article on my supposed 'paranoia' about the Sangh Parivar (16 Sept., 1999), all that I would like to say is that while Mr. Shahin is welcome to join the RSS, if permitted, and to propagate the virtues of the BJP, he is simply ignorant not only of the implications of a secular state in a multi-religious society but, what is more important, even the rudiments of Islamic theology and the ethos of the Muslim Indian community.

Muslim Indians like other secular Indians will, I assure Shahin, take a Parivar-driven government in their stride but it is also their duty as Indians and as Muslims to mobilise the people to defend the secular State against the take-over and penetration by the Hindutva forces which represent only a fraction of the Hindu Indians.