As a citizen, I wonder at your political compulsion in elevating Mr. Arun Shourie to the Ministership, as if nomination to the Rajya Sabha was not an adequate reward for the vast contribution he has made to the RSS mission by vilifying the religious minorities, bringing them down in the eyes of the majority community, widening the gulf of mutual distrust and suspicion and, thus, vitiating the social environment in the country Mr. Shourie has attributed motives to the Christian missionaries and questioned their faith. He has vilified the Muslim Ulema and mocked at Muslim's faith in the Holy Quran. He has accused the Dalits of 'worshiping false gods'. He has questioned the motive and standing of eminent historians and thus provided tactical support for the Sangh Parivar's objective of saffronisation of history books. He has tried to redefine secularism to suit the philosophy of Hindutva. Mr. Shourie has made an enormous contribution, under the garb of scholarship, to put the religious minorities, as it were, in their place and to tell then where they stand. Mr. Shourie has played to the gallery; one cannot credit him with promoting mutual understanding or contributing to academic discourse.

Mr. Shourie may be considered an intellectual giant by his admirers but as an individual he is persona non grata with the religious minorities and the secular intelligentsia. Such a controversial person is totally unfit to be a Minister.

Yet, you have chosen him - perhaps deliberately. By so doing, your Government has identified itself with his views and approach which rubbishes everything the religious minorities, the dalits and those committed to secularism hold dear and sacred.

The inclusion of Mr. Arun Shourie in the Council of Ministers is yet another evidence of the current of anti- minorityism which permeates through the mind and structure of the BJP-led Government. I wish you had not.