The Secularism of Fools
Recently, the renowned author Salman Rushdie was barred from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival. He was not permitted even to appear by video link. Rushdie therefore wrote: “India’s secularism is in truth a hypocrisy.” Before the crucial assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress party needed to establish itself as the “custodian of Muslim interests.” Hence, the ban on Rushdie. The threat did not come from religious fanatics wielding swords against free speech, but from the modern descendants of Jawaharlal Nehru — that patrician Indian who had once dug the very gutter of this counterfeit secularism. These power-hungry heirs now wielded the same gutter as their weapon. The sycophants declared that Rushdie’s presence in Jaipur might incite riots. But let us pause to recall: was it not the same political party that, during the Emergency, managed the “impossible task” of turning the entire nation into a prison? And yet, we are to believe that such a party could not mana...