The Bihar BJP leader Giriraj Singh’s blatant diatribe that those opposing Modi as India’s Prime Minister should go to Pakistan is a reflection of the Hindutva ideology. Though the taunt by Giriraj has caught the media attention as it has come from a senior politician, an average Muslim is faced with this kind of loathing since the BJP flared up the Ram Mandir – Babri Masjid issue in the early 1990s. Once I was traveling in a train with my family from Hyderabad to Delhi when the TTE allowed some men and women in their bikini dress into my ‘reserved first class coupe’ at the Agra station. When I tried to convince the TTE that the women members of my family are feeling discomfort to sit with the strangers who are in an objectionable dress – the official brashly replied that in that case I shall shift my family to Pakistan.
Syed Sultan Mohiddin
Kadapa (A.P)