Being placed on a high pedestal is central to both strategies. Criticism also evokes a similar reaction in both sides – they quickly declare themselv… - Koenraad Elst

I was scheduled to do a debate with Prof. Chetan Bhatt.... But when he heard that the other panellist would be me, a known critic of the whole notion of secularism, he told the organizers that something had come up and he couldn't be there. ... how scared the secularists must be of facing an actual dissident. Perhaps it is that decades of unchallenged hegemony have made them weak.

We could say that Hindus are multicultural at heart, or open-minded. But that quality didn’t get rewarded, except with a betrayal by their Muslim regiments during the battle of Talikota (1565): they defected to the enemy, in which they recognized fellow-Muslims. When the chips were down, Hindu open-mindedness and syncretism were powerless against their heartfelt belief in Islamic solidarity. In September 2012, Dalrymple went to Hyderabad to praise the city and its erstwhile Muslim dynasty as a centre of Hindu-Muslim syncretism; but fact is that after Partition, the ruler of Hyderabad opted for Pakistan, against multicultural India. When the chips are down, secular superficiality is no match for hard-headed orthodoxy.

A Sikh youth writes to the editor, lamenting yet another case of a girl trapped in a Muslim marriage and about to be taken to Pakistan: "It seems to be fashionable amongst some misguided members of our com­munity to think that the Muslims aren't really out to convert and brain­wash young Sikh and Hindu schoolgirls. They think that all these Sikh-Muslim fights are about young hotheads and extremists just out to cause trouble.(...) What I want to know is what these people are going to do about this schoolgirl. Is their idle chit-chat about Asian unity going to return her to her family? (...) Brothers and sisters, don't take anybody's word for it but see for yourself what the Muslims are doing to us.(...) Just talk to the schoolboys who have been bullied and terrorised for years by Muslim gangs. Just talk to schoolgirls whom the Muslims have threatened with rape. Just talk to the parents of Sikh and Hindu girls who have run off and converted.(...) These problems are real and becom­ing worse.(...) time is not on our side and the number of Sikh and Hindu schoolgirls who are running away and converting is increasing each day."