Sindh has been destroyed by the Urdu speaking people who arrived from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and took over its capital where Sindhi is not spoken an… - Tarek Fatah

Pakistan is a living testament to the bankrupt idea of an Islamic State.

But that is not my concern. My concern is that slowly the Arabisation of Indian Muslims is taking place, and of all the places in Kerala. But what is very fortunate is that Arabic will not be accepted by any self-respecting Malayalam speaking Muslim. Even the radicalisation of the Tamil Muslims is part of the same phenomenon. But then there is not one Muslim community in India. The Kashmiri Muslims are a completely separate issue than the Uttar Pradesh Muslims, who are very different from Kerala’s Muslims, who in turn are completely different from West Bengal’s Muslims. Therefore, in some ways you can’t say there is a Muslim community. That definition should not be used. As there are multiple Indian Muslims, so this label is ridiculous. Like when I use it, I associate it more with the Uttar Pradesh Muslims. Your president was a Tamil Muslim completely at odds with the clerical elite.

I don’t think it is a controversy. It is a non-issue that stems out of several backgrounds. Too many temples have been destroyed for anyone to cry about a mosque. It was a reaction to a pent up emotion that can blow up anytime. You can’t expect people to forget 700 years of subjugation overnight and expect a rational reaction when no one has as yet admitted that they or their forefathers were wrong. Even now every history book I read tries to justify that the Islamic rule wasn’t so bad after all. There is no major admission that there was apartheid for 700 years. There was a law that allowed you to spit into the mouth of an untouchable, even if he were a Muslim. And even Indian Muslims used to pay jizya to Arabs.