However, as a citizen of a fully secular state, I strongly object to Mr .Abrahams minorityist statement. I have never heard of minorityism either as … - Koenraad Elst

This way, Godse (born 1910) exacted ‘punishment’ for Gandhi’s alleged pro-Muslim policies. These were particularly his acceptance in June 1947 of the plan to partition India into a secular state, retaining the name India and a Muslim state called Pakistan; and more immediately his fast, earlier in January 1948, on behalf of the safety of the Delhi Muslims threatened by angry Hindu refugees pouring in from Pakistan, and in support of Pakistan’s demand that India pay them ₹550 million as their share from the treasury of British India. Under protest, the Indian Government had given in to the latter demand because of Gandhi’s pressure, and in spite of the presence of Pakistani invasion troops on Indian territory in Kashmir. Surely this was the first time in history that a country deliberately financed its battlefield opponent, and not everyone was pleased with this display of Gandhian values.

Congress PM Rajiv Gandhi thought he could handle this challenge, but the initiative was wrested from his hands by the secularist historians. With their shrill statements about “secularism in danger”, they raised the stakes enormously. The rest is history.

Rajaram’s remark that scholars often treat mere hypotheses (esp. those proposed by famous colleagues) as facts, as solid data capable of overruling other hypotheses and even inconvenient new data, is definitely valid for much of the humanities. But then, while some linguists have sometimes fallen short of the scientific standard by thus relying on authority, it doesn’t follow that linguistics is a pseudo- science.