The Blog

At the risk of being hit over by NDTV’s legal team, let me add a disclaimer. I am not attacking Barkha Dutt. These are questons I have for Barkha Dutt after seeing the “We the people” on August 30th, 2009.

For sometime I have noticed (and this might be a perception I have and if it is wrong, I would like you to correct it), that you seem to be anti hindu. Not directly, but in very subtle sense. Is it something subconscious? Why?

When you were talking about Ayesha (I hope I get the name right), you protected her right to wear a hijab/scarf, but you did not mention that the pressure was brought in by other students who wanted to wear saffron. If she is allowed to wear a hijab, then why are hindu students who wanted to wear saffron right wing fundamentalists?

The next question, why do we not have you looking at real religious problems. Why have a seperate set of laws for muslims and hindus? Why are we not looking at a uniform civil code? Why not look at actually protecting women’s rights? Look at equality, look at progress irrespective of the religion. Why do we want to be held back by religion?

Then a question that I have to ask, which is not aimed at you specifically, but is one that I have had for a number of years. Why is it if I talk about minorities and protecting their right to practice their religion, I am a secularist, but if I talk about my religion (and I belong to the majority religion, but I am not a follower of it to the extent most others are), and protecting my right to practice my religion, it is fundamentalist? Why do I feel that having a debate about religion defending the majority is taboo, and only for fundamentalists? Why has this environment been created?

I am done for now, and hopefully I won’t be forced to take this down

EDIT: Spelling errors corrected. Thanks to tunafish for pointing it out.