By
S Gurumurthy
16th July 2013 07:27 AM
I am nationalist. I’m patriotic. Nothing is wrong. I am
born Hindu. Nothing is wrong. So I’m a Hindu nationalist. So
yes, you can say I’m a Hindu nationalist because I’m a born
Hindu,” The moment Narendra Modi said this in his interview
to Reuters last week, the secular hounds set upon him.
One of the secular hounds is Salman Kurshid, India’s
External Affairs Minister. First, Khurshid being a Muslim,
his secular credential is presumed. But, he has more claims
to be secular. In the Indian political theatre just as
hounding Modi is sufficient to prove one’s secular
credential, admiring him is adequate to prove the lack of
it. When Khurshid was chief of the Congress in UP, he
defended the Islamic terrorist outfit Students Islamic
Movement of India [SIMI] - reincarnated later as Indian
Mujhahideen - as peace-loving lads, arguing as its counsel
in courts. This was in 2001.
