The following reply to Samanth Subramaniun’s article yesterday in the Guardian.

Dear Samanth
Your article in the Guardian is peppered with innuendo and fake claims. You are mainly addressing a British audience hoping that it will create the impact you want suiting your ideology. Let us start with paragraphs you have written in your article.

Para 1
You talk about Hindu nationalist students attacking poor innocent left wing JNU students. In reality it is the left wing student who organised the attacks and the police have already named some individuals involved. The left wing students were forcibly preventing new enrolments putting in danger the career of hundreds of students.

Para 2
You accuse RSS of plotting riots, terrorism and the murder of Gandhi. None of this is true nor has the organisation been found guilty of any of these claims.

Para 3
You mention Citizenship Act which is designed to give citizenship of thousands of Hindus and members of Sikh and Christians who have been driven out from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. These countries are Muslim countries and so if they are persecuting their own people why should India have to grant them citizenship? If you were really honest you would write an article about the dire state of non Muslim minorities in these countries. You go on to claim that the Courts, Media and the election commission are all in the hands of the ruling party. This is a gross insult to these fiercely independent institutions.

Para 4
you complain that right wing groups use words like prestitute and sickular to describe some elements of the press and the liberal left. Well in a democracy these words are used, it does not mean that it is a sign of destruction of the constitution.You again come back to JNU and mourn the loss of support for the left organisations. That is a mark of failing left ideology all over the world.

Parar 5
You call the hanging of a Kashmiri terrorist as dubious. That shows where your sympathies are. You say JNU students never raised the slogans for break up of India-this has been confirmed universally.

Para 6
You question the plans to deport illegal migrants. Well it happens in the country you have made home and it happens in many countries. Every country has a right to secure its borders.

Para 7
You talk about Ayodhya where after a legalt battle lasting years the Courts have handed the land to Hindus. No majority in the world would have waited so long
for an icon of their faith denied to them. You talk of Kashmir. IT is an integral part of India. You have obviously forgotten the tens of thousands of Hindus who were driven out of the valley or perhaps it is irrelevant for you because they are Hindus. Again shows where your sympathies are.

USA has a majority Christian population and is proudly Christian it does not mean that non-Christians have no rights the same is true for UK so why do you find it so difficult that in a majority Hindu country the ethos and nuances of the majority should d be respected? The Muslim population of India has all the rights in India and the Citizenship bill has nothing to do with them at all. Samanth you can hope that your British and American readers will buy your story but the governments of these countries are wiser.

Nitin Mehta