This article was published in HuffPost India on 20 Feb 2016. Here is the link.

Following is an excerpt:

With respect to the current issue of ‘anti-India’ words, I find it absurd that some citizens believe India can even be insulted, that too by a bunch of overzealous university youths. If there is anything insulting, it is this foolish belief that a culture and civilization as great as India’s is capable of being insulted. You cannot insult Sholay or Schindler’s List, or Lata Mangeshkar’s voice, or Sahir Ludhianvi’s poetry. You can certainly hurl abuse at them, but the great thing about great things is that they are enveloped by such a glowing aura of greatness that any abuse thrown at them burns and turns to ashes before it can reach them. The same applies to India; and this is common sense, not rocket science. When I first read that ‘anti-India’ (whatever that means) slogans were yelled somewhere, I was only amused, and did not feel that the matter would snowball into the needless national crisis it later became. In the thick pervasive stench of hyper-nationalism, perhaps many of us are failing to recognize the faint fragrance of common sense.