Sir — This refers to the editorial, “Insult to the nation” (May 11).
No words are adequate to condemn the utterly shocking behaviour of Bahujan Samaj Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq, who walked out of the House while Vande Mataram was being played. The minority community’s antipathy towards the National Song is known. But India, inhabited by people of varied faiths, can maintain its independence only if it stands united and is inspired by national sentiment — just like in United States, where every American, despite their ethnic identity, religion and culture, regards the country as his/her motherland.
The Russian Constitution says, ‘Defence of the socialist motherland is the sacred duty of every citizen, betrayal of the motherland is the greatest of the crimes against the people’. And the Chinese Constitution is equally emphatic about the ‘sacred duty of every citizen to defend their motherland’.
In Russia and China, the Muslim population is obliged to swear by the provisions of the Constitution without a demur. In Turkey, the erstwhile ruling party was called the ‘Motherland Party’. Any sane person would agree that, what is not anti-Islamic in a Muslim country cannot be anti-Islamic in India.