A Bajrang Dal activist is hacked to death in Moodbidri in coastal Karnataka allegedly by a group of Muslim beef traders and the story gathers little traction. In Dadri, Mohammad Akhlaq’s brutal killing has dominated the news. When Taslima Nasrin is assaulted by MIM activists in Hyderabad, there is scarcely a prime time debate. When Sudheendra Kulkarni is doused with black ink by the Shiv Sena, there is an outcry. “Selective outrage!”shout the internet Hindus and even BJP functionaries. The accusation is repeatedly made: the liberal Indian is pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu.

Does the accusation really hold? Can Moodbidri really be compared to Dadri? A Bajrang Dal activist’s conflict with a local “beef mafia” looks more like a vicious political gang war compared to the dastardly killing of an innocent elderly man in Dadri. Any murder though is unacceptable; so is there a “secular silence” when the victim is a Hindu, even if he is a Hindutva political activist?

The Hindu right believes India’s secular tradition is one of Muslim “appeasement”. Yet the appeasement argument is deeply flawed. As the Sachar report a few years ago highlighted, the average Muslim is falling behind in most social and economic parameters. If appeasement is granting a Haj subsidy or benefits to a madrassa, then frankly this has made no difference to the lives of ordinary Muslims.

And yet, the question is asked, if a subsidy is given to Haj, then why not to a Vaishno Devi yatra? Once again the Hindu right fails to note how many Muslims, including the fiery Syed Shahabuddin, have spoken out openly against Haj subsidy. Hasn’t Javed Akhtar repeatedly mocked Islamic fatwas? Haven’t feminists spoken in favour of Uniform Civil Code on grounds of gender justice? Did almost the entire country not rally for a Hindu woman, Nirbhaya?

The Indian state’s partiality towards minority rights was the direct consequence of Partition. Pakistan opted for an Islamic state, India repudiated the very idea of a religious state. The Nehruvian secular mission was to resist a “Hindu Pakistan” or a Hindu Rashtra by asserting that religious minorities must feel a sense of equal citizenship in India. Sadly, those ideals degenerated into the vote bank politics of the Indira-Rajiv years. Then, whether it be the Shah Bano judgment or opening the gates of Babri Masjid, the Congress played communal politics on both sides, seeking political and religious solutions where the solutions lay in fact in upholding the law.

Those years haunt today’s politics and they provided an opportunity for LK Advani to first coin a lexicon — ‘pseudo secularism’, ‘minority appeasement’ — that pointed to this distorted secularism. However to virtually tar the entire secular liberal class for the failures of Congress politicians is a grave injustice. During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, many journalists and human rights activists exposed the murderous intent of Congress-led mobs. These same voices challenged the manner in which the Rajiv Gandhi government buckled to pressure and banned Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses or denied justice to a poor Muslim woman from Bhopal. The same voices campaigned against the Hashimpura massacre, again under the watch of a Congress government.

Liberals have spoken out for Dalits, gays, women and tribals whenever crimes have been committed. The same Teesta Setalvad who campaigned for victims of 2002 also exposed the partisan Mumbai police during the 1992-93 riots when Congress ruled Maharashtra. When Nasrin was hounded out of Bengal, yes, a few Bengali left intellectuals did cave in meekly, but many others openly supported her, including Arundhati Roy. When Rushdie was prevented from attending a lit fest, a group of authors read out his works at the fest as a riposte to the Islamist zealots.

Those who argue that Muslim fundamentalists are treated with kid gloves must not forget that no rightwing politician — be it the late Bal Thackeray or a Pravin Togadia — has ever spent extended periods in jail despite their incendiary speeches. So exactly who is being “appeased” here? The truth is, secular politics gets discredited not only because it has pussy-footed with Islamic militant groups, but because it has not rejected Hindu extremism unequivocally enough. This has given space to the so-called fringe groups to slowly acquire greater appeal, resulting in the growing clout of pseudo-nationalists.

The you-have-no-right-to-protest-because-you-are- selective line is nothing but an attempt to muzzle freedom. The real challenge is not political favouritism towards minorities, it is to ensure the law applies evenly to all religious groups. Throw the law book at those responsible for Dadri and for Moodbidri. Whether we like to admit it or not, “liberalism” in India goes back to the Upanishads, the Buddha and Kabir and is a far older tradition than a mere few decades of Hindutva politics and its imitation of Islamic extremism.