Not everyone agrees with this narrative. In a response to Apoorvanand’s piece in The Wire, writer Omair Ahmad argues that “The rhetoric of the hijacking of the 'Hindu mind' only promotes a form of bigoted suspicion of Hindus and gives a pass to Opposition parties for not fighting for core issues.”

There are fair arguments on both sides. Perhaps we can get a more nuanced picture by looking at survey data. There are two elements to this: