'The alliance between the mullahs of the Wahhabi Al-e Shaikh and the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al-e Saud, is like the oppressive nexus between the Christian Church and the monarchy in medieval Europe. It is proving to be a curse for Muslims.'
An IB report says some 25,000 preachers of the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam came to India last year as visitors, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
The Intelligence Bureau has sounded alarm bells in a secret report about the growth of radical Wahhabi ideology across India.
'It is high time that the 'war on terror' is removed from our diplomatic toolbox.' 'Certainly, our parliamentarians have no role in it,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If JNU students are anti-national, why do we send in the police? Why not send in intellectuals like M V Kamath to have a debate and discussion?'
The United States has been successful in engaging with India on tracking money used by radical groups to penetrate into the country, the Barack Obama administration has said as it praised Indian Muslims for demonstrating a great deal of "resilience" against overtures by terrorist groups.
According to an IB report, preachers of the extreme Wahhabism form of Islam are trying to take over madrasas and masjids, which is a cause of deep concern, says Vicky Nanjappa
'Will this communal pendulum, which is swinging towards the extreme of division and violence, ever swing back to its position of the '60s and '70s within my lifetime?' 'Or will my children, and their children, have to continue to suffer the consequences of the country, that we all love, torn apart along communal lines,' asks Najid Hussain in anguish.
'We have seen in India that radical ideology has by and large not been successful in taking root.'
'Nobody is killing you in Kerala because you are Hindu unlike in North India where Muslims have been killed only because they are Muslims and were carrying some meat.'
125 Indians on watch-list, Intelligence Bureau agents tell Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The osmosis between Hinduism and Islam that really gave birth to the Hindustani or Indo-Islamic civilisation was due to the conversation between Muslim mystics and yogis.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf speaks to Haji Syed Salman Chisti, Gaddi Nashi, Dargah Ajmer Sharif, the hereditary custodian of the dargah and the 26th generation descendant of Khwaja Garib Nawaz (as the Pir is known) to understand the meaning and significance of the gesture.
'Modi has visited all these three countries (the UAE more than once, inexplicably) but has left out Kuwait and Oman, the two Gulf countries that are closest to India in their political, cultural and civilisational ethos,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'Once accession to Pakistan appeared unlikely, the British instituted Operations Gulmarg and Datta Khel respectively to foil possible accession to India.'
'The rise of IS and intolerant Wahabism are the real dangers to Indian democracy and pluralism, not the RSS,' says Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay.
Little has changed in Digital India. The issue that rocked the nation 100 years ago still creates a furore in Indian society, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The Saudis are in the driving seat in navigating the relations with India; they set its compass and calibrate its pace,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Not with standing the Western nations' zeal to wage a war against the group, unless its source of funding is known and curbed, its rampage will likely continue.
Armed forces and the police can only ensure that violence is kept under control but for any kind of lasting peace, politicians will have to find an answer to the perception that the Indian State is anti-Islam. Therein lies the biggest challenge to the Modi government, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retired).
Tarun Vijay visits 20 Durga Puja pandals in five towns in Bangladesh and comes back impressed.
The Al Qaeda, the Islamic State or Daesh, as it is also called, will continue to exploit the fault lines and the many contradictions in the approaches of different countries, says Hardeep Puri.
'Xi Jinping got a dose of Modi's medicine inside the tent where he was being hosted on the banks of the Sabarmati river.' 'Modi reportedly told him, looking deep into his eyes: "This was not expected of your country. Can you tell me when the troops are withdrawing?".'
'In India foreign policy is generally handled by the prime minister.' 'One can clearly see the Vajpayee stamp on all this.' 'Only a person with poetic imagination can weave such a complex web,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Even if I completely disagree with what Gulmehar says, I must, as a father, as an Indian, protect her rights and her dignity. Otherwise I am not entitled to be called an Indian, says Tarun Vijay.
A disparate global network of violent fundamentalist Islamic groups threatens India's eastern flank as much as the north and west with a real possibility of these spilling over into our borders, says Shyam Saran.
The time is over when United States President Barack Obama thought he could afford to make a joke about the ISIS.
'The Pakistan government, we were told, has a plan to renovate several Hindu temples and Buddhist sites, which over the years have fallen into disrepair. The aim is to create a pilgrimage circuit to attract visitors from all over the subcontinent.'
Anti-conversion laws are needed since thrusting the idea of a competitive battlefield of religion onto India's pluralistic traditions can only lead to greater communal conflict, says Sankrant Sanu
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