Religion stands on tiptoe in our land Ready to pass to the American stand. – Herbert, the Church Militant L.235
The lines quoted above were written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but when we read them here in India today, the meaning spreads beyond the haze of the Protestant struggle in England. With hands in pocket it walks off to the lanes of Ayodhya and Godhra, still pock-marked with militant religiosity. The fear of Americanization, of being bulldozed into a cultural non-entity could have been one factor responsible for the onrush of fanatic assertions of ‘Main Hoon Na’. But this unipolar globalization is not the only factor responsible for the communal tension here in India. India claims to be secular, but is accused of either the feminization of minorities or of the appeasement of Muslims (with the vote bank in mind). When I say ‘feminization’, I actually want to say, and as a woman it is my perception, that minorities are treated in India as yet another baby-woman, but gone are the days when baby-women quietly surrendered to your stick and carrot policies!