The worst thing one could say about the Hindu nationalist charges was that they were true. By departing from equality before the law and universal principles, Gandhi had left India with no argument against sectarianism in whatever form it came. Hindu sectarians saw an opening and poured through it. They told the mass of Indians that they remain the victims not only of their former Muslim conquerors but of the former British conquerors too. The Raj's final imposition on India was to indoctrinate Nehru and his anglicised, British-educated contemporaries with alien ideas about the need for a democratic and secular constitution, they maintained. Like militant Islamists and so many pseudo-leftist Western academics, Hindutva nationalists damned human rights, including the right to free expression, as colonial impositions.

Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena's leader, showed where the rejection of secularism led, in one of his many declarations of admiration for that ultimate cultural relativist, Adolf Hitler. He announced that Hindus must "shake off their stupor" and consider protecting their civilisation and culture. "If telling it like it is makes one a Nazi, I say: Fine, better that than the spineless, deaf, dumb, numb and blind state exalted as Nehruvian secularism. I wouldn't even spit on it." 

Thackeray and the many Hindutva politicians like him insisted that Hindus were put upon and cozened. To end the injustice, they must free themselves from their former oppressors and become a force the world must reckon with. 

Hence the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque, allegedly built by the conquering Mughals in the 16th century on the site of a Hindu temple, and the slaughter of thousands in the communal riots that followed. Hence the threats to the lives of historians who say that India has always been an amalgam of cultures, religions and ethnicities, or point out that some Hindu princes were as keen on sacking Hindu temples as the Mughal invaders were. And hence the campaign to persecute Husain.

As soon as Shiv Sena filed lawsuits against him, Husain had to absent himself from a celebration in the city of the Progressive Artists Group. If he had attended, the police would have arrested him for "disturbing communal harmony" — and there was a chance a religious mob might have killed him too. A group of young artists unfurled a banner at the party saying, "Husain, we miss you", but other guests were unimpressed when a Western collector insisted that they speak out on Husain's behalf. "Why doesn't he understand?" said one artist's husband. "This is like asking us to speak out in Berlin in 1936."