I read the Memorandum to Vajpayee by the American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin, published by
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/sep/17spec.htm repeatedly mentions their desire to uphold the Image of secular and democratic India. I see the fallacy of these statements when I read reasonings for not being able fulfill this desire. The rest of the letter is about the allegations about the offensive language and the actions against Muslim community of India carried out by Vajpayee himself and by his government to use for the excuse.
They seem to be always on the go for harvesting the out of context news headlines in certain Indian media which are so badly wounded by BJP victory that they still have not recovered from that shocking event. There is wind fall these excuses to harvest.
The Vajpayee Goa speech found very offensive by AFMIO, was really complements to Muslims of India being peacefully living with people of other faiths. I realized this only after I read the copy of THE WHOLE SPEECH. Out of context words of violent Muslims, really referred to the world news reports about non-peaceful Muslims in other countries. The message I received was that the world, while reading news about Muslim violence, should remember that the Muslims of India are different and are living peacefully. After 9/11 attacks, President Bush's speech about terrorism made us very proud. Vajpayee speech was also worth feeling proud about, because he informed the world about the peaceful nature of Indian Muslims.
About Shri Singhal's so called provocative statement about Gujarat being the experiment, please read Varsha Bhosle's Column on Rediff
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/sep/09varsha.htm and
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/sep/16varsha.htm
She did some investigation about the reports and she found out that what Shri Singhal really said couldn't be interpreted as what AFMIO did. Just like AFMIO uses Gujarat riots as example, he also was pointing out that if the CAUSE of Gujarat violence is not evaluated, and not corrected by the Government, it could happen again. Everybody including AFMIO points to Gujarat riots to make their point, why to distort the meaning when Singhal is saying??
For upholding the image of India, AFMIO must also understand that the riots were a spontaneous EFFECT of a ongoing non-stop CAUSE that is the Islamists' violence against Hindus. We all should feel proud that only in India a peace could prevail back again so quickly after riots.
The image of India will be tarnished if AFMIO keep reading the out of context headlines of Indian English media and if not try to use logic of skepticism in case of secular and democratic India.
…… Dahyabhai Patel