If you vociferously support the right to draw Mohammed cartoons in France but go nuts if someone draws a “disrespectful” cartoon of the Goddess Kali, then you aren’t a warrior for free speech. You’re merely a Muslim-bashing Hindu supremacist. 1/n

Defining feature of Hindu Right: apply French standards of free speech to figures held sacred by Muslims, but apply Saudi Arabian standards when it comes to Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Response to Mohammed cartoon: Go Enlightenment! Response to Ram cartoon: Go directly to jail! 2/n

This double standard should not surprise us. Many (perhaps most) people feel a greater attachment to—and show greater respect for—their own sacred symbols than they do to those of other faiths. It may be part of the human condition. 3/n

The problem arises only when you pretend to argue for Enlightenment values while in fact you’re completely opposed to exactly those values when applied to your own society. 4/n

Personally I find most people who spend all their time attacking religion (any religion) childish, and often tasteless as well. In my work I criticize the extreme political expressions of faith, but not faith itself. (In part because I’m not qualified to judge.) 5/n

But I realize that I benefit from living in a society that safeguards the freedom to offend religious sensibilities. That is the right that Macron is standing up for in France. It’s worth defending, and possible to defend while being personally respectful of (all) religions. 6/6

Common Hindu Right response to this thread: “We’re better than Islamic State!” My view: 1. True that unlike Islamists Hindutva fans are generally non-violent in the West. 2. That’s an extremely low bar. 3. In India, zealots do murder people for “blasphemy”—e.g. for killing a cow.