We live in such times that we must listen intently to others' opinions, if we are to call ourselves educated. Reading this 1400+-word opinion- “I’m an Indian Muslim, and I’m Scared to Say So” in the 5/26 edition of the NY Times, I respect the opinion of Mr. M. Ali. As I also divide my time between New York and India, here is my opinion to balance his.

I used to answer the phone with Hello and say Amen and avoid wearing a tikka on my forehead after my sister wrote her thesis on the racist Dotbusters campaign in New Jersey. Not anymore. I am finally able to let people see that I am Hindu.

There is little that would identify me as Hindu to begin with, aside from my name. I don’t wear a bindi, and in public, I mostly avoid wearing saris and peppering my speech with Sanskrit words, all of which are identity markers for Hindus, now known as "Bhakt" if we support the ability to voice our worldview. With the world changing over the past decade due to India's repeated election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I can finally take the chance to discuss the ancient culture and wisdom of Bharat, and call it Bharat (named in the first line of the constitution of the Republic of India).

As a Fulbright scholar in medical sciences and public health, I moved to Varanasi in 2013 and saw the way things worked. Suddenly within a year, Mr. Modi and the BJP won the national election and set about restoring history to include indigenous knowledge and memory of people who lived through the past century's debacles of mistreatment.

The government finally made movements of reparation from 200 years of oppression from the British and 500 years from the Islamic armies in north and east Bharat. Hindus lived on their own land as slaves for centuries suffering unspeakable violence and disrespect, and it continues today when there are large numbers of people from either of those populations.

Modi is not "Hindu-chauvinist" as Mr. Ali accuses in his editorial piece. Modi is a member of a government elected democratically in which hundreds of thousands of government officials at each level want to see freedom of expression for the people who lived on this land for 30,000 years, that number according to abundant archaeological evidence. Modi is empowered by the majority who are demanding their voices restored.

In fact, people of all religions are welcome to live in India, and the atmosphere of multi-religious tolerance is far more tolerant than in most Western countries or the Middle East. The current Indian government has NOT vilified the "nation’s 200 million Muslims as dangerous undesirables" but rather set up support for Hindus to be able to live without fear of violence in their own land.

For example, LG Manoj Sinha has restored 10s of 1000s of Hindu temples that were decimated by Muslims since they forcibly took Kashmir in the 1940s. Is that discrimination against Muslims? Modi has cleaned up streets in Muslim-predominant neighbourhoods in several cities where I have personally seen Muslims slaughtering animals and dripping blood into the gutters. Vegetarians in America protest such actions, and the government supports the right to demand non-violence. Modi has protected cows from frightful mistreatment. Is that discrimination against Muslims or restoration of respect for animals?

When anyone refers to any group as “infiltrators,” whether in New York, Israel, or India, I agree with Mr. Ali that it is narrow-minded, but it does not follow that [Modi] "and his followers seek to turn into a pure Hindu state." Hindus are highly respectful -- for thousands of years -- toward all who seek spiritual life in all forms.

The six weeks of voting in India’s national elections — the largest democratic exercise in the known history of the world – will decide whether Modi and his team will win a third consecutive five-year term.

And, as offended as Mr. Ali was, it is sadly familiar to Indian Hindus like me who — after a lifetime of denigration, violence and murder living in daily fear of being identified as Brahmin and having been attacked by Muslims in several cities in the Gandhi dynasty's India, finally feel free to be Hindu, to wear my bindi as my Air India flight lands in Delhi, and to recite mantras.

My parents were forced to flee to America and live in self-denial to protect us in the USA. We even considered changing our names as many do, to secretly protect our Hindu lineage.

India is home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations because Hindus have been tolerant and sometimes retaliative of the incessant violence. Islam penetrated India around 1,300 years ago, and Indian Muslims descend from natives of India who were largely forced to convert to Islam centuries ago. The great scholar-musical guru to today's greatest artists Allaudin Khan was Sengupta and forced to convert, as was the talented AR Rahman. Many Indian Muslims fought against British colonisation but many appeased them also and allowed them to penetrate in order to enjoy the spoils of Hindu slavery.

Millions of Muslims also rejected the 1947 partition of the country into a predominantly Hindu India and a mostly Muslim Pakistan because it was in their self-interest. India is now both a Hindu and Muslim home, as well as a home for Jains, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and people of a dozen other faiths and worldviews. Those who protect India and are proud patriots are welcome to live in the great land of the subcontinent.

The violence against Hindus is what is being stopped.

It is not a Modi Hindu nationalism, but a reparation by Hindus who finally have government support to take back their dignity from centuries of humiliation. If that makes Mr. Ali feel he has been "made ... the targets in what might be the largest radicalisation of people on the planet," it is time to consider what being stripped of uncensored privilege feels like.

For 150 years, masjids and churches have received exemptions and support that mandirs do not; reversing this may feel like discrimination, but is it just a restoration of fairness?

In 1925 the RSS was founded to encourage people to support Hindu values, much as a madrasa teaches the values of Islam, or a kibbutz teaches Jewish values. Is that a right-wing activity, and should madrasas be targeted with the language that Mr. Ali swings at the RSS?

Mr. Modi is a proclaimed god-king by Mr. Ali, just as Obama was for all black Americans who saw the symbolic freedom of their ancestors by a half-black man at the helm of the White House.

If there is islamophobia in India and Muslims face prejudice and recurring violence, it is a backlash by Hindu descendants who saw their elders tortured. It is inexcusable and needs education, just as all ignorance requires. But Mr. Ali calling Modi a right-wing leader with hatred of Muslims and the "mob rule" of the "hubristic Hindu majority" is echoing the same discriminative banter with his journalistic pen that he is afraid of.

Police who stood by as Hindus attacked Muslims, also stood by when Muslims attacked Hindus because they wanted to go home at night. Claiming himself a religious minority, does Mr. Ali examine the unpunished crimes of Muslims similarly? Is he as critical of Muslim extremists as he is of Hindu extremists?

Genocide continues among all religious gangs who fight in the name of religion for their right to dominate. His editorial - published without censor or balance by the NY Times - states "the risk of having a Hindu mob unleashed on you," and the detest of the "liberal upper-caste Hindu elite."

The citizenship law of 2019 to which he referred gave priority to minority populations seeking to emigrate from Islamic countries that discriminated violently against them, in which Muslims had no risk. Indian Muslims protested because they wanted the benefits of being a minority population, without discussing the violent discrimination in Muslim countries that provoked the law. Their outcry and violent speech against Hindus sparked further violence, but they then sat quietly as victims. Understanding and discussing the law clearly does not build his argument so he remained silent.

Bulldozers have been used, yes, to remove illegal housing and encroachment. In Varanasi, this did occur, and the mandir that had been mutilated was restored. Of course, it was disliked by all who lived there, not only Muslims.

Mr. Ali goes further to discuss Muslim-Hindu relationships. He discusses "absurd Hindu conspiracy theory" but never examines his own bias. He might read my opinion as "lost Hindu tolerance" by a member of the "liberal Hindu elite" without knowing anything about my work or experiences.

What he does not offer is facts about the Indian Muslims within the political system who are working to effect change in a fair and unbiased way, for the good of the nation. He infers that the percentage of Muslim Parliament members has declined to less than 5 percent today, compared with 9 percent in the early 1980s, but seems to blame that on Modi as well!

Where are the 14% of Muslims who might elect someone fairly to represent them at the local or state level? The deafening silence of Indian Muslims should certainly be examined, but of course, if more than half of the population - the men - will be vocal and articulate.

Mr. Ali is clearly fighting "historical revisionism" and seems to think Hindus should continue to meekly accept dehumanisation, humiliation and have no right to reclaim Hindu ways of life.

Did he protest when statues of Confederates were taken down in the USA? Did he speak up when Jews wanted compensation for the abuses done to them by Europeans 90 years ago?

In a country where 970 million humans are voting this month, does the majority have a voice, and if they do, is it a debasement of all minorities? He does not want to live according to the laws made by the people unless laws that comfort him are the ones that are followed.

The statement about not appearing Muslim and fearing Hindus amplifies itself - putting people into a category of anticipated violence begets violence from those who still live in fear of Muslims because right-wing vocal Muslims who profile Hindus amplify their defensiveness and triggers and "precautions to protect yourself."

Protection by the law requires understanding and cooperation. It requires education and a united effort against ignorance. And it requires a different voice of confrontation. Mr. Ali "has something embedded in [a] sense of self and expression that is particularly painful to erase." He laments his need to examine his choices.

When he moved to New York and had to make changes, did he write an editorial in the NY Times to protest his feelings of lament, self-denial and deep frustration? Did he find it difficult to avoid discussing politics with white people who think the Taj Mahal is an ancient temple? The elephant in the room is the double standard that America can be racist and white, with black incarcerations, police brutality and child trafficking and be quietly enjoyed, while India is led today by a "Hindu-chauvinist."

His helplessness goes far beyond being a minority in India while he lives here and enjoys freedom in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Each of us living as educated New Yorkers in the cosmopolitan opportunistic milieu we are part of – needs to consider why Americans have the right to be where it is after decimating the native people of the land just 250 years ago. But the Republic of India does not have the right to decide to restore the pillars of a continuously practiced, unbroken lineage of traditions going back 10s of thousands of years.

As a writer supportive of the "Indian ideals of secular democracy," Mr. Ali is encouraged to remember that democracy means the say of the people. He must stay in India and use his abundant skills to heal his mental health and the health of those in the community, not as a minority but as a member of the community. Education and acceptance are required to survive in America, so why not in India?

Targetting upper-caste Hindus in his editorial, Mr. Ali quietly shows the danger of categorising people into categories. There is no safety when attacking and profiling people, refusing to consider them as individuals.

If Hindu friends and colleagues of his "have become colder and more distant and are dropping out of contact," one must consider whether his hubristic language in this piece of writing supports conversation and friendship. Of note, Muslims and Hindus lived happily in "mixed neighbourhoods" for decades until the partition-makers came through and threatened everyone's house and home in north India. We need time in India for people to reintegrate and forgive the violence of past generations. And we need to be part of the movement, not miseducating people by profiling Hindus.

Image source: News24