How should you react when something you value is stolen? Once you overcome the initial bewilderment (Where is it?), curiosity (Who stole it? How?) and guilt (Was I careless?), you arrive at the all-important question: How do I reclaim it so as to not lose it again?

That is the question I would like to take away from the thoughtful response (‘Who stole my nationalism?’, IE, May 31) to my article (‘The nationalism we forgot’, IE, May 27) by Suhas Palshikar — my colleague, co-author and friend for three decades. His disagreements are constructive, as our starting point is the same. Suhas bhai puts it better than I did: It’s not just the backsliding of Indian nationalism, but the delegitimisation and resolute replacement by a phoney version based on the “narrow, vicious, macho and exclusionary European duplication of nationalism”. Therefore, reclaiming Indian nationalism is arguably the most critical priority for political action today.

Let me begin by accepting all the corrections that Suhas bhai suggests to my initial outline. Indeed, Indian nationalism was an audacious project, difficult to realise and even more difficult to sustain. Yes, the uniquely Indian version of “belonging without othering” always had its communal rivals in the Hindu and Muslim versions that copied the European models of national belonging via the “othering” of religious communities. Of course, we have not just forgotten our nationalism; it has been stolen by the RSS version of pseudo-nationalism.

That leaves only one serious disagreement. Suhas bhai thinks that I exaggerate the role of the tiny English speaking and deracinated elite in squandering the rich legacy of Indian nationalism. I still........

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