The ‘I Love Muhammad’ campaign is assertion disguised as devotion. Such a conclusion may rankle the organisers, but truth often does. Piety by itself does not provoke unless accompanied by violence, and sadly, that has been a hallmark of this unprecedented mass mobilisation of Muslims under one banner.

Advocates of the campaign argue that protesters were driven to violence by the state, which allegedly denied them the right to hold rallies in support of their religious icon. “If Jai Shri Ram rallies are allowed, why are we being discriminated against?" is the common lament.

On the face of it, this sounds like a reasonable question. Yet, there is no real equivalence between ‘I Love Muhammad’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

On the........

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