Syed Shahnawaz Hussain’s interview in Arab News (Feb. 21) is an exposé in its own right. Thank you, Siraj Wahab, for keeping him up against the wall throughout the conversation. Wonderful questions were posed to the spokesman of a right-wing party that is responsible for polarizing and poisoning India’s secular polity.

Hussain was very blunt in his answers. He has always been this way. It is he who once said that those who want to eat beef should go to Pakistan. He is more radical than other members of his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He brazenly says there is peace in India. And despite all this sycophancy, he has been kept out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet.

Only the BJP and its spokesmen can make such a fallacious claim that there is “total and complete peace” in India. The fact of the matter is that India is missing the calm, cool-headed, secular and inclusive leadership of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

India is failing in every department — from social and democratic degradation to economic disorientation. If there is development, then it is in the prices of essential commodities. Dadri and JNU issues have created a negative image of the country around the world.