Perhaps His Excellency was alluding to the fact that India has a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister, and therefore, qualifies as an epitome of what secularism should be. I a wonder whether he remembers Graham Staines - the Australian missionary in India who in 1999, along with his two children aged 7 & 9, were burnt alive while they were sleeping in their car by a group of "Hindutva" zealots. I wonder whether he would like to discuss the Gujarat riots or the plight of the 150 million Dalits (untouchables) in India.

The High Commissioner's remarks should not be taken lightly. Relegating them to a faux pas, or a one-off event, a diplomatic gaffe would be an egregious folly.

Thankfully, the Prime Minister of India is not blind, and in December 2006 he admitted that , "Untouchability ( in India)" remains a "blot on humanity".

Hon'ble High Commissioner, if secularism means having a belligerent and xenophobic attitude towards all of your eight neighbouring countries, then yes, we need to learn from India. If secularism means having a right wing Hindu nationalist political party like the BJP holding 22% of seats in the parliament (as opposed to the Jamaat with less than 04% in our erstwhile parliament), then yes, we need to learn about secularism from India.

On a serious note, India has many wonderful things to offer to the world, but for now, secularism is not one of them.

A few days ago, the High Commissioner of India said in a press conference that Bangladesh should follow his country's secularism.

Within one week, we saw in the newspaper that thousands of lower-caste Hindus in India converted to Buddhism.

Now I would like to ask the Honourable High Commissioner: what kind of message does it send? I am requesting them to assess their own standard of secularism.

Adnan Mursalin, On e-mail