Defending Secularism

of Congress' (April 4-10) to our election- eve appeal 'Vote to Defeat BJP' (February 28-March 6) makes interesting reading insofar as it does closely echo the theory of "equidistance from the twin dangers" propagated mainly by the various sections of the (preand post-election) United Front including segments of both the Left and non- Left parties and recapitulates some of the major arguments meant to prop up this theory. The theory itself, however, remains a dark and uncanny reminder of similar theories dished out between the mid-1920s and the mid1930s equating the Social Democrats in Germany with the Nazis led by Hitler, By now it has come to be generally accepted that this theory played not an insignificant part in the successful emergence of German fascism in the early 1930s with extremely traumatic consequences for the German people (and the rest of the world as well).