NEW DELHI -- India's secularism is in flames. The western Indian state of Gujarat, perhaps the most economically prosperous region in the entire country, has been in the midst of communal carnage for many weeks now. The majority Hindu population there has been systematically butchering members of the minority Muslim group in what is ironically considered "the land of peace."
It is in Gujarat that Mahatma Gandhi was born, the man who won India its independence from British rule in 1947 through nonviolence, which he chose to describe as ahimsa, a word coined thousands of years ago by Gautama Buddha. Gandhi's ashram pacifist colony stands to this day in Ahmedabad, the city that has been witnessing horrific brutality.
Just one incident is enough to highlight this. Last week, a Muslim woman on her eighth month of pregnancy was seized by a Hindu mob, her abdomen ripped open and her fetus scooped out and thrown into a fire.