Shekhar Gupta: The Shankaracharyas of the Liberal Peeth

Liberalism is to not set rules for others and insist they be followed. If you do, then you're an Ayatollah, pontiff or Shankaracharya

It would probably have been more apt if I had headlined this the Ayatollahs or Archbishops of the Liberal Pulpit. Because, for all the sermons they deliver, the Shankaracharyas do not issue fatwas or encyclical bulls. But you have to be careful these days. If I had done so, I’d risk being targeted by both, the conservatives of these faiths and the “liberals”, equally for profiling minorities. Better, therefore, to mess with my own fellow Hindus.
 
This argument, though, isn’t about any of these great faiths. I’m addressing the latest religion to emerge in the history of humankind (see,