I am very happy to learn that today, October 22, is your 62nd birthday. Please accept my heartiest greetings on this happy occasion. May God grant you the wisdom, discernment and sense of responsibility required to discharge your duties as the Home Minister of this great nation.

Since you are a Jain, I presume you are familiar with the religious significance associated with the number 62. In Jain universal history, as narrated in the Mahapurana, this number is discussed in relation to the 63 illustrious personalities, comprising the 24 Tirthankaras, 12 Chakravartins, nine Balabhadras, nine Vasudevas and nine Prativasudevas.

I also understand that you identify more closely with Hinduism than with Jainism. Here, too, the number 62 has an association with ancient Indian religious thought. You may have heard of the 62 heterodox views. During the post-Vedic period, an intellectual ferment produced numerous schools of thought that challenged the authority of the Vedas and the dominance of Brahminical rituals.

Jainism and Buddhism emerged from this wider tradition, profoundly transforming India's religious landscape and influencing the development of ideas such as ahimsa and samsara in the subcontinent's spiritual traditions.

I have read that you became a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and that your worldview was shaped by its teachings and its prayer, Namaste Sada Vatsale Punya Bhoome, rather than by Jana Gana Mana, Vande Mataram and other symbols that unite all Indians.

I recently watched a video of you flagging off a new train. A state minister offered you a saffron flag to inaugurate its maiden journey. You were quick to recognise the impropriety and asked for the national tricolour instead. Your intervention was commendable. But I could not help wondering why the national flag or a green flag had not been the obvious choice from the beginning.

On October 20, the country celebrated Vijayadashami. On the occasion, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat delivered a speech in Nagpur marking the conclusion of the organisation's centenary celebrations. Did it ever occur to you to ask why, during the RSS's hundred-year history, no non-Brahmin has become its chief, with the possible exception of Rajendra Singh, popularly known as Rajju Bhaiya, who belonged to the Rajput community?

You have a colleague in the Union Cabinet, Suresh Gopi, who was elected from Thrissur in Kerala, home to the celebrated Vadakkumnathan Temple, also known as Dakshina Kailasa. I was rather shocked when he publicly expressed the wish to be reborn as a Brahmin. Why should anyone aspire to be born into a particular caste in a society that professes equality?

To be frank, I had no intention of writing to you today. My original plan was to compare two speeches Bhagwat delivered in Mumbai and Nagpur.
On August 6, addressing nearly 2,000 students from more than 100 cities at a facility owned by the Ambani family in Mumbai, Bhagwat adopted an unusually conciliatory tone. He sought to understand the younger generation. He declared that he would "trust Gen Z blindly." More significantly, he insisted that students participating in agitations or questioning authority should not automatically be branded anti-national.
The Nagpur speech struck a different note. Bhagwat warned of a "storm from the West" threatening traditional cultural and human values. I wanted to highlight this contradiction: an invitation to dialogue when addressing the young, but a warning against dissent when speaking to the faithful.

It reminded me of an 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It explores the duality of human nature through a man whose conflicting personalities represent two very different sides of himself. Bhagwat's contrasting messages seemed to suggest a similar duality. Another subject I considered was the sudden surfacing of a picture of Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri with Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, let me confess. I changed my original plan when I watched a short video clip of a speech you made, apparently on October 21, which was telecast by a Malayalam news channel. You declared that the Congress would not return to power for the next 30 years. I thought you believed in the invincibility of the SIR process.

The manner in which you made this assertion was striking. Your anger and desperation were apparent. You looked like a gladiator preparing for combat, determined to overpower an adversary rather than persuade an audience. I wondered why such aggression was necessary.

I have listened to several outstanding speakers, including Swami Ranganathananda, whose name LK Advani invoked on an occasion that landed him in trouble, as you may well remember; Mannath Padmanabhan, the founder of the Nair Service Society; and Juhanon Mar Thoma, who wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi to protest against the Emergency.

They could hold an audience through the power of their arguments and the composure of their delivery. Their strength lay in calmness, not in theatrical gestures. I lost count of the number of times you pointed your forefinger at your audience in that brief clip. By the way, political fortunes are rarely governed by the certainty of those who proclaim them.

You also explained the basis of your confidence: "I live in India and I will die in India. I don't go abroad once in six months like someone else does."
First, staying in India is not, by itself, a great virtue for a public figure. Nor does travelling abroad diminish one's patriotism. Recently, Bhagwat himself travelled to the United States and Britain. A person's commitment to the country should be judged by the quality of his service, not by the number of international trips he makes.

Perhaps you have not had the opportunity to read Francis Bacon, one of the great English essayists. In his essay "Of Travel," published in 1597, Bacon explains how travel can educate the young and enrich the experience of the old. He advises travellers to observe foreign societies carefully, study their institutions and customs, and learn from what they encounter. Among his recommendations is that travellers should sometimes distance themselves from their compatriots to gain a deeper understanding of the places they visit.

I presume your remark was directed at Rahul Gandhi, who, you alleged, goes abroad once every six months. That is hardly an extraordinary frequency of travel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, has undertaken over a hundred foreign visits since assuming office in May 2014.

Yet, look at what happened when India launched Operation Sindoor. It did not receive the broad international support your government might have expected. Apart from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, there was little unequivocal support even from India's neighbours. There is another irony.

Contrary to Bacon's advice about immersing oneself in foreign societies, Modi often meets people of Indian origin during his overseas visits. Indian embassies have perfected the art of assembling expatriate Indians for such events. Who can resist a plate of dhokla and samosas, two delicacies that have become fixtures at these gatherings?

At a time when your government is building new international airports, it is hardly a mark of distinction for the Home Minister to suggest that remaining within India's borders is evidence of superior patriotism. As an aside, I have visited more than 50 countries, yet I have always enjoyed returning home. Travel has strengthened, not diminished, my attachment to India.

The last two countries I visited were Sri Lanka and Nepal. One has a predominantly Buddhist cultural heritage, while the other has deep Hindu traditions. I was impressed by the cleanliness of its roads and water bodies. In Nepal, I noticed how people observed traffic rules. More strikingly, I did not see cows or calves wandering on the roads.

New Delhi, by contrast, has earned the unenviable reputation of being one of the most barricaded cities in the world. Heaps of garbage can be found in various corners. You should travel abroad more often, not merely to attend official meetings or meet expatriate Indians, but to learn how other societies maintain cleanliness, discipline and civic responsibility.

Your attitude reminds me of the proverbial frog in the well, which imagines that the world is no larger than its confined surroundings and that it is the undisputed monarch of that tiny universe. Public life demands a wider perspective and a willingness to learn from the world.

I also remember you proudly declaring that all files in the Union Home Ministry are written in Hindi. There is nothing wrong with promoting Hindi, but you should recognise that English, too, has an important place in India's administrative and public life.

You had the opportunity to work with the late Arun Jaitley, who spoke English with considerable fluency. There are many others in public life who do the same. Yet, under the political climate fostered by your party, speaking English sometimes appears to invite ridicule or suspicion, as though it were an alien imposition rather than a language widely used by Indians across regions and professions.

I was amused, therefore, to see your son struggling to speak English in a public setting. I once wrote a column about his business acumen and the remarkable rise of a humble businessman who went on to preside over a cricket enterprise worth billions of rupees. You might ask him whether English is an asset or a liability in the world of business.

Certainty is admirable in certain matters. But how can anyone be so certain that the BJP will remain in power for the next 30 years? Democracy does not offer permanent leases of power. Graveyards are full of people who imagined themselves indispensable. You should not forget that the BJP failed to secure a majority of its own in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In the early stages of counting, Modi himself was trailing behind his Congress rival in Varanasi.

You should also ask your party president why the BJP failed to retain the Assembly seat in Bihar that he vacated. The constituency in Patna was its stronghold. Yet the party suffered a setback. Elections are not won by the force of rhetoric alone. They require an understanding of people's grievances, aspirations and changing loyalties.

You seem to scoff at the Gen Z protests. But you should recognise that the agitation exposed troubling aspects of the police machinery under your command. A senior police officer was accused of molesting a woman journalist. Thousands of young men and women participated in the agitation, yet there was not a single reported case of sexual misconduct by the protesters. Meanwhile, the police allowed people in civilian clothes to wield weapons and attack the police themselves.

The episode reflected poorly on the administration responsible for maintaining law and order. A government that treats peaceful dissent as a threat to its authority risks alienating precisely the young citizens whose confidence it should be seeking to win.

There have also been serious security lapses in Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and even northeast Delhi. For a lesser failure, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned as Railway Minister after a railway accident, accepting moral responsibility despite not having personally caused it. That was the measure of accountability expected of public servants. Today, it sometimes seems that every failure can be conveniently attributed to Rahul Gandhi, his grandmother or his great-grandfather.

You and Modi were largely absent from parliamentary proceedings during the July–August 2026 Monsoon Session, making a brief ceremonial appearance only on August 14, the final day. Parliament is not a stage on which leaders appear merely for ceremonial occasions. It is the forum where the government must answer questions, defend its decisions and explain its failures.

Your absence was particularly regrettable when questions needed to be answered about the use of force against students and the reported theft at the Ayodhya temple. Parliament is not an inconvenience to be avoided when scrutiny becomes uncomfortable. It is a constitutional institution that must be respected, above all by those entrusted with governing the country.

History has repeatedly humbled leaders who believed their power was permanent. Elections and posterity eventually test every such claim. Political parties may win majorities, but they do not own the nation; power is temporary, while institutions endure. Criticism is not disloyalty, peaceful protest is not sedition, and political opposition is not an enemy.

On your 62nd birthday, I urge you to uphold the Constitution, protect free expression and peaceful dissent, ensure impartial policing, and exercise authority with restraint and humility. Your true measure as Home Minister will be how securely you protect citizens who disagree with you. May wisdom, humility and courage guide you always.

Yours etc.,