Letter to the Editor: Your letters column has recently given space to Venk Shenoi to air his cruel and ruthless views on a variety of subjects. 

In one of two letters in your last edition, he rails against lifeboats carrying “warm clothing life jackets and safety equipment... to pick up boat people.”

He later argues that he “would allow a few boats and their illegal cargoes to sink”. Your paper often highlights cases of cruelty and crimes towards people and animals, but you rarely give a voice to the perpetrators of these crimes.

However, you appear willing to give Venk Shenoi, a clear advocate of cruelty, the opportunity to promote drowning asylum seekers.

I write primarily to challenge his Islamophobic utterances and his distortion of history in his second letter.

Venk Shenoi conflates autocratic rule and the Islamic faith as one and the same thing, whilst conveniently and consciously ignoring that the current state of India which, he promotes as an example of an “advanced” state, is run by Modi, who, from a young age, was as a member of RSS, a classically fascist organization.

The BJP has proved itself to be Islamophobic. An examination of the recent history of India reveals that the BJP has utilized its Hindu chauvinism as a weapon and encouraged pogroms against Muslims in order to divide the population.

Venk Shenoi refers to “World history” without realising that there is more than one version of history.

The version we had pumped into us when I was at school started from the pink bits on a map of the world and various explanations of the benefits that kings and queens had bestowed on the people in Britain and the rest of the world with their generosity.

This is a version I rejected at a young age. Venk Shenoi seems to have swallowed it whole and is promoting some of the worst prejudices and opinions that arise out of the imperialist breakfast he has swallowed.

Tyrants and dictators or, more generally the rich and powerful, always look for, or create, scapegoats in order to deflect blame onto others when things go wrong.

Israel is run by Netanyahu who is the current face of Zionism. Zionism is a political creed that promotes itself as the representative of Jews.

Many Jews distance themselves from Zionism which has conflated Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians as one collective scapegoat.

The Zionist leaders label their designated scapegoat as subhuman as they bomb the Palestinians into oblivion.

The language they use is very similar to the language used by Hitler, to scapegoat Jews in Nazi Germany.

Venk Shenoi refers to the “Mughal/Islamic Rulers of earlier centuries.”

The Mughal empire was run by families of warring tyrants and monarchs who used religion as a weapon to consolidate their power.

They were sometimes known to build Hindu temples when it was in their interest to do so but at other times, they were quite capable of trying to wipe out Sikhs.

The important thing here is that they were rich, powerful, and corrupt self-seeking tyrants who used religion as a tool to consolidate their position and to divide the population they ruled over.

Venk Shenoi emphasises religion over wealth, greed and power and brutality, and in doing so lets Modi and other tyrants off the hook.

The key question I always ask is, “Who are the oppressors and who are the oppressed?”

Venk Shenoi would do well to widen his horizons and try to appreciate that the world doesn’t orbit around him.

The oppressors, the rich and the powerful, assume the world revolves around themselves and Venk Shenoi appears to place himself on their side.

Phil Jones, Viney Hill