, Columnist
Islamists Electoral Rise Due to Failed Secularism: Pankaj Mishra
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My last column, on the strangely renewable appeal of political Islam, provoked some strong reactions from both extremes of the ideological spectrum.
Some correspondents urged me to reconsider -- even embrace -- Islam as the most superior way of life, one that holds answers to all problems of individual and collective existence. Others accused me of endorsing the ideology of Islamism that legitimizes such inhumane punishments as cutting off limbs and stoning women to death.