I am a Christian living in Doha. Is my country safe to return, Mr Modi?

It's almost nine years since I left home, Lucknow and India, in search of greener pastures. When I left, I was certain that I would return, for despite its idiosyncrasies, I love every crowded, dirty, dusty bit of Lucknow to bits. My sentiments towards my country are no different.

In these nine years, my heart has yearned to experience the bone-chilling winter again, to soak in the rains again, to smell the sulphur burn in the air at Diwali, to be a part of the riot of colours at Holi, and the festivities of Eid.

In these nine years, one of our sons has raced down the teenage highway, while the other is well and truly raring to follow his brother. We - my wife and I - have tried to nurture them into God-fearing children, but more humanist than blindly religious. By the standards we had set, we are happy with what we see in our children. Living in a very cosmopolitan culture has only helped.

In these nine years, I have seen the socio-political and the socio-religious climate in India worsen. Before the Babri Masjid episode of the early 90s, confrontationist attitudes with regard to religion were near negligible and almost unimaginable.

"Confrontationist attitudes" did I say, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday? Today, that term is a euphemism for rabid elements within the saffron brigade baying for the blood of Christians and Muslims.

There are times when outrage at their words and actions, nay, their very gall, is absolute. However, the predominant emotion is pity for them, their IQs and their blinkered visions.

BJP member of Parliament (MP) from Unnao (in Uttar Pradesh), Sakshi Maharaj is urging every Hindu woman to "protect" Hinduism by "producing" at least four children. Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, is Hinduism, a way of life thousands of years older than any of the other faiths, so weak that it needs to be bolstered by a number of mortal faithful?

All India Hindu Mahasabha vice-president Sadhvi Deva Thakur is demanding a law to forcibly sterilise Muslims and Christians to restrict their population. In a clip shown on India News channel (as well as on other channels), she opines that this step would lead to the awakening of the Hindu community in the country, and once that happens, "these mulle (Mullahs), Muslims and Christians will have to pull rickshaws and clean utensils once again". She further said that idols of Hindu gods and goddesses should be placed in mosques and churches.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut suggests that revoking voting rights of Muslims would solve all problems. Sakshi Maharaj saw sense in that statement and demanded a strict family planning law and that those not following it be stripped of their voting rights.

The list grows everyday, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, as does the frequency of incidents trying to browbeat/literally beat a docile community recognised for its services to the society. Since December, five churches have been attacked as Hindu zealots targeted Christians.

Arson/vandalisation of churches, forcible re-conversion of Christians to Hinduism by threats of physical violence, distribution of threatening literature, burning of copies of the Bible, raping of nuns, murder of priests, and destruction of Christian schools, colleges, and cemeteries continues unabated.

Interestingly, these provocations - by word or through action - increased ever since you, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday and the BJP, were swept into the Parliament after a landslide victory. Your reaction to and criticism of these incidents took a long time coming. The funny thing is, in the months after your "warning", vitriol-spewing and hate crimes against the minorities have risen to a new high. The statements that I earlier listed all happened soon after you said, "We cannot accept violence against any religion on any pretext and I strongly condemn such violence. My government will act strongly in this regard."

I believe you, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, but do your overzealous foot-soldiers take you seriously?

But let me cut out the fancy words and ask you this Pradhan Mantri Mahoday: if the Constitution of my country guarantees me the fundamental right to "free profession, practice and propagation of religion" and you, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, say, "My government will ensure that there is complete freedom of faith and that everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt the religion of his or her choice without coercion or undue influence," who are these elements that you can't, or hesitate to bridle?

Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, these nation-wreckers need to be muzzled, put on a leash, and made to realise that this is the age of technology and the internet. Governed by their medieval mindsets, they might feel that they are addressing just their community and their constituency. They are not. The entire world listens and takes notice.

Deva Thakur's comment was picked up by The Huffington Post. She may not have heard that name, but it is the first commercially run digital media enterprise in the United States to win a Pulitzer Prize. The prize is given for achievements in newspaper and online journalism (among others) in the US. By the time you read this, half the world - if not all of it - will know what Deva Thakur envisions for India.

Lately, a church in Agra was vandalised and a statue of the Virgin Mary broken. In the days that followed, the Hindu Mahasabha said that attacking a church is not "illegal" and "violates no law". In fact, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, they had the temerity to demand that the "National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government should award and provide legal and administrative protection to Hindus who attack churches across the country". Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha general secretary Munna Kumar Shukla is on record having said that.

To top it all, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, your finance minister, Arun Jaitley, a seemingly educated individual, asserted that the recent attacks on churches and the rape of a nun in West Bengal were not political or communal issues but law and order problems. He said that while the attacks on churches in Delhi were cases of theft and drunken brawls, some Bangladeshi Muslims had allegedly raped the nun.

Is he willing to stand by his statement after the attack on the church in Agra?

I come from a community that has always been associated with service: nurses, doctors, academicians, and has been largely law-abiding. My father was among the pioneers of neurosurgery in the country. My grandfather was a war reporter, reporting for premier international news agencies like Reuters. My uncles are journalists of high repute, having worked for national news agencies and newspapers of the capital. My family also boasts of decorated officers of the Indian Army.

Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, with my family background, what right has an MP expelled from the Rajya Sabha for misusing his constituency funds and who has spent a month in the Tihar Jail on rape charges, or for that matter, a "nobody" from a nondescript organisation, seeking five minutes of fame, to tell me whether I should get sterilised or procreate. Do they put food on my table? Do they educate my children? If anything, I am the one who feeds and clothes them by the foreign exchange I send in!

Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, as a man living in a foreign country which has a state religion, I have never faced a problem in practising my faith. I do not feel threatened here. But even though I am not in India - my own country, a proclaimed secular, socialist republic, whose constitution promises me the fundamental right to "free profession, practice and propagation of religion" - I feel exposed. I feel vulnerable to the vitriol spewed by the hate speeches of semi-literate and uneducated leaders claiming to be the conscience-keepers of the majority community.

The wonder of India, in the eyes of the world, has been the unity in diversity, of how faiths, beliefs and cultures have lived in harmony for centuries and must continue to do so for centuries. That is what made us different from any other country in the world till now. That is the picture that the Indian diaspora loves to paint about its country.

Pradhan Mantri Mahoday, these disgruntled elements are shredding that fabric of communal amity, all for vested interests. Can you even begin to calculate the damage this baying for minority blood might have done to your efforts to attract industrialists/investors for your "Make in India" campaign?

I urge all moderate, broad-minded, educated Hindus to speak up now for their Muslim and Christian brethren. If they don't, then after the Christians and Muslims have been bludgeoned into submission, these rabid elements will have no one else to point fingers at, put down and ostracise. Then it will be the turn of the moderates. So, speak up now!

My life is lived - more or less, but I fret for my sons. I have to return to India and Lucknow, for it is a city in which my father was born, in which I was born, educated, employed, married, and most importantly, in which I have left behind the woman who gave birth to me, who still frets for me.

But, for the sake of my sons, should I return, Pradhan Mantri Mahoday?