Sacrificing national interests at the altar of minority appeasement is the bane of Indian politics. The December 9, 2006 statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the National Development Council that Muslims have first claim on national resources is highly objectionable. The fact that he retracted his statement saying he was misquoted does not help matters. To make tentative statements, testing the waters and retracting statements if there is an adverse fallout is an old trick that fools no one. Immediately after assuming office on 22 May 2004, this government has doggedly pursued a policy of minority appeasement. The first policy decision taken by the Manmohan Singh government was repealing the anti-terror law POTA. It demonstrates a clear lack of political will to fight Islamic terrorism which threatens our very existence as a civilization. After the Supreme Court struck down the IMDT Act as unconstitutional, minorities in Assam and their self-proclaimed champions were up in arms saying that legitimate Muslim citizens would be branded as foreigners. The IMDT Act laid the responsibility of proving that a Bangladeshi infiltrator was indeed a foreign national on the complainant. The Act effectively made it impossible to identify and deport thousands of Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. In February, the Centre tried to bring back the IMDT by notifying the Foreigners (Tribunals for Assam) Ordinance. It was in response to a PIL filed by an Asom Gana Parishad MP that the Hon. Supreme Court once struck down this pernicious piece of legislation. The Centre increased the number of Haj pilgrims by 10000 even though the Supreme Court made it clear that offering subsidy to pilgrims of one community has to stop. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board is running parallel Shariat courts all over the country. This is clearly a parallel judicial system for Muslims. In response to a PIL, the Centre defended the existence of these courts and even sought to justify the jiziya tax imposed by Aurangzeb. The clamour for reservations for Muslims in educational institutions and government jobs not to speak of paramilitary and the police force is a step towards another Partition. Notwithstanding the fact that religion-based reservations are unconstitutional, the Andhra Pradesh government declared a 5% quota for Muslims in government jobs. This was struck down as unconstitutional by the judiciary. To prepare the ground for Muslim reservations, the government and all sundry secularists launched a massive exercise to somehow prove that Muslims are educationally, socially and economically backward. The appointment of the high-level Sachar Committee was a ploy to create a conducive atmosphere for Muslim reservations. Even though socio-economic indices such as infant and child mortality, urbanisation and literacy rates show that overall Hindus as a whole are more disadvantaged than Muslims, the Government is hell-bent on proving otherwise. The very premise of Muslim backwardness needs to be contested. Lack of Muslim education, lack of Muslim woman work participation, large size of Muslim families leading to lesser per capita Muslim income has a theological basis in Islam. Even during Islamic rule, Muslims paid scant attention to education. Reservations are not the solution to the problem. This dangerous game of Muslim appeasement has wreaked havoc in the past and will surely do the same in future.