How low we can sink is made clear from two disconnected events and reactions to them on social media: The first, the current devastating floods in Jammu and Kashmir and the second, tennis player Sania Mirza’s Mixed Doubles title at the US Open during the weekend.

It is hard to imagine the kind of mindset which connects death by natural calamity to the religion of the victims or their political affiliations. And yet, that is what being religious sometimes does to people. Whether the religion calls itself tolerant or compassionate or the religion of peace, it makes itself a cause of strife rather than solace by insisting on its own superiority. And becomes the very thing it claims it is not.