Some good points. _________ Indian Secularism
LK Advani's bravado in calling Mohammed Ali Jinnah a 'secularist' during his recent visit to Pakistan ended in a whimper as he had to silently eat his words when the votaries of Akhand Bharat who formed the bulk of the Sangh Parivar launched a vitriolic verbal attack on him. If one reads the text of Jinnah's speech which he delivered at the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 carefully, one cannot but feel that this speech was a classic example of political secularism. But Jinnah was not made of the only stuff that formed the substance of the speech referred above, rather he was the main proponent of the two-nation theory forcing the concept of religious nationalism into the freedom struggle of undivided India that ultimately led to the division of the country. His graduation from an atheist to an ardent Muslim, from a staunch supporter of the unity of the country to the firm believer of Hindu-Muslim divide is too complex and intriguing to certify him as a secularist, pure and simple. Whether Advani attempted an overkill to steal the thunder from the UPA government which was trying to cement a bridge of friendship with Pakistan with right stress on economic cooperation or whether he put his foot in the mouth in a momentary amnesia will not be known, but his utterance has brought the word 'secularism' to the debating arena once again. On the other hand, it has given the BJP an opportunity to come out from under the umbrella of the RSS. If it can wake up from the Akhand Bharat dream to the reality of history, it can at least prove that secularism is not the property of the pseudo-secularists alone and that neither Hinduism is an anathema to the true believers of secularism nor secularism is identical with minority-sm as a section of pseudo-secularists tends to believe. Though one true tenet of political secularism should be Dharma nirapekshata or strict neutrality in matters of religion, Indian secularism over the years have become entangled in a peculiar syndrome of minority-sm of religious variety. That is why the Indian politicians who by inheritance belong to Hindu religion but want to prove their secularist credentials go overboard to appease the religious minority in a most comic manner. Holding of iftar parties is a symptom of such a syndrome. These pseudo-secularists also falsely believe that they can prove their secularism by introducing minority-sm in their governance if they happen to be in the seat of power. So they enthusiastically provide state fund for religious pilgrimage only to the minority while looking down on any demand for similar gesture from the majority. One pseudo-secular politician from Bihar even engineered the dissolution of an assembly when he drummed up an absurd demand for a Muslim Chief Minister for his state without thinking whether someone competent to head a government from that community was there or not at that point of time. But then pseudo-secularism replaced true secularism only because a kind of majority-sm pervaded the other half of India's political arena. The concept of a political Hindu-rastra and a multi-cultural social milieu where Hinduism had never been an intolerant political doctrine but a tolerant way of life and a socio-cultural inheritance of a long tradition do not gel. When the votaries of majority-sm decided to give a political name to the Hindu Dharma calling it Hindutva and embellished it with a strong dose of fundamentalist thought, they only fuelled communalism and by a semantic quirk of fate Hindutva became Hindu communalism. It is funny to see a pseudo-secularist Hindu squirming in his seat when he is called a Hindu but then this has happened because the proponents of Akhand Bharat and the pursuers of a Hindu-Rastra appropriated Hinduism for themselves alone. Secularism will be best served in India if religion is not mixed with politics, if there is no discrimination among religions, if human rights are equally guaranteed to all citizens and if religious utterances are divorced from political speeches. _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
