By Dr. Syed Khurshid

For the last 65 years, after the formation of our republic in the year 1950,’’all is well’ with the concepts of secularism; Till this BJP govt on the back of RSS was voted to power by 31 percent electorate.

Ours is a country of diverse religions, races sects and regional languages, has never complained about the word secularism except a small minority of ultra nationalist Hindus who have dreams about making India a ‘Hindu rashtra’. These are the same people who never fought for the freedom of our country from the colonial British power.

For the freedom struggle it was imperative that we put up a united front forgetting the differences between religions, sects cast and languages. And looking at the entire history of freedom struggle it becomes crystal clear that all the diverse people including intellectuals, rich, poor, farmers, artisans and commoners, gave their united support because they knew very well that it was the shrewd policy of the British to divide and rule.

In the freedom movement we see that Hindus and Muslims fought together shoulder to shoulder in their thousands. In 1857 freedom struggle, it was the ruling Muslim and Hindu patriots who gave their lives for the country. The scene after the failure of 1857 in Delhi, where thousands of Muslims were hanged on trees and blown up on the mouth of canons was a pathetic one.

Romila Thaper a historian writes about how the Britishers distorted the history of our country by ‘’painting Hindus and Muslims as belonging to two antagonistic monolithic religions’’ which is far from truth. In reality, both the religions are made of many cast and sects.

In our country, where people live by Faith in the One Master Creator, of the Universe,(Tauhid for Muslims) or any kind of super natural power, whether it is a monolithic faith or just any kind of panth, caste or Guru, the importance of faith in social life cannot be minimized; unlike Secularism in the West, where there is complete separation of State and Church.

Secularism in our country only means that people of all caste, sects, or monolithic religions should be allowed to freely practice their Faith and the State laws guarantees that in our Constitution.

Romila Thapar further argues that ‘’all Indians should have a clear mind-set, and that we Indians must stop thinking of ourselves as identified primarily by religion, cast or language, and start thinking of ourselves primarily as equal citizens of one nation, both in theory and practice. This involves mutual obligations between the state and the citizen applicable to all. The relationship of other identities becomes secondary. Eventually the state will -not be expected to provide patronage to any religion or support any religious organisation’’.

The ultranationalist party tries to demonise Muslims and Islam as foreign to India. In their scheme of things religions of Indian origin, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism are all the sects of Hinduism. This is a political game: the fact is as all these religions are full-fledged religions as far as scriptures, rituals and values are concerned. This is deliberately done to create ‘the other’ in the followers of Islam and Christianity. So to say that the religions of Indian origin are the only Indian religions is a grotesque lie. Religions don’t have nationality, they are universal.

What are Indian religions is well answered by Gandhiji. Gandhiji states that in India “Apart from Christianity and Judaism, Hinduism and its offshoots, Islam and Zoroastrianism are living faiths.” (Gandhi’s collected works, Volume XLVI p. 27-28). This is very contrary to the RSS-BJP formulation of Islam and Christianity being foreign religions. It is true that the practice of secularism has been tardy in India due to the vote-bank politics of all the parties, and spineless legal action by the police. In tune with that, the RSS parivar has been coining different terms to criticize secularism as such and to hide its total opposition to religious pluralism and secularism. First it began with the term appeasement for the affirmative policies of the Congress, and then went on to coin the term pseudo secular and lately ‘sickular’ as a derogatory term for those trying to uphold the Constitutional values of secularism. The BJP slogan of ‘Justice for all and appeasement of none’ in a way underlines the way Hindu nationalism will operate, with no concern for the weaker religious minorities. Its agenda has been structured around identity issues related to a section of Hindus. Earlier the major issue used on the ground was the Ram temple, and today the ‘Cow as mother’ is the reigning identity issue. ‘India First’ the highly emotive phrase coined by the ruling BJP Government as a substitute for secularism is a clever manoeuvre to bypass the word secular, which is a big obstacle to the agenda of Hindu nationalism of the RSS-BJP.

While the freedom movement was totally diverse, plural and secular to the core the ideological foundations of today’s BJP lay in the Hindu nationalism as brought up by Savarkar and later by RSS. This begins with the formulation of India as a Hindu nation from times immemorial, in contrast to the self understanding of Indian national movement that ‘we are a nation in the making’. Although the BJP currently has no choice but to uphold the Indian constitution it is trying to subvert the spirit of secular values by various means.

And that’s what the RSS is slowly pushing its historical agenda through its ministers who really are grass-root pracharaks!, as also the fringe groups with different names. Such distortions of the spirit of Indian Constitution need to be combated at the ideological, social and political level urgently.

For all the minorities of India, the Constitution framed after much thought and debate, by the patriots is the only saving grace, and cover of safety.

The tragic history of partition which was the final kick of the departing Britishers, and we now know that it was done to create a buffer state against the advancing Russians, after the World War II, large scale murder and slaughters of both Hindus and Muslims threw the whole subcontinent in to a shock. Pakistan was created in the Muslim majority provinces by the British.

The bulk of the Indian Muslims, however, preferred to stay back in the mother land because they were the sons of the soil. Today many Muslims do not call themselves as Minorities, but as the second largest majority of 250 millions in the country. And they constitute the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia.

For the Muslims, the preamble to our constitution provides the surest guarantee of security with the following sentences. ‘’The Constitution declares India a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, assuring its citizens of justice, equality, and liberty, and endeavours to promote fraternity among them’’.

Further, the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. However, neither India’s constitution nor its laws define the relationship between any one particular religion and the state. The laws implicitly require the state and its institutions to recognize and accept all religions, enforce religious laws instead of parliamentary laws, and respect pluralism. India does not have an official state religion. The people of India have freedom of religion, and the state treats all individuals as equal citizens regardless of their religion.

If the ultranationalists want to harp on ancient times, this is what the Great Emperor Asoka said ”There should not be honour of one’s own (religious) sect and condemnation of others without any grounds’’.

‘’Honour another’s religion, for doing so strengthens both one’s own and that of the other.”” —Asoka, Rock Edicts XII, about 250 BC,

Although the BJP currently has no choice but to uphold the Indian constitution it is trying to subvert the spirit of secular values by various means.

What is the future if urgent steps are not taken to stop this subversion of our Constitution?

All intellectuals and patriots of our country are on the same page on this point that we must act now, before it is too late. If the other minorities of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains feel they are oppressed on every front and not included in the Corporate-BJP nexus propelled Economic progress, they will become restless and an easy prey to fundamentalist ideology of all hue and colour. They will throw all obstacles on the unequal prosperity of the country and difficult to control then.

Romila Thapar further describes Hindu-Muslim ‘’ composite culture’’ thus: During the Mediaeval period of Muslim rulers ( which the Hindu Ultra-nationalist are trying to depict as a period of oppression and slavery ) it was a time when striking creativity enriched facets of Indian culture, a creativity that we have made our own and internalized and that we actually respect, often without recognizing its origins. This ‘’composite culture’’ is largely the mutual borrowing between what we call Hindu and Muslim religious sects and various facets of cultural expression. It is displayed in an infinite number of ways through language, cultural idioms, customary law and forms of worship’’.

The other form that was equally significant was the virtual renaissance that took place in knowledge systems and cultural forms that reached back into the past and re-invigorated it into new forms.

The ultra-nationalists neither follow the Vedas or Bhagwad Gita, nor the teachings of their religious leaders like Swami Vivekananda, S Radhakrishnan, or Gandhiji who have unambiguously shown respect for all the Faiths of our country.

Swami Vivekananda said,’’ religions are but varied expressions of The Religion, which is Oneness, so that each may choose the path that suits him best.””Islam’s foundational pillar is the Unity of God.

The Rig Veda proclaimed ‘’Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti— essential oneness of one God, and of Existence and of The Ultimate Reality , but appear to be many due to apparent diversities in religious ritualism.

FinallyM N Kundu writing in a Times of India piece has used the term Spiritual Secularism to cover the mosaic of our pluralistic country. This is the only way to emancipation.