The disease of Secularism : My concluding remarks. Review on India, General

A few days back, I was trying to answer few disturbing and fundamental queries regarding our religious identity, raised by Monsieur Criminal. And I must say I?ve got streams of emotional comments, some blatant outbursts at my so called ?Pseudo Secularity?, while others raising equally disturbing notions about the ?Secular? characteristics of our nation.

While I would like to make this very clear that in no part of my review was neither I defending the minority religion stakes nor would I like to do so. So as promised I would like to answer all the questions raised by Harish, and through this forum continue the discussion on the so called Secular aspects of our national psyche.

However some historical flashback; the last 100 years before independence must have seen the nadirs of our communal history, the British castrated the remaining communal goodwill of the nation by creating religious electorate. The word minority franchise was coined to prevent homogenisation of the communities (through coming together in the nationalist movement).

Since then, the Muslim community has been repeatedly appeased by the main stream power centre (and resented by the right wing Hindu middle class) and the word Secularism has been abused to the limit by the default political propaganda setters of the nation (Congress for a very long time).

The fact is there is no Secularism possible in this nation. The complex arithmetic of political one-up man ship coupled with inability to confront issues on its merit has snatched away the objectivity from the policy makers of the nation. Even Gandhiji, in my opinion was not secular (although he might come closest to being one), he could never confront Jinnah on his demands, the wistfulness of Jinnah?s logic notwithstanding.

And then there was intensification of communal myths across the nation as the country divided based on religion. Some Muslim League leaders stretched the bounds of their inanity (and insanity) by declaring that their community was racially superior and hence demanded administrative rights for greater territories. I even remember reading a famous Muslim League leader (who later went on to become the Prime Minister) announcing post independence ?Hanske Liya Hai Pakistan, Ladke lenge Hindustan?( a very good item for the joke book)!

It is in this background that the Indian Muslim adopted his new country, the fact of the matter is that the community had for long enjoyed the privileges of being in close touch with power, that their expectations of being in a country with liberal, flexible policies with proactive governance (and inactive citizenship on their part) was paramount.

And the Congress for most part, played directly into their hands (in some ways, the (so-called) Umbrella party also ensured that there was minimal inter-communal friction, and to a great extent there was better inter-communal hegemony those days).

So the question arises, in this backdrop does the word ?Uniform? really make sense? For most, it might lead another recurrent series of paranoid protests from the Islamic intelligentsia, crying foul over the enforcement of Hindu views (note the word Hindu). In my opinion, the Muslim community in this nation has never witnessed uniformity of any sort. Post independence there has been little inter-transfusion of thoughts, ideas and practices between the communities.

In the initial years past independence, it was fashionable to speak Urdu (for the office goers) and equally large number of Hindu writers have contributed to the literature. But the commonality has vanished once the generation born past independence took charge, the differences grew stark , the Hindus seized most socio-economic opportunities and the Muslim community grew into it?s shell, deriving benefits from the policies and never really caring about contributing the real wealth of the nation. Up to an extent the policy makers too have been responsible in doing so; they ensured that there were mobile borders to Pakistan and Bangladesh for them, ensuring that the community received the same sops that their counterparts in Pakistan and Bangladesh received.

I guess, the Congress party up to an extent felt itself responsible for ensuring the welfare of Muslims (arguably at the dictate of Nehru, who always wanted to prove to Jinnah that India was a better home to Muslims), and hence extended benefits left, right and center to the community.

It is in retrospect to these facts, that the Muslims who had always enjoyed the favoured status from the government, find it difficult to accept the changing socio-cultural order. They find it difficult to accept that their laws, institutions and properties will be tinkered on by the (predominantly) non-Muslim government. Another fact to notice is that, through out the world, such a huge population of Muslims have never existed under the shadow of another religion which has greater influence in the executive.

Like Christianity, Islam too bases it?s definition of nation state on common religious identities and hence the waning influence of such a vast populace of Muslims makes up for strong search for a robust communal identity, which so far they have been unable to derive. And thus the Indian Muslim, still to date, remains highly influenced by his sub-continental Muslim brethren, and it is his inability of appreciating the finer points about the majority community which has alienated the communities.

In fact there have been so many aberrations in the past, which unfortunately has been aggravated by minority protagonists like Shabana Azmi and M F Hussain. There have been very few affirmative steps from the community to question its role in a rapidly modernising India, very scarce action taken to move it forward.

Like Blacks in America, their involvement in petty crimes is always on the increase, their contribution to the productive capital is (like Blacks) limited to performing arts and sports and the community needs to find positive role models which they can emulate (not the Zaheera Sheikhs or Shah Banos but a Muslim Kalpna Chawla is what they need at the moment).

To conclude this write up, the past has sown the seeds for the present chaos and has in store the potential for the future disaster. It is our responsibility to prevent the chaos before it engulfs all of us. Jai Hind.