Minorities lost out due to secularism in Bharat. Interestingly, this secularism word never crossed the minds of the framers of our constitution. Throughout its more than 5000 years of cultural civilizational continuity, the nation never felt the need to declare itself secular because diversity and pluralism had always been intrinsic to the Hindu way of life. Bharat had always been a land where ethnicities of all sorts’ right from Greeks, Parthians, Kushans, Sakas, Huns, Parsis to Mongols & Turks had intermingled and co-existed. Secularism was inserted in the Preamble of the Constitution by the Congress in 42nd amendment in the mid seventies for its own narrow political ends.
And as we can see, the consequences have been disastrous not only for the Muslim community but also for the Indian democracy. Secularism created vote banks and appeasement. The Muslim political leadership passed into the hands of the maulvis & maulanas and the educated progressive Muslim middle class was shunted out. The Muslims have never been a political community and they have always been a religious community. You will see them protesting on religious issues but they will never agitate for socio political issues like education or reservation. They never vote on broader secular issues of life but are basically single issue voters with issues like mosque renovation,Triple Talaq etc attracting them more.Secularism has de – politicised them.
Secularism politics of the type practised in Bharat has led to resentment among a sizable Hindu population against the Muslims and this fanned the revival of Hindu Right in the country. Mandal chariot rode on the backs of the minorities in Bihar and UP butwhat did the minorities get in return? No education, No development, No substantial political or administrative representation but simply an assurance for protection from riots and empty rhetoric. Attempts have always been made by the left-liberal-Congress eco system to keep them cut off from the national mainstream.Fear was deliberately injected into Muslim minds with all sorts of deceit, propaganda and lies. Common Hindu Muslim neighbourhoods vanished and Muslims were segregated and ghettoized.
Special constitutionally provided minority rights soon became the proverbial albatross around the neck of the minority community. Maulanas ensured that these minority rights develop into blatant Minority-ism. In the garb of religious, cultural and educational rights as enunciated in the Constitution from Articles 25 to 30, madarsas radicalised the young Muslim minds by imparting strident religious teaching, universities like AMU & Jamiya strengthened their Muslim character and refused to obey govt. rules like reservation in the name of autonomy, love jihad conversions gained prominence and even private religious practices began to be performed at public places causing inconvenience to the commuters.
Why did it happen?
Muslims in Bharat face a peculiar situation when they find themselves in the midst of a numerically preponderant Hindu population. They feel that too much mingling and interaction with the majority Hindu community will dilute their culture and religion. Hence, they are too much protective, at times bordering on irrationality, about their socio religio cultural matters. Several Muslim nations have implemented socially progressive legislations without any murmur of protest but in India, any talk of reform among this community will always be like showing a red rag to a bull.
Muslims live in constant fear of de-musalmanisation in India and hence their knee jerk reaction to any policy that is likely to work to the advantage of Hindus. Though the constitution provided safeguards to the Muslims as per articles 25, 26, 27,28, 29 and 30, Hindus were taken for guaranteed. The teaching of Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads and Gita were prohibited as they were deemed to be communal while any telecast of Ramayana and Mahabharta became majoritarian and not conducive to secular principles.
Hindu temples were taken over by the state and Hindus were compelled to accept Hindu Code. Muslims and Christians went along with their own personal laws as the state became too appeasing to even talk about Uniform Civil Code. This was a strange type of secularism in which the minorities became privileged while the majority community was deprived of all its religious, cultural and educational rights. Secularism became a tool to camouflage anti national, anti social and anti Hindu activities.
The concept of Ummah and universal Islamic brotherhood and the belief in believers & Kafirs, have ensured that a true Muslim will never accept a Hindu as his fellow being and Bharat as his motherland. All this talk of Ganga Yamuna tahzeeb is a mere eyewash because even during the days of the national freedom struggle, both the Hindus under Congress and Muslims under Muslim League adopted diametrically opposite views on several points. Congress tried to buy peace by making unilateral concessions, appeasement and at times like during the Moplah revolt, closing its eyes to Muslim excesses but all went in vain. Congress endorsed the Khilafat movement which had nothing to do with Bharat for the sake of Hindu Muslim unity; it indirectly supported Muslim revivalism and communalism but what did it get in return?
It couldn’t stop the birth of Pakistan founded on the basis of religion. The Muslim League leaders were more honest and forthcoming in their assessments about Hindu Muslim relationship than the Congress leaders who refused to call spade a spade and went out of way to elicit Muslim support for the freedom of the nation. The secularism virus prevented Congress from acknowledging the harsh reality that Hindus and Muslims can’t exist together as a nation. They constitute distinct nationalities and have different social, political, cultural and religious objectives. Their sense of history, their collective memories and their heroes are not same; moreover, the nature of Islam religion and Hindu religion are as separate as chalk and cheese. While the Sanatana Dharma feels that there can be several paths to truth, Islam thinks its patan h is the only way to truth.
Pan Islamism is a reality that can’t be wished away. Just imagine the outcry over CAA and the hostility to NRC which is yet to take shape. It’s a known fact that a substantial population of Bangladeshi infiltrators and Rohingyas are staying illegally in the country in areas that have heavy minority population. These outsiders are changing demography and causing internal security threats yet the Indian Muslims patronise them and are ready to hit the streets in the name of Ummah.
Had the Bhartiya politicians not being blinded by secularism, things could not have taken such a worse turn. What explains the rationale behind foreign Tabligi Jammat members finding shelter in mosques of several states and the local minority population tacitly aiding them? Wahabism has entered into the nation and this is spreading radicalism and violence. The 20th century has seen a different Muslim identity which was not earlier prevalent in the sub continent. Earlier Hindus and Muslims were bound by local caste linkages and even customs and traditions due to large scale conversions of Hindus to Muslims and common neighbourhoods.
Political Islam never accepts democratic tenets, constitution and the rule of law. Parliament and Supreme Court are subordinate to Sharia. You take any liberal democracy. Muslims want to create Sharia zones and prefer to live with their own set of personal laws. Triple Talaq was passed by Parliament, endorsed by the apex judiciary, yet the community feels they have been wronged and Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to decide on such matters.
There is scant regard among them for the institutions of democracy. The grand Ram Temple is going to be built at Ayodhya after a favourable judicial verdict, yet there have been threats and lamentations. Just rewind back to eighties and think how the Muslims forced the so called secular Rajiv Gandhi led Congress govt to overturn the verdict of the Supreme Court in Shahbano case. Secularism has engendered division, communalism and sectarianism, yet the Liberal Left Congress eco system swears by it.
Secularism has other facets too. The secular camp has prided itself on shaming Hindus and making them suffer from a guilty complex. It has talked derogatively of Hindu rituals and customs and made fun of Hindu religion and scriptures. Even Hindu gods/goddesses have not been spared in the name of secularism. For how long would Hindus have put up with such insults and shenanigans?
There was bound to be a backlash.There was no way the secular camp would have kept the Hindus divided by creating artificial divisions in the name of caste & social justice for long. The lid was bound to blow up. Hindutva was bound to take birth to transcend the manufactured and real heterogeneities of Hindu religion. Secularism worked as a hindrance to nation building and nationalism by promoting Islamism which respects no territorial nationality & denigrating Sanatana Dharma Whether it is Islamism or whether it is Left, both the ideologies have transnational loyalties and international connections that have grave implications for national security.
Political apathy towards the plight of Kashmiri migrants who were hounded out by the Islamists from the valley, refusal to sing Vande Matram, dishonour to National Flag, Support for cow slaughter, Shouting of anti India slogans at JNU, Threats of cutting off Assam from the rest of the country, Support for Jinnah at AMU, Frequent desecration of Hindu temples, Demographic losing out of Hindus in several pockets of Assam, Bengal and Kerala and creation of exclusive Muslim zones are some of the manifestations of secularism in our country. When a PM performs bhoomi poojan at Ayodhya, it’s the death of the idea of India and blatant majoritarianism but when previous Muslim Presidents of India went for Haj pilgrimage, it was secularism.
The silence of the educated Muslim class has been defeaning and their absence from the leadership role in the community has been perplexing. The Muslim community needs a role reversal of the educated and the clergy. The educated should be in public life and the maulanas in the mosques and not in TV studios. No party is untouchable in electoral democracy and this is something which the minorities need to accept. The Nehruvian consensus has collapsed, the left parties are in tatters and the regional/caste based parties are facing tough times confronted by a resurgent Hindu Right.
The ascendancy of Modi led BJP and its magnificent electoral triumph in Lok Sabha elections of 2014 and 2019 has led to rise of Hindu aspirations. This is not Hindu fundamentalism but an attempt to locate the Hindu position in history and a sense of identity. Hindu awakening may not be confused with Hindu bigotry, both are different things. The ugly face of secularism is already out in public domain and Hindus are consolidating against it.
It’s high time secularism is debated threadbare and its anti Hindu bias removed. The minority community also needs to realise that it is not living in Mughal Bharat but in a democratic constitutional set up. Unnecessary confrontation with the majority community will only complicate matters and not solve them. The shrill utterances of AIMPLB, Muslim leaders and Islamic religious bodies will only add fuel to fire. Let both the communities sit together and redesign, reinvent and restructure secularism.
-by Jai Prakash Ojha
(The author works with IGNOU as Assistant Registrar. He is a keen follower of social and political events and an avid blogger. Many of his articles/ posts have been published both online and in print.)
