What do you mean by “fear-adled”? Secular in Indian context means anti-Hindu, anti-Dharma. We can equivocate all we want but the truth is that secularism is a system devised by Europeans to limit the power of the Church – secularism was devised to give control of temporal affairs to the Monarch/State but Church still rules over celestial/religious affairs. This arrangement continues to this day in ‘secular’ European nations like UK where Anglican Church is the official State religion and seats are reserved in Parliament for Bishops.

It was only USA that moved one step further by talking about ‘freedom of religion’ but that too in a Christian context, as many of the colonial settlers who arrived in the ‘New World’ from Europe were adherents of sects considered heretical by mainstream Churches and sects in the ‘old world’. And for the record, USA still considers itself as a Judeo-Christian nation dominated by Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and is today the fiercest and most passionate promoter of evgangelical Christianity worldwide, creating front organizations like USCIRF to demonize any country that tries to protect its indigenous religions.

So when Rahul Shivshankar identifies “selective secular gaze” as the problem, in my opinion he is playing it safe and somewhat pandering to liberals by arguing that secularism is fine, but selective secularism is wrong.

The entire concept of secularism is redundant for a Dharmic Civilization like Bharat. Dharma guides us on both temporal and spiritual affairs and there is no reason for us to cut ourselves off from the deep well of that heritage, just to gain a ‘secular’ certificate from the West and Westernized Indians. Ever wondered why the ‘secular/communal’ trope never evokes anxious discussions within Japan, Russia, China or UAE? Those nations, rooted in their ancient civilizations, never bothered with Western labels or categories because they were confident in their own skin and still managed to create modern, prosperous nations, who are now proving more resilient than even the West.

I wish HinduPost and other Hindu publications be careful in their writings to not propagate, nor encourage use of fear addled contextual terminology like “secular”, “minority” etc. The original News18 title of the quoted article is “Selective Secular gaze blinds CJI Gavai to justice”. There is a world of difference between these two usage! Although HinduPost have admonished me earlier on my objections to terms used , saying “nitpicking on smallest of the things like the terms used”, I still maintain that such usage is a symptom of pervasive defeatism and victim blaming affecting the Hindu minds. The writer Rahul Shivshankar though has used the word secular with proper perspective (except like once).