Skip to main content

Secularism is not a bad word


‘Secular’ and ‘communal’ are bad words in India unlike in any other part of the world.  Most countries in the world are secular in the sense they don’t have state religions; they keep politics and religion apart from each other.  ‘Communal’ means belonging or related to a community and has no negative connotations except in India. 

Source

We Indians are queer indeed.  We elected a party to power in the Centre because it promised to deliver us development.  But from the time the party started governing us, we started entertaining ourselves by abusing some people as ‘secular’ or ‘pseudo-secular.’  The latter term seems to have gone out of fashion. The country is polarised today into the ‘secular’ and the ‘communal.’  If you believe in some religion or god, you are communal.  If you demand peace and prosperity, you are filthy secular. 

Rajnath Singh, our Home Minister, wants to cleanse the Indian vocabulary of secularism.  He tried to sound profoundly philosophical by adding two new words to the country’s neologism [which relies more on slogans like swachch Bharat and Achche din than on new coinages] by introducing Dharam Nirpeksh and Panth Nirpeksh.  The phrases may make little sense to more than half of the Indians. 

Making sense hardly matters.  When Manuel I, King of Portugal, issued a decree in 1496 that all the Jews in the country should either convert to Christianity or leave the country [which is plagiarised as one of the goals of Hindutva as envisaged by Golwalkar in We or Our Nation Defined], the real intention was to subjugate the perceived enemies.  Those Jews who got ready to leave the country were stopped at the port by soldiers and priests and were converted by force.  The new converts came to be called New Christians who were never given equal status.    

A decade after the conversions, there was a terrible drought and onset of plague in the country.  The entire blame for the evils was placed on the New Christians.  They were converted by force.  And now they were accused of being the cause of drought and plague.  Those wielding power always find some enemies.  Or else create them.  Enemies are essential for upholding political power.

In 1506, during a prayer service in a church in Portugal somebody claimed to have seen the illuminated face of Jesus on the altar.  One of the faithful in the church, who was perhaps more secular than religious, said that the illumination must have been a reflection of the candle on the crucifix.  That man was immediately dragged out of the church by the hair and beaten to death mercilessly.  That man was a New Christian. 

A few years later Inquisition became the most favourite entertainment in Portugal.  About 40,000 people were killed in the most savage forms by the Grand Inquisitor and his ministers who were ushering development in the country – spiritual development, of course.  The victims were mostly the New Christians.

Five centuries have passed.  The darkness has passed from one continent to another.  The robes of the inquisitors have changed colour.  The war cries are very similar sometimes.  But there is a veneer of sophistication being imposed from above in the form of neologisms. 

Portugal learnt secularism eventually.  It has no official religion today though 81% of the people are Christians [the percentage is the same for the majority community in India].  Article 13 of the Portuguese Constitution states that "No one may be privileged, favoured, prejudiced, deprived of any right or exempted from any duty for reasons of ancestry, sex, race, language, territory of origin, religion, political or ideological beliefs, education, economic situation, social circumstances or sexual orientation."

India has a Constitution which extends similar rights and privileges to its citizens.  Why do our leaders want to change that Constitution?  Why do they want us to go backward rather than forward?


Comments

  1. The answer to your question is in the post itself Sir.....create enemies, create tensions, create divisions - to uphold political power....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's something more heinous at work, I think, Sunaina. BJP is tampering with the Constitution. That's dangerous. If they succeed in this effort, India in the map given in this post will turn red. And look at the countries which have that colour. See what kind of countries are actually theocratic.

      We are becoming like what we hate the most!

      Delete
  2. Nice article...
    In my opinion these two words in the Constitution actually create problems. Constitution is for every person in the country. Common man has only one religion feeding and caring about his family. If these two words are removed constitution is applicable fairly to every citizen.
    However "Secularism" has been used selectively by political parties to serve their means..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The problem is not with the word but with perceptions and attitudes. Even if we amend the Constitution, nothing will change...

      Delete
  3. Thought-provoking post! Well-written.
    And yeah, lots of drastic changes happening in the country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is something admirable about what's happening: India shows that it is still secular in spite of all the bigotry that the govt itself is trying to foist upon the people.

      Delete
  4. I don't see how BJP is changing the Constitution! At least from the post it is not coming out. Most of the examples given here, though very cruel and anti-humanity, are not from India. Please excuse my stance, but I don't understand why are you putting a filter of cruelty and religionism on Indian scenario, by using the examples which do not belong to India?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FYI - I have used the word 'Religionism' knowingly. I am aware that it is not an actual word.

      Delete
    2. Portugal was taken just as an example. Great Britain or Spain or almost any European country of the medieval period would have served the same purpose. The post was an exercise in subtlety. When we have leaders who are very explicit about their medieval mindset, we have to be subtle.

      If the BJP is given a free hand it will drown the present Constitution in the Arabian Ocean and draft a theocratic one.

      If a man can be dragged out of his home and beaten to death for eating something which was not what he ate (yeah!), I can't endorse that kind of a political system. Don't forget the antecedents. Right from the time the present regime was installed at the Centre, how many acts of brutality were perpetrated against certain people and their places of worship? How many hate speeches were delivered by people who claim to be sadhus and sadhvis?

      Delete
    3. Sir, good to read a piece from you after a long time. Nice to know that your world view still functions under the construct The Hindu and Frontline(and to a great extent a like-minded govt in Kerala) bestowed upon you. It was heartening to learn that, after years of maneuvering your intellect under the all-to-familiar perimeter of communism, you show no inclination to cross the boundary and maybe indulging yourself in something like this: http://www.thequint.com/india/2015/11/17/was-the-dadri-lynching-really-a-murder-based-on-a-personal-grudge

      But then, why indulge oneself in facts when you can make do with N.Ram's whataboutery. Or maybe, that's why it is called comfort-zone.

      Sir, as much as I would like to, I have little appetite(or time) to offer a point by point rebuttal. But this piece of writing lost its logical thrust the minute you compared an organized proselytizing religion with a diffused decentralized one. Does Hinduism have a church? Did we ever go through a dark-age to warrant Western-style secularism? Indeed, is Hinduism a religion?

      I sense that your fear is that the repeated 'insinuations' of sadhvis and sadhus would inadvertently result in drifting Hinduism towards being a monotheistic religion. And maybe then we'll have a dark age. I respect your right to fear. But, this flow is irreversible. More so, when a great proportion of India's population associate this turn of event(read 2014 elections) with civilization conscience.

      You write fiction better sir. I plan to read your book in some time. Looking forward to reviewing it.

      Delete
    4. Hi Sid,
      As usual you threatened to give me a point-by-point rebuttal and as usual, again, you gave yourself the excuse of paucity of time as well as that I'm not a writer good enough for you to bother about.

      Since you think only The Hindu and Frontline can inspire me, let me give you links to two latest articles from the latter.

      http://www.frontline.in/the-nation/indias-sawdust-caesar/article7961470.ece?homepage=true

      That's from Noorani, a Mulsim.

      http://www.frontline.in/politics/a-vision-betrayed/article7961950.ece?homepage=true

      That's from Sitaram Yechuri, a Communist.

      Since I'm not good enough for you, I shall not answer you.

      Delete
  5. When those wielding power seek additional power, be alert to their stealing from us all.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Good Friday and Some Arithmetic

Two and two is not always equal to four, my young friend Tony says. 2 + 2 ≠ 4, he reasserts. Tony doesn’t think linearly though his thinking has the precision of mathematical logic. See these two, Tony offers an illustration, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Then add another 2 to them, Ambani and Adani. What do you get? I smile in answer. It’s dangerous to answer Tony verbally. Now, Tony continues, let’s take two beggars from the street. And then add you and me, another two, to them. What do you get? Tony goes on with more arithmetic because he thinks I didn’t get it. (Modi + Shah) + (Ambani + Adani) = 4 persons (Beggar 1 + Beggar 2) + (You + I) = 4 persons Is the first 4 equal to the second 4? T oday is Good Friday. Good Fridays are sad because they are about the victory of vicious political power over simple goodness. Just a few days back, on what’s known as Palm Sunday among Christians, Jesus was led like a hero to Jerusalem, a political fulcrum in those days, by a hu