Secularism in India is dead and buried, and if by some chance it is still alive then it will be killed soon. It is one of the basic features of the Constitution as devised by the Supreme Court five decades ago. But even before that, secularism was the universal value which was dear to the freedom fighters of the country and was integral to the basic ethos of the freedom movement inherited from the past and propelled by the civilisational impulse. Secularism in India, unlike the west, was not the negation of religion. In India, secularism meant equality of all religions, that no single religion would get primacy over the other and the state would not discriminate on the basis of religion. India, the motherland of many religions, could be called the melting pot of religions and known for religious tolerance. Despite Hindus comprising more than 80 per cent of the population, adherents of other faiths were never threatened.
Despite India being divided on the basis of religionin1947, when Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, India did not opt for Hinduism as the state religion and did not claim to be a Hindu republic. The Indian state remained religion-neutral, where all religions had equal right to pray, preach and propagate one’s faith without spreading animosity towards the believers of other religions. It was decided by Gandhi and his followers that despite the social fault lines, the religion of the majority would not dominate over the other and all religions would coexist in harmony. Gandhi said, “If the Hindus believe that India should be populated only by Hindus, they are living in a dreamland. The Hindus, the Mahomedans, the Parsis, and the Christians who have made India their country are fellow countrymen, and they will have to live in unity, if only for their own interest.”
There is no denying the fact that India has witnessed gruesome riots in which thousands of lives have been lost, in which human shave turned into animals and scroungers have killed, raped and maimed their co-religionists, orphaned their offspring in lakhs but nonetheless, it was not the dominant feature of the Indian way of life. Most of the population has lived in peace and lived in close proximity. At times, the state was blamed for being not too impartial and it did discriminate between religions but those were stray incidents, it was never pursued as the state policy. Whenever the state faltered, civil society and other institutions raised their voice and course correction was done. Jawaharlal Nehru has beautifully summed up the nature of the state vis a vis religion, “We talk about a secular state in India ...what it means is that it is the state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities.” But can the same thing be said now?
In today’s India, the state is no longer the neutral umpire between religions, it no longer treats every religion equally and is closely aligned with the religion of the majority community, Hinduism. It would be more apt to say that Hinduism has become the state religion without it having been declared. The minority community is living in fear, the Muslims and the Christians are being targeted by the state and civil society is a mute spectator. Apart from an occasional uproar by a section of the Hindu community against the discriminatory attitude of the state, there is a deep silence. The otherisation of the Muslim community is complete, and they are now called the internal enemies; except for having voting rights, their voice carries no weight, they are treated as collaborators of anti-India forces. The rule of the law and the Constitution is no guarantee for the protection of their rights and the safety of their lives. They have been rendered second-grade citizens and India is no longer their home. The call for the pogroms of Muslims in the so-called Dharma Sansad by the lumpen elements at Haridwar is no coincidence. It is the logical progression of the state policy pursued by the Central government since 2014.
Nehru, when he became the Prime Minister, was sensitive to the fact that the state should not flirt with religion and those holding a constitutional post should not participate in religious functions. Not that he was against religion. For him, religion “consists of the inner development of the individual, the evolution of his consciousness in a certain direction which is considered to be good”. But he was concerned about the ills of organised religion which he described as “…to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation and preservation of vested interests”. For him, religion was a private affair, a spiritual journey. It is for this reason he had advised the then President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, not to participate in the inauguration of the Somnath Temple, advice which the latter did not heed.
But today, the Prime Minister does not leave any opportunity to flaunt his Hindu-ness, projecting himself as a Hindu leader. He is seen actively participating in Hindu religions functions. If in Ayodhya, he, as the Prime Minister performed the religious ceremonies for the inauguration of the Ram Mandir construction, he did the same at the time of inauguration of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, recently in Varanasi. One can quote Gandhi that “no man can live without religion ... and those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is” and argue that Modi is doing no wrong. And if he is a Hindu he should behave like a Hindu. But these people forget that Gandhi’s religion was universal values, to take the best of all the religions; for him every religion was equal, unlike the present Prime Minister, who keeps distance from the other religions.
Of course, he belongs to the RSS which has avowed to make India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. Politics and power for him is only a facilitator for the construction of that utopia. But he has taken an oath on the Constitution, which demands that no act of the state should breathe prejudice against any other religion. Today, the Rubicon has been crossed. The state openly sides with Hinduism and others are treated differently. For stand-up comedian Munawar Farooqi, there is no justice, simply because he is a Muslim. He was jailed for an action which he had not committed, he was forced to suffer because the state believed that he might say something that would hurt the sentiments of the majority community but the so-called sadhus of the Dharma Sansad roam free, despite exhorting the mass killing of Muslims.
There has always been a minuscule minority that spews venom against the Muslims but until today, they never had legitimacy. Earlier, the law would deal with them sternly but not anymore. Today, the silence and the inaction of the Central government and that of the government of Uttarakhand is frightening. This shows their alignment with the thought process of the Dharma Sansad, otherwise these so-called sadhus would have been behind bars. This is happening because secularism as a powerful instrument of the state has ceased to exist, it is no longer a constitutional commitment; it is an empty space which belongs to no one. It is a refuge for a few who live in the past. India has moved ahead. Let us give a dignified burial to secularism so that it can rest in peace; it should not haunt our collective memory.
