India is a Secular Country. Right? But sometimes I don't feel like it is.
But is India truly a secular country?
I searched for a definition of secularism and came across Merriam-Webster, they define Secularism as "the belief that religion should not play a role in government, education, or other public parts of society". By this definition, I came to the conclusion that today's India is not secular.
We can't deny the fact that India which we know today came into existence after dividing the country on the bases of Religion.
How Secularism In India Devolved Into Political Pandering
After independence in 1947, the advocates of secular nationalism decisively won the debate over how the state should navigate the tricky terrain of India’s religious diversity. Nehru believed that Indian secularism was vital because he had seen firsthand how Muslim communalism had resulted in the division of the country (into India and Pakistan) in 1947. For him, the Partition of the subcontinent had not only cut Indian territory in two but had also divided a civilization.The partition of 1947 divided the country into India & Pakistan, with Pakistan openly claiming to be an Islamic state. While India chose to be open to all and be secular. Partition changed millions of lives, and the shape of the world, forever.
Nehru fought against all forms of communalism (Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh), not against religion per see. Nehru outlined his views on the subject in 1961, when he said, “We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for ‘secular.’ Some people think it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is a state which honors all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities.”
But the word 'equally' in the above statement is slightly misleading. As the Government has not observed a clear-cut equidistance vis-à-vis each religious community. Now, I am not saying this on my own or by just looking at today's situation. but you will also agree that the government has indeed sometimes applied different standards to different religions.
For example, In any Secular country, all its citizens irrespective of religion would be covered by a single set of laws. But in India however, people of different religious beliefs are covered by different laws. While Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists are covered by the Hindu code bills, while Muslims are covered by Muslim Personal Law, and Christians are covered by Christian Personal Law. So, Hindus, Muslims, Christians & Parsis inherit property differently and have different rules for marriage, divorce, and adoption among other things. Some separation of religion and state indeed!
This is why Rajeev Bhargava (Political Theorist) terms India’s secular approach as one of “principled distance”—not equidistance.
Similarly, the Government provides subsidies for different religious pilgrimages (albeit not necessarily to the same extent), including Sikhs going to Pakistan, Hindus for Amarnath Yatra, and Muslims going to Mecca for the Hajj.
But in practice, the concept of Principled Distance has not meant they the Government interferes equally in all religions, or to the same degree or in the same manner in all cases.
During the time of Prime Minister Indra Gandhi, the Congress party began opportunistically pandering to one religious community after another more overtly, and Indian secularism was deeply damaged as a result. To begin with, Prime Minister Indra Gandhi recognized Aligarh Muslim University as a minority institution, she also inaugurated the Bharat Mata Mandir, a temple constructed in 1983 with the support of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), also known as the World Hindu Council.
A Political Leader inaugurating a temple or transforming an education institute to favor a particular community might not seem like much when it comes to secularism, right?
But think from the view of the masses. These simple gestures are like a message that "I am with this community." And this message sparks fear, insecurity, and distrust in people.
Since 2014, secularism has been put on the back foot by everyone. The growing consensus seems to be that the only legitimate stance a political party can take is to indulge in communal politics.
During the recent state election in Gujrat (2017) as well as Madhya Pradesh (2018), Rahul Gandhi visited dozens of temples and represented himself as Shiv Bhakt and even accomplices talk about his gotra. All this is just so he can capture the Hindu vote bank.
The disappearing secularism is not just the case with political parties. In many instances, India's Supreme Court increasingly has had to remind the country’s various high courts of fundamental secular principles. For instance, Mohsin Shaikh, a young engineer, was coming back from the mosque when he was killed by a group of Hindu activists. The local court ruled that Shaikh had been attacked “because he looked like a Muslim,” and his twenty-three assailants were arrested and accused of murder. But the Bombay High Court, which heard the case on appeal, freed some of them on bail for the following reason: “The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favor of the applicants/accused. Moreover, the applicants/accused do not have a criminal record and it appears that in the name of the religion, they were provoked and have committed the murder.” The Supreme Court later overruled the high court and pointed out that “the fact that the deceased [Mohsin] belonged to a certain community cannot be a justification for any assault much less a murder.” The Supreme Court requested that high court justices be “fully conscious of the plural composition of the country while called upon to deal with rights of various communities.”
CONCLUSION:
Secularism in India is not something that was invented post-1947, the concept has a long and distinguished place in the history of this great nation. Emperor Ashoka did so, despite his zealous adherence to Buddhism, and the Mughal Emperor Akbar went even further by initiating a syncretic creed.But in the 2019 general election, BJP tried to exploit caste identities by introducing new positive discrimination policies. For citizens from less privileged economic backgrounds who belong to the general category (that is, primarily the upper castes or those untouched by existing state quotas), Modi announced in January 2019 a 10 percent quota for educational institutions and civil service posts.
This new category of quota for a particular set of people who were earlier excluded from any form of reservation suggests that in the coming years, cast politics can gain momentum and indirectly contribute to a more secular approach to politics.
Also, India is a culturally rich country. Establishing a secular society is difficult in our religiously tricky terrain. But not impossible.
I would suggest we change the definition of secularism for us. Because we can not follow the current definition. Some of the most important reformers were made when the Government interfered with the society's religious beliefs. Like the abolishment of Sati, the equal rights to Dalits, and the abolishment of triple talaak, all these and many more good changes have been made possible when the Government took the stand.
At last, we all are not Muslims or Hindus, or Christians but we all are Hindustanis.
These are just my thoughts.
All the people quoted above have spoken these things at some point and can be easily Googled.
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