Page 10 - English Tehelka Issue 1&2

identity

sabh dale male hai”— roughly meaning, word ‘Indus’ which is an English ver-
“Without state participation, religion sion of the word ‘Sindhus’. The ancient
cannot flourish. Without religion, the Arabs and Persians now come to the
state would go too ruins.”) aid of the political-ideologue, helping
It is quite another matter that by him keep alive the confusion between
religion, the Gurus did not mean “com- the Hindus and the Indians.
munalism”, nor even “Sikh religion”. Not that anyone in his senses needs
What they actually meant to empha- any scholarly explanations to know
size were religious ideals such as equal- that all Indians are not Hindus or that
ity, justice, freedom, truth and fair-play. not even all Hindus are Indians — ex-
That emphasis on the state being cept if the government of India wants
guided by religious principles is present to own responsibility for all Hindus
in all faiths, including Hinduism (Ram living as citizens of various countries
Rajya), Islam (Juda ho deen siyasat se to in every part of the world. But of
reh jaati hai Changezi) or Christianity in course that is not even the intention
which Jesus is the True King. This has of any Government or political or
nothing to do with mixing religion with cultural organization in the country.
politics. This has nothing to do even • Saffron prevails India is a country of Hindus Nowhere in the The debate has relevance only in the
with mixing worship and other reli- but it belongs to others too, says Mohan Bhagwat windmills of political skullduggery.
gious practices with politics. And this world is the word Any slogan that can sufficiently and
certainly has nothing to do with mixing Hindu taken to appropriately polarize the country
religious identities with politics, or with and so dramatically that the debate along communal lines is good for its
politics being driven by the dictates in the country is no longer between mean Indian; it is leaders so long as communal polari-
of a particular religion, any religion. the secular and the communal forces. always understood zation can yield votes. In the first two
But trust our politicians to distort the It is only between “pseudo-secular” decades post Independence, India
scriptures. elements on the one side and “national- as a description was fortunate to have survived such
The debate in the • Politicising religion The question remains: The BJP, never truly enamoured ists” on the other. Hindutava has been of the followers of polarization although the danger
country is no longer What is the place of religion in politics? of the Congress brand of secular invested with a secular currency so Sri Ram and Lord always loomed large on the horizons.
Even leaders like Pandit Jawahar
much so that to question Hindutava
politics, had already begun to cast its
between secular constitutional veil away and emerge amounts to questioning the Indian- Krishna Lal Nehru were alive to the dangers
and communal son, Rajiv, who succeeded her to the in sharper and more strident contours ness of an Indian. which communal polarization posed
to the very survival of the country in
And it is all about sophistry and lin-
throne, not only justified the massacre
of its true political ideology which is
forces. It is only but also rewarded its perpetrators with rooted in the RSS brand of patriotism. guistic chicanery. You say one thing and debate — except that this innocence its formative years. Fortunately for the
country, Nehru chose to pitch his poli-
To be fair to the RSS, they have never
deliberately imply another and leave
high positions in government includ-
between “pseudo- ing cabinet berths. None of the guilty openly disowned the secular ideal the door open for multiple deceptions too is rather methodical. They know tics in a mix of economic development
secular” elements has been punished even 33 years after enshrined in the constitution. But that through vagueness later. The state- that the moment anyone mentions the and social consensus. The Nehruvian
was not even necessary. And that’s the
era will always be remembered as the
the tragedy.
ments emerging from the headquar-
word ‘Hindu’ anywhere in the world,
and “nationalists” Anyone who thought that the whole trouble. ters of some of the leading political it will invoke images of the people be- “the era of the Moderate Secularist”
country may have drawn the right Our mainstream political parties parties these days are a classic example longing to a religion which has the Gita, in which ideological or communal
lessons from this tragedy was soon to no longer believe that they have any of communal casuistry — the usage of the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahab- extremes were held at bay with em-
mandar Sahib, or the Golden Temple be proved wrong by what happened need to pretend to be secular. What purposely misleading expressions and harata, etc. as their iconic cultural and phasis on economic resurgence and
in Amritsar, resulting in the virtual at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 when some of our more strident parties have arguments in order to keep the com- religious identity-symbols. Nowhere in consolidation.
destruction of the iconic Sri Akal Takht motivated crowds rampaged and re- done to our polity will take a long time munal cauldron alive. Those who find the world is the word Hindu taken to Unfortunately, there is no secular
Sahib. This was in June 1984. Exactly duced to rubble the 16th century Babri for this country to even fully react nothing wrong in declaring that every- mean Indian; it is always understood icon on the scene today capable of in-
five months later, Indira Gandhi was mosque. to. They have demonized “secular- one born in India is a Hindu cannot be as a description of the followers of the spiring and navigating the nation away
assassinated as an act of reprisal by the Interestingly, the BJP, spearheaded ism” making it almost synonymous unaware that the Muslims are not Hin- Sri Ram Chandra and Lord Krishna. from dangerously divisive slogans. For
Sikhs. What followed was India’s hour at that time by L K Advani, had been with unpatriotic conduct. You cannot dus and the Hindus are not Muslims And nowhere in the world is the word that to happen, we will need someone
of shame: thousands of innocent Sikh among the staunchest critics of the be secular these days without being while both are Indians, and proudly so. ‘Indian’ a synonym for ‘Hindu’. Every who can redirect the national focus
men, women and children dragged Akalis mixing religion with politics in accused of being pro-Pakistan, just as Characteristically, they have invested Hindu knows that a person belong- back to economic issues and turn mod-
out of their homes to be burnt alive, Punjab. The Akalis sought ideologi- you could not be a Leftist in the sixties the term ‘Hindu’ with a meaning which ing to Sikh religion or to Islam or to eration into a religion. Right now, there
raped and subjected to an inhuman cal moorings for their religio-political without being accused of loyalties with has never been in usage anywhere in Christianity is not a Hindu even if he is is no one with a voice credible enough
orgy never witnessed at this scale in brew in the dictates of their Gurus who China. Our politicians have mesmer- the world. Of course, our politicians born and brought up in India. But our to inspire enough confidence in that
the country since its independence had underlined the need for subjugat- ized the media into reading “pseudo- know what they are doing. Some of political ideologues innocently declare direction. The vacuum is frightening.
from the British in 1947. What added to ing politics to religious ideals. (“Raj bina secular” for secular. They have changed them express ‘innocent shock’ over be- that everybody born in India is a Hindu
India’s shame was that Indira Gandhi’s nahi dharma chale hai/Dharam bina the terms of engagement so smartly ing misunderstood on the Hindu-India because the word India comes from the letters@tehelka.com
Tehelka / 31 january 2018 10 www.Tehelka.com Tehelka / 31 january 2018 11 www.Tehelka.com

9-11 Bains Spectravision.indd 2-3 12/01/18 3:56 PM