Secularism Under
Siege
By Kamal Mitra Chenoy
Independent India was born
in the fires of communalism, through the genocidal carnage of the Partition.
In the desperate contest between the secularists led by the Congress
under the Mahatma and Nehru, and the communalists abetted by the British
and led on the one side by the Muslim League and on the other by the
Hindu Mahasabha-RSS, the latter won. The periodic and increasingly menacing
communal violence that has occurred since then is symptomatic of the
unfinished secular agenda.
Those who fondly imagined
that the bloodletting that followed the Babri Masjid demolition, particularly
in Bombay and Surat, would be checked by the moderate and statesman-like
Vajpayee leading an NDA coalition that included secular parties, were
in for a rude shock, especially after the genocide in Gujarat by the
RSS-appointed Narendra Modi's government in February-March 2002. The
BJP's current moves to vacate the Supreme Court stay on religious ceremonies
near the Babri Masjid site, and the proposed bill to ban cow slaughter,
starkly highlight that secularism is under assault as never before.
A major reason this assault
has progressed so far has been because of the assiduously spread myths
and falsehoods about what secularism, democracy, the Indian nation and
culture are. The core and co-ordinating body behind this Hindutva attack,
the RSS, has its own Western roots. The Italian researcher Marzia Casolari
has exposed the RSS links, after it was set up in 1925 with the Italian
fascist party led by Mussolini. RSS sarsanghchalak MS 'Guru' Golwalkar's
admiration for Hitler is well known. Many of the core concepts of Hindutva
are Indianised versions of Italian and German fascism. Swadeshi versions
some might say.
For example, the sangh brigade
has argued that since India is very largely Hindu, it is a Hindu Rashtra
or nation. This is similar to Hitler's concept of the German 'herrenvolk'
or pure Aryan community. The sanghis argue that the Aryans, contrary
to all historical evidence, were indigenous people and the forebears
of a Hindu race. All minorities, esp. the Muslims and Christians (but
the Sikhs and Jains are not so stridently included as they are considered
part of the Hindu family), are considered illegitimate converts by force
and fraud by Muslim and British rulers.
The attack on the Babri Masjid
(a misnomer as Babar never visited Ayodhya) was part of the sangh purification
(sudhikaran) of history, and righting of mythical historical wrongs
by the Muslims. Babar and 'Babar ke aulad' demolished Ramajanmabhoomi,
and so the sangh brigade had to repay the Muslims in the same medieval
coin. And today, Vajpayee talks of historical proof that the Rama temple
existed there, despite the evidence given by renowned archaeologists
like D. Mandal, and eminent historians like RS Sharma, Romila Thapar
et al. Despite the fact that in Ayodhya there already exist several
Rama temples, for the sangh brigade desperate to remain in the seat
of power, Lord Rama also has an accommodation problem.
Many of us forget that India
was the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, and that the very influential
emperor Asoka was his disciple. The Asoka chakra is at the centre of
the Indian national flag. What
happened to all the Buddhists in the land of the Buddha? They were forcibly
converted to Hinduism by the Brahmins and their followers. Buddhist
shrines and monasteries were despoiled and turned into Hindu sites.
Thus the Bodh Gaya temple today in Bihar is managed by both Buddhists
and Hindus. The sacred Boddhisatva tree nearby, where Buddha attained
enlightenment, was chopped down by a Hindu fanatic centuries ago.
No one, including the Buddhists,
talk of this now. So forcible conversion and the demolition and co-optation
of religious shrines are nothing new, and the Brahmin-led Hindus because
they were the most powerful, were the biggest offenders. This was pre-eminently
not a matter of religion, but of political power, as indeed Hindutva
is.
At the core of this history
of hate is the communal project that argues, as the fascists did, that
the Hindus are a homogeneous community, with little difference, and
no pluralism. Thus the term
'majority community'. This community is seen as having objective contradictions
and differences with the minorities, the 'other.' But aren't Hindus
divided by class, caste, gender, region, language,
etc.? Aren't the Tamils and Kannadigas feuding over the Cauvery river
waters mostly Hindus? Is SM Krishna who tried to side-track Supreme
Court orders on this issue less of a Hindu than Ms. Jayalalitha?
Are those for and against
affirmative action including the Mandal Commission recommendations less
Hindu than the others? There are also Hindus on both sides of the bitter
dispute on the Women's Reservation Bill. Such examples can be multiplied.
Clearly Hindus never were and never can be homogenous. Similarly, Muslims
and other minorities are also not homogenous. For example, Muslims who
claim to have descended from upper castes or more lofty ancestors like
the Sayyids, Ashrafs,
Khans do not normally marry the comparatively lower caste Ansaris and
Qureshis. In Kerala, the Syrian Orthodox Christians do not normally
marry the Latin Christians or frequent the same church. Thus there is
no homogenous 'majority' community or its counterpart 'minority' communities.
The assault on secularism
is also based on a crucial misrepresentation of democracy. The sangh
argument is that democracy means majority rule, and since Hindus are
a majority, Indian democracy must be Hindu, and what for them is the
same thing, Hindutva rule. But this is another distortion. Democracy
is not simply majority rule. Liberal democratic theory holds that all
majorities are temporary. Take elections. Yesterday a party/coalition
e.g., the BJP-Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, was in power. Today another
party/coalition, e.g. the Congress-NCP is in power. The leadership/membership
of both is predominantly Hindu.
If one makes the trivial
statistical point that in either case Hindus are in the 'majority,'
the concomitant confession will have to be that Hindus are different:
they vote and act differently. That further proves they are not a homogenous
community. Further, in the 'first past the post' electoral system, Narendra
Modi's sweeping electoral victory in Gujarat, like Mrs. Indira Gandhi's
famous Lok Sabha victory in 1971, was based on a minority vote, less
than 50 per cent. Very few Indian political formations have got more
than 50 per cent votes, and they have never consecutively repeated the
performance. Moreover, democracies must guarantee minority rights.
That leads us to the next
anti-secular canard of minority appeasement. For example, the sanghis
argue, that Article 30 of the Fundamental Rights, which allows minorities
to run their own educational institutions, has resulted in the proliferation
of madrassas that are spreading Muslim fanaticism if not terrorism.
This they say is minorityism, against democratic majoritarianism (that
we have already refuted). In the first place, there are enough criminal
laws in place in the IPC and CrPC to counter this, apart from the extraordinary
anti-terrorist laws like NSA, Armed Forces Special Powers Act and POTA.
No minority institution is above the law. But the question that arises
is what about the 'majority' RSS-controlled Saraswati Shishu Mandirs,
Vanvasi Kalyan Kendras and the like? Don't these spread Hindu fanaticism?
And don't these fuel genocidal terrorism as in Gujarat and elsewhere?
Behind the rhetorical façade it appears that 'majority' fanaticism
is seen as patriotism, but 'minority' conservatism as 'jehadi terrorism.'
Similar is the argument that
subsidies to the Haj pilgrimage are minority appeasement. If subsidies
for the restoration/rebuilding of Hindu shrines and pilgrimages and
the Kumbh Mela are acceptable, then why not this? But there is a more
profound objection. If secularism is about the separation of religion
and politics, why is the state subsidising religion? We must distinguish
between the state being partisanbetween religions, funding religions
per se, and subsidising a few religious activities. In such a stratified
and largely poor society, where religion not only for the pious, but
even for the atheistic, is an integral part of culture, limited state
subsidies cannot be simply decried as anti-secular, as favouring either
Hindu or Muslim. In any case, quite contrary to the Hindutva argument,
Hindus have got more subsidies than the minorities.
Today, the latest furore
is over cow slaughter instigated by the Congress CM of MP, Digvijay
Singh. Facing an election later in the year, the two term CM sought
to beat the BJP at its own game like other Congress leaders before him,
and raised the issue of cow slaughter, accusing the BJP of being insincere
in this objective. The local youth Congress even printed posters accusing
Vajpayee of being a 'beef eater.' In the first place, eating habits
have nothing to do with nationalism or democracy. Secondly, many lower
caste Hindus as well as Hindus in eastern, north-eastern and southern
India, apart from the minorities, eat beef. Thirdly, Article 48 of the
Directive Principles, which unlike Fundamental Rights are not judicially
enforceable, does not focus exclusively on the prohibition of cow slaughter.
It concerns the scientific organisation of animal husbandry and enjoins
on the state to preserve and improve on all existing indigenous breeds,
and prohibits the slaughter not only of cows, but of all "draught
and milch cattle." In other words, under this Directive Principle,
all draught and milch cattle including cows, buffaloes, yaks, mithuns,
should not be slaughtered.
So why this Brahminical insistence
only on cows? The comprehensive prohibition in Article 48 is just notenforceable.
Hindus, especially lower caste and poor, widely eat buffalo meat, and
where they can get it, beef, as in Kerala, West Bengal and the north
east. In any case there are other Directive Principles such as Article
41 which includes the right to work, Article 39 for an equitable distribution
of wealth, etc. that no one talks of today. Is cow slaughter more important
than all this?
It is clear that the current
assault on secularism is motivated, aimed at establishing a pseudo-theocratic,
authoritarian polity in which the BJP can secure its rule forever. Where
progressively the sansad (Parliament) will be substituted by a dharma
sansad of self-appointed 'sants' acceptable to the sangh brigade and
the political opposition be booked under POTA.
The all-out assault on secularism
is not merely against tolerance; it is against democracy itself and
the very basis of a pluralist India. As before, a two-nation theory
will only lead to Partition, or as Yugoslavia and the USSR have shown,
to Balkanisation.
(Kamal Mitra Chinoy teaches
at JNU, New Delhi).
Communalism Combat
March 18, 2003