4. MINORITYISM AS SECULARISM: An Author and Two Books-4
FOUR MAJOR DEBATES
Sashi Tharoor mentions 4 major debates facing India at the end of the 20th Century:
- bread versus freedom debate : Can democracy which is supposed to confer freedom also guarantee bread for everyone ie freedom from poverty? Should democracy be dispensed with in pursuit of economic prosperity?
[ Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency!]
- Centralisation versus federalism debate : how much of state or regional autonomy and how much central control? How to tackle fissiparous tendencies based on language, region, etc?
[This issue has cropped up as our Constitution makers were basically admirers of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, and they continued what the British had provided. The British had destroyed our own systems of republican governance, which gave full autonomy to local units, up to village level.]
- pluralism versus fundamentalism debate:
- Coca-colonisation debate or globalisation versus self reliance.
Both the way the problem is posed and answer attempted are dictated by the intellectual prejudices of the person . There is hardly a neutral debate.
SECULARISM DEBATE
Taking the third debate for the present, Tharoor poses the question:
Is the secularism established in India's Constitution, and now increasingly attacked as a westernized affectation, essential in a pluralistic society, or should India, like many other Third World countries,find refuge in the assertion of its own religious identity?I think Tharoor here is confused, terribly confused. Is secularism the same as pluralism? Is the secularism as found in the Constitution the same as what is being practiced? Are critics of secularism attacking it for its supposedly western roots or for its grotesque application in practice? What is fundamentalism? Are the so called critics of secularism demanding asserting religious identity for all?
Here, Tharoor exhibits all the prejudices of a conventional Indian self-styled political secularist . So, some fundamental points are in order.
1. What does he mean by secularism? Is it of the negative Nehruvian type - being west oriented agnostic indifference? Is it the State being separate from religious influence, equally distant from all, and allowing space for all? Or is it like what the Indian masked leftist-secularists practise: attack Hindus by all means , but exalt other religions and placate them in all possible ways?
Tharoor knows that Hindus have always welcomed people of all religions and given them shelter here. They have never persecuted any one on the basis of religion as the Christians did and do, as the Muslims did and do? Does this not amount to de facto secularism in practice long before we got a written Constitution ?
Respect for all faiths is the true Indian form of secularism. It is indigenous. It faces problems because the other 'faiths' especially the two major monotheistic religions do not accept it and reciprocate the spirit.
2. Tharoor's use of the word 'fundamentalism' calls for condemnation, if it is sought to be applied to Hindus. Tharoor himself writes that Hinduism has no one code, no one interpretation, no one authorised intepreter, etc. Fundamentalism is a phenomenon of the Muslims, where it is the Wahhabi way that is sought to be imposed on all Muslims with Saudi money power. Does it then make sense to talk of Hindu fundamentalism?
3. It is the fundamental belief of the two monotheistic religions - Christianity and Islam- that they alone are true, and all others are false. They claim it as their fundamental duty to convert others. Does Tharoor agree with this? If so, how does he reconcile this with the Hindus' right not to get converted or resist conversion? Will he agree with reverse conversion? Why then are the secularists shivering and shouting at "Ghar Wapsi"?
4. Can he cite one leading Muslim or Christian authority in India who admits openly that all religions are true and valid, that Hinduism is true and valid? It is only Hindu fools who are pleading for the other religions!
5. If the secularism that is practised now is according to the Constitution, why is the govt running /controlling Hindu temples, and not the mosques and the churches? Is this secularism Constitutional or Tharoorian, or Nehruvian ?
6. Tharoor, like all pseudo secularists, is misrepresenting the nature of the debate. I am not sure whether it is deliberate, or a slip.
The current controversy is about fundamental nationalism, not religious fundamentalism.
He should introspect why this is happening now.
FUNDAMENTAL NATIONALISM V RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
When our national leaders fought for Freedom, they fought for all, including Muslims in India. Up to 1937, Indian Muslims were also nationalistic, supporting the Congress. Jinnah and the Muslim League could not garner support. But the foolishness of Gandhi in withdrawing from the Provincial Govts in 1939, the Quit-India Call, ill-advised parleys with Jinnah in 1945, the open and clandestine support of the British for Jinnah- all resulted in boosting the prospects of Jinnah-led Muslim league whose only demand and program after 1940 was the creation of separate Pakistan for the Muslims. They eminently succeeded.
Now, it can be presumed that all those who were more conscious of their Muslim identity than their Indian heritage and identity opted for Pakistan. And all those who remained in India were Indian nationalists.
However, to secure for itself a solid vote bloc, the Congress indulged in pampering and placating them, not because they were Indians, but primarily because they were Muslims and minorities. They thus had two privileges combined. Has the Congress at any time reminded the Muslims that they have a duty to be nationalistic? Tharoor himself records (on page 122):
"Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP leader,... put it bluntly to The New York Times : "If you go on talking about "Muslims. Muslims", and 'minorities, minorities', you injure the Hindu psyche. People start asking, 'Is it going to be a crime to be a Hindu in this country ?'"
To seek votes of Muslims as Muslims is Congress secularism!
So Tharoor should know that the fundamentalism, if any, that Hindu nationalists are harping on, is about fundamental nationalism ie about basic national identity and not Hindu religious fundamentalism.
Even this is a reaction to circumstances. For the last thousand years, Hindus have only been reacting.But this is how the so called self-styled leftist loony secularists deliberately misstate the terms of the debate.
The question then is about our national identity, It is: "Who is an Indian?", and not, "Who is a Hindu ?".
WORLDWIDE CRISIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY
DUE TO MUSLIM INFLUX
This question of national identity is not peculiar to India. It is troubling all Western nations in various degrees due to the problem of Muslim immigrants and refugees and their attitude to secular governance.
The secular liberal nations do admit them but after an initial stage, the Muslims refuse to integrate with the local population, follow the local civilian laws,even as they enjoy the fruits of modern welfare states, and assert their religious identity above national loyalty and demand administration of justice and civil law according to Islamic principles.
In short, the presence of the Muslims in secular countries leads to the existence of two nations in each State.
"Two nations" : does it sound familiar? That is what Jinnah said about Hindus and Muslims living together! It is now happening all over the world! The true Muslim colour is showing!
All over the world, for the Muslim, his religious identity stands above all else! His very minority status is to assert his religious identity! A Muslim never forgets he is a Muslim first. He has no loyalty to any country, for his source is Mecca, his language is Arabic. Sir V.S.Naipaul put it bluntly:
Islam, he claimed, had both enslaved and attempted to wipe out other cultures."It has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter.
Sir Vidia claimed what he called "this abolition of the self demanded by Muslims was worse than the similar colonial abolition of identity. It is much, much worse in fact... You cannot just say you came out of nothing.www.theguardian.com/world/2001
4 October 2001
All countries where Muslims live in some numbers face this problem- conflict of identity. One reason why Britain decided to exit the European Union is that British people did not want to accept Muslim refugees in unlimited numbers which they saw as threatening their core identity as Britishers.
Professor Anna Bono of the University of Turin, an expert in African migration, revealed, “In the countries of sub-Saharan Africa there are advertisements inciting people to go to Italy, explaining that everything here is free.” Half of the prostitutes in Italy are Nigerian.
The left-leaning European leaders who authorized the flood of refugees in the interests of forced “diversity” are now experiencing the consequences. Compelling two cultures to merge, where one’s holy book instructs its believers to destroy nonbelievers, will ultimately destroy Western civilization.Townhall.com December 27, 2016.
Samuel Huntington had said at the end of the cold war that there would indeed be a clash of civilizations. Every religion and even every system that opposes religion does embody a way of life. They could be incompatible in practice, as Muslims are proving.
INDIA'S BLIND POLITICIANS
Indian politicians calling themselves secular refuse to see the problem, as Gandhi in his day refused to see the problem.This is a peculiar blind spot of Indian politicians.
Hindus and Muslims had fought the British together as Indians in 1857. But barely after 60 years, Gandhi was instrumental in fostering and strengthening the separatist Muslim identity by supporting the Khilafat movement. Khilafat went phut , but the Muslim identity stayed, and grew to get Pakistan within 30 years.
In the same way, Indira Gandhi fostered Bindranwale till the Khalistan movement grew and she had to engage the army to suppress it, but paid for it with her life.
Indian politicians have fostered and strengthened the separate Muslim identity for their own narrow electoral purposes. They have not understood that according to Muslim law Muslims cannot be subject to non-Muslim rulers ie infidels.
I challenge Tharoor or any other self-proclaimed secularist to disprove this statement.
The obstacle to genuine secularism in India is therefore the pampered attitude of Muslims themselves, their obstruction to the smooth flow of civil law. The Shah Banu case and the subsequent legislation, and the ban on Salman Rushdie's book Satanic Verses,[in obedience to conservative Muslim elements ], the hesitation about Common Civil Code, the reluctance to ban beef ( which even Akbar did ) are all obstacles in the way of true secularism. They stem from the fact that the Muslims do not want to integrate, gracefully accepting the natural majority.
MINORITYISM IS NOT SECULARISM
What Indian nationalists demand is not that Muslims and Christians become Hindus, but that they become Indians ie citizens with loyalty to India as their country.
The Christians have a problem because of their conversion. The Muslims have their problem because they do not want to be subject to non-Muslims who are infidels.
India is Hindu country with Hindu majority, and it is both foolish and dastardly for so called secularists to ask the Hindus to forget, dilute or give up their identity, while strengthening the minorities in theirs! What results is minorityism, not secularism.
Ask Muslims whether they accept India as their fatherland or motherland. Ask them whether they sing Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem. Ask them whether they sing Vande Mataram as the national song. Ask them whether they salute the national flag. And then talk of secularism.
NATIONAL IDENTITY :
Problem created by the Congress Party
The question of national identity cannot be ignored. After the states of Italy in the peninsula were unified into modern Italy in the 19th century, the novelist-statesman Massimo D'Azeglio wrote:
"We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians."
Congressmen have reduced us to such a situation today. Indians fought for freedom as Indians. Congressmen classified them as Hindus and Muslims. Even after the Muslims separated with Pakistan, Congressmen persisted with catering to the separatist Muslim identity.
They divided the country into linguistic states so that Hindu Indians are first asserting their identity on linguistic basis: Tamil , Malayaali, Bengali, Kannadiga, Gujarati, Marathi, etc. It is only the NRIs who talk of themselves as Indians first (Tharoor is a great example!)
All that nationalists are asking is for all Indians to assert themselves as Indians first. Does this amount to fundamentalism, Mr. Tharoor?
HISTORY AND CULTURE
In any consideration of nationalism and national identity, history and culture play a part.Ernest Renan, 19th century French savant who wrote on the subject deeply wrote:
A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present- day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (by which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more-these are the essential conditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed down. The Spartan song-"We are what you were; we will be what you are" -- is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every patrie. (homeland)
Ask the Muslims whether they agree with this view. Ask the Muslim clerics whether they agree. And then talk of true secularism.
PLURALISM DOES NOT MEAN
PRIVILEGING SOME MINORITIES
A pluralistic society can flourish only when the minorities respect the history and culture of the majority and are prepared to make adjustments. They cannot say that their religion is all, and the majority has to keep adjusting ! A Nationalist cannot sacrifice national identity on the altar of so called secularism, as defined by the west oriented leftists or minorities and their champions. There is no question of minority in respect of national identity.
If you want to live in Switzerland or England, you adopt and respect their national identity, while practising your religion as permitted in law. If you don't like their law, don't stay there ! It is that simple. Should it be different in respect of Indian National identity?
Minorityism in the guise of secularism should be kicked out.
IS GANGA A MERE CULTURAL SYMBOL?
Tharoor cites how Nehru converted Ganga's religious significance into a force for cultural unity and states:
There is nothing in Nehru's use of the Ganga as a symbol that could alienate an Indian Muslim or Christian.He accuses the forces of Hindutva of "narrowly appropriating such powerful national metaphors for a dogmatic version of their faith". This is height of stupidity.
Hindus do not have to appropriate a thing which is already theirs for ages.
It is invaders and conquerors like Muslims and Christians and their descendants, followers of alien faiths, who have to accept them as THEIR cultural rather than religious symbols.
A Hindu has no hesitation in regarding Mecca or Lourdes as their religious symbol, and does not deceive himself that they are mere cultural symbols. Many a Hindu instinctively venerates them, even if he does not follow those religions ! A Hindu does not hate or deny other religions. Followers of the two monotheistic religions cannot do that because they are officially taught that theirs is the only true religion. They will not fall to the subterfuge of regarding Ganga as a cultural symbol. What is the culture of which it is a symbol? These are the ways in which the pseudo secularists deceive themselves and fool others. Are they so blind that they cannot see this plain truth?
I really wonder in what mood or under what stars Tharoor wrote this stupid stuff! Tharoor should also know that for Hindus, Nehru is no authority to interpret their religious symbols or to tell them how it should be done. Ganga represents the inseparable unity of Hindu religion and culture. Nehru was an agnostic, not a practising Hindu. He had no business playing with Hindu religious matters. A thousand Nehrus cannot divest Ganga of its religious significance.
This part of the book is regular pseudo-secularist rant and unsatisfactory. Tharoor bats for the Muslims and Christians. He takes them for granted. Let him show how many Muslims and Christians accept this stand.
For a thousand years and more, Hindus (and India )have been losing because they did not consciously assert or pursue their common Hindu identity for political purposes. Gandhi and company destroyed the common Hindu identity. Now some vested interests are preventing even a common national identity from asserting itself. They misuse the name of secularism to disguise their agenda. Nationalists should beware.
Fundamental Nationalism cannot be compromised.
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