P.N. Ganjoo |
ll Indians are grateful to their forefathers who bequeathed them the endowments of democracy and secularism through the Indian Constitution. India was created without defining any religious and ethnic identity for the state. Hence India is a multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic country but has no official religion. All Indians are equal citizens with equal rights and responsibilities irrespective of their religious, ethnic and caste identity. As India was not created as a theocratic state religion was relegated to a citizen’s private domain. Though religion is our private and personal matter, yet all our religious rights have been well protected and guaranteed by the Constitution of India.
This fundamental feature of the Indian constitution impacted the socio-political complexion of the Indian State. Social and political mores and conventions started to evolve around this broader view of the state, without reference to religion and ethnicity. The narrow , parochial and sectarian view that had developed as a reaction to hundreds of years of invasions, attacks and repression based on religious beliefs started to lose ground. Politicians of India now manouvered around two major ideals; broad based ,all inclusive secular-nationalist on one hand and segmented and sectarian on the other. The first ideal is also steeped in India’s ancient history and culture of all inclusiveness while the second had been created more as a necessary reaction in tough times of invasion and repression. These conflicting ideals have involuntarily divided the mindset of the average Indian since he started to shape his own destiny after the partition of 1947. Party politics of the country has equally been impacted, creating two parallel waves of all inclusive national level versus segmented-communal-region-caste based. Both mindsets have in some manner strengthened the roots of democracy in the country and somehow provided desired representation to individuals and groups. The march of secular forces was not smooth and easy. Significant hurdles and bottlenecks were created by interests guided by the politics of religion. On the one hand were those who did not stop believing in the 2 nation theory and continued to be guided by the ideology by which Pakistan was created. On the other hand was a reaction to this by a section of Indians. Pakistan created unrest and stoked any resulting fire because it had a point to prove. It had been created on the principle of the two-nation theory which advocated that Hindus and Muslims as two distinct ethnic and religious groups cannot co-exist and live side by side in peace and tranquility. Political classes hobnobbed with both secular-nationalist and sectarian people to achieve their political ends. This has continued and reached such a low that it is causing permanent agony to the citizens of modern India. The current stock of politicians, both from ruling alliance and opposition combine who are taking shots at achieving power at the national, regional and state levels have taken it upon themselves to exploit issues of division for their petty political motives as and when it suits their needs and convenience. Currently there are a many politicians who have the foot in the mouth disease. In trying to be smart and opportunistic, they indulge in loose talk, creating more problems than can be solved by others. Their statements are not only immature but irresponsible too. Even the Home Minister of India has been in the line of fire for his various such statements. A few months back he stated that solution to the four decades old Telengana tangle would be arrived at by the end of January 2013. This could not have been a political and pragmatic statement from a person at such a high level. Again in the month of January 2013, at a Congress enclave in Jaipur the Home Minister dropped a bombshell when he stated that mainline opposition BJP and its ideological mentor RSS had held Hindu terrorist training camps. It was not only immature but an irresponsible statement which was devoid of national interest and factual considerations. Was he being secular or was he playing communal politics? This kind of behavior, which is so commonly expected from the hypocritical “secularists” now is the bane of the nation. Their reasoning and actions are not based on the real values of secularism, which means equal citizenship status for all. Instead hypocritical “secularists” use every opportunity to slice and dice the population into voter segments so that they can win elections. The nationalist, real secular people are having a tough time retrieving the true, exalted meaning of secularism from the gutter levels that the word has been sunk into. |
*P.N.Ganjoo was born in a modest Kashmiri family about 7 decades ago, lost his father early and was raised by his honest, hardworking mother. With her efforts he received his education in Srinagar and went on to serve in various Government Departments before retiring as a senior grade KAS officer. Presently he is working on his varied interests besides being a consulting Director of a software services company. |
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