Secularism vs. Pseudo Secularism

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Secularism versus Pseudo Secularism
These days, secularism is being debated fiercely. Somepeople say that they are Secularist while other peopledub them as Pseudo-secularist. According toEncyclopedia, secularism means, in government, apolicy of avoiding entanglement between government andreligion (ranging from reducing ties to a state churchto promoting secularism in society), ofnon-discrimination among religions (providing theydon't deny primacy of civil laws), and of guaranteeinghuman rights of all citizens, regardless of the creed(and, if conflicting with certain religious rules, byimposing priority of the universal human rights) whilePseudo-secularism in a societal setting is the stateof implicit non-secular trends in the face of pledgedsecularism. This is usually an allegation by groupswho perceive a double-standard exhibited within theestablished secular governing policy towardsculturally different groups among the governed.However, the present UPA Government is clearly aPsuedo Secular Government which is appeasing theMuslims and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes aswell as Other Backward Castes (OBCs) with a view togetting their votes and thus pushing the countrytowards caste and creed divide. In fact, it isdividing the nation rather than uniting it andbringing the country close to Balkanisation. Some ofthe examples are as under:1. Conferring a special status on J&K vide Article 370of the Constitution which has created a mess inKashmir. Had there been no such article, there wouldhave been an integration of J&K with the rest of theNation and there would not have been a Kashmirproblem.2. Continuing with the separate Sharia Law for theMuslims and not introducing Uniform Civil Code asrecommended in the Constitution.3. Allowing the Bangladeshi illegal immigrants to livein India against the interests of integrity and security of India as these immigrants comprise largelyanti social and anti-Indian elements. The Governmentfeels that throwing out of such immigrants wouldresult in Muslims not voting for them!4. Andhra Pradesh Government and Tamil NaduGovernment's move to fix cent reservation quota forMuslims. These Governments are not realizing that theyare playing with fire. A reservation quota forMuslims would lead to similar demands from Christians,Sikhs, Jains, Bodhs, Parsees and Jews and may be a fewother group on caste basis within a particularreligious group. The whole country would be divided on communal andcaste lines. This can even lead to the Balkanizationof the country. Somebody may even get the funny ideaof having quotas for Dravids, Anglo-Indian etc. onrace basis. The list is endless. So my appeal to theAndhra Pradesh Government is not to play with the fireof caste, communal or race divide. Moreover, thereare practical difficulties in maintaining so manyreservations rosters. Even the officers belonging tothe present reserved classes do not understand all therules in this regard and fail to maintain thereservations rosters properly even if it affects them.While the whole world is going towards simplifyingprocedures, rules etc., we want to complicate themfurther by needless reservations just for the sake ofcatching some votes. In my opinion, no reservationsshould be made on communal lines because no communityis wholly backward either economically or in status. We should not destroy our secular fabric at any costfor vote politics. That is the least we can do forour country.5. The move of the UPA Government to allocate fundsfor key social sector programmes on communal lineswhich is fraught with grave dangers. It would not onlydivide the country on communal lines but would alsoencourage every community to increase its share ofpopulation by asking its members to produce more andmore children to get more and more funds allocated toit. There would be a population explosion apart fromrabid communalism. The population of the countrywould reach uncontrollable heights adding crores andcrores of new mouths to feed. It would become wellnigh impossible to provide jobs, food, shelter andclothes for the surging population notwithstanding theeconomic progress made by the country. A populationexplosion can easily upset all the calculations fordevelopment. It appears that the UPA Government alsowants to rule the country on the policy of divide andrule which was adopted by the British imperialistGovernment which introduced communal rosters for jobsunder its control and also introduced communalelectorates for election to the then provincialassemblies. However, it should remember that theBritish imperialist Government's policy had resultedin the partitioning of the country and if the samepolicy is pursued by it, it would result inBalkanization of the country along communal and castelines.Here it may be mentioned that we have only 2% of thearea of the world while we have 16% of the world'spopulation and are adding the whole population ofAustralia to our population every year. Even simplecommonsense would let us know that all our plans wouldfail if we do not check our population. Thepoliticians belonging to both the Opposition andRuling parties know this hard fact but they are fartoo enamoured of vote bank politics to do the rightthing. In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world,they have taken the help of Muslim clerics topropagate population control. I fail to understandwhat prevents our Government as well as the Oppositionparties to take the help of religious leaders tofurther population control programme becausepopulation control would not affect vote bank politicsif all the religious leaders give it their sanction.6. The term ‘minority’ is set to get a clear-cutlegal definition. The government will soon move aconstitutional amendment in Parliament to establishthe procedure for defining minorities and laying downthe criteria to be fulfilled for a group to find placein the list of minorities.The proposed amendment will do away with the veryconcept of ‘minorities’ at the national level. Therewill only be state-specific minorities. This move isin keeping with the spirit of a number of SupremeCourt judgments. It defines a ‘minority’ as a sectionof citizens of a state which has been specified as aminority in that state, by a presidential notificationissued after consultations with the state government.Another provision gives Parliament the final say inthe matter of defining ‘minorities’. Parliament willbe empowered to enact laws to include or exclude anysection of citizens from the list of minorities. This is also being done to appease the minority as asingle judge Bench of Allahabad High Court has heldthat Muslims are not a minority in UP although hisorders were reversed by a Division Bench of the sameCourt next day.7. A news report in the Times of India stated thatgiving in to pressure from the UPA government, theReserve Bank of India has included 'minoritycommunities' in the list of 'weaker sections' for thepurpose of priority-sector lending by banks. Domesticbanks, both government-owned and private, are mandatedto lend 10% of the their total loans to 'weakersections'. The RBI said banks can decide on theminority-community beneficiaries on the basis of thedemography of the respective state. For example, Sikhswill not be included in the list of minorities inPunjab while Muslims will not be included in Jammu andKashmir and Christians in Mizoram, Sikkim andNagaland. Till now the list of weaker sections includedscheduled castes, scheduled tribes, small and marginalfarmers, artisans and urban poor too distressed torepay their debt to money-lenders. The government had sought the views of the RBI and theIndian Banks Association (IBA) on earmarking 6% of thetotal loans to the minorities. After both the RBI andIBA expressed their reservations, the governmentsuggested that minorities be included in the list ofweaker sections. A senior banker said the measure willhelp banks find better customers as the definition ofweaker section has been widened. Domestic banks are required to give 40% of their totalloans to priority sectors which include agriculture,housing, small-scale industries and weaker sections.While the agriculture sector constitutes half of thepriority-sector lending or 20% of the total bankloans, weaker sections are mandated to be given 25% ofthe total priority-sector loans or 10% of the totalbank loans. Thus, Government is trying to appease the minoritieseven against the advice of the RBI. 8. A news report in the Hindustan Times has statedthat the National Commission for Religious andLinguistic Minorities is understood to haverecommended earmarking 15 per cent seats innon-minority educational institutions for minoritiesand backed the demand for extending Scheduled Castequota benefits to Dalit converts.The commission chaired by Justice Ranganath Misra gaveits report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday.Government sources said the commission had drawn ananalogy with the Supreme Court judgment that limitedadmission to minority students in minorityinstitutions to 50 per cent and recommended 15 percent seats in non-minority institutions forminorities. It said Muslims - 73 per cent of theminorities - should have the first claim on two-thirdof the earmarked seats; other minorities should haveone-third.Government sources said the report was unanimous asfar as the full-fledged members - Dr Tahir Mahmood, DrAnil Wilson and Dr Mohinder Singh - were concerned.There was a note of dissent from Ms Asha Das, membersecretary and an ex-officio member.The Sachar panel that studied the state of Muslims inthe country had also argued in favour of treating theArzals - considered at the bottom of the socialhierarchy among Muslims - as SCs. The government didnot take up this recommendation for consideration lastweek on the ground that it was waiting for the JusticeRanganath Misra commission's report.The proponents of the Government's policy state thatthe Government is forced to take these steps as thereis ghettoisation of Muslims in India. In my opinion,there is no ghettoisation of Muslims in India . Toknow the economic status of the Indian Muslims, wehave to go into the background in which Hindus wereconverted into Islam. When the foreign invaders from Central Asia who wereMuslim invaded India and captured this country, manyHindus were converted into Islam in the followingmanner:a. Some of the Hindus, particularly, Kashmiri Brahminswere converted into Islam by force and threat.b. Some of the Hindus became Muslims of their ownvolition by the influence of the Muslim saints.c. Some of the so called Higher Caste Hindus becameMuslims because they were lured by the power andwealth which they would enjoy by being close to theforeign Muslim rulers.d. Many of the so called Lower Caste Hindus becameMuslims because of the inherent weaknesses of theHindu religion like casteism and untouchability. Most of the Indian Muslims belong to the categorylisted at d. above. The foreign invaders and the Muslims converted fromthe so called Higher Castes formed the rich class ofMuslims and never cared for the poor class of Muslimswho were converts from the so called Lower Castes. Itis these poor class of Muslims who form the majorityof the Indian Muslims, who live in ghettoes like thepoor Hindus. The rich class of Muslims live in theirpalatial houses. These rich Muslims never want theirpoor brothers to get educated or come to theirstandard of living. This is also true of Hindus. Even the Scheduled Caste Hindus and Sikhs who havebecome rich and powerful due to the Government'sreservation policy do not care about their poorScheduled Caste Hindu and Sikh brothers. So, poorHindus like poor Muslims also live in slums andghettoes. It is wrong to say that Muslims are beingghettoized. If some Muslims like to live in a Muslimmajority Mohalla because of fear psychosis that theywould get killed during a riot if they lived in aHindu majority Mohalla, this fear psychosis is notonly confined to Muslims but to Hindus and Sikhs also.Hindus also feel it safe to live in a Hindu majorityMohalla. This fear psychosis is the creation of thepoliticians who want to govern by the policy of divideand rule.In view of the above, in my opinion, in the Indiancontext, secularism should mean:Respect for all religions and convictions includingatheism and agnosticism.Freedom to pursue any religion or conviction includingatheism and agnosticism.Study of any religion may form part of a collegecurriculum but study of religion, caste system, etc.may be banned in schools so that people do not grow upbeing communalists or casteist till they grow up tounderstand the philosophy of a religion.No schools or colleges or universities should be namedafter a religion or a caste or a region so that allschools and educational institutions bearing suchnames as Hindu School , Khalsa College , MuslimUniversity , Christian College , Jat College , RajputSchool , Punjabi School , Marathi College should bebanned. They should be renamed on the names ofNational Heroes like Bhagat Singh, Khudi Ram Bose,Brigadier Usman, etc.Nationalism exhibiting respect for everything Indianto be made a compulsory subject at the primary levelso that students grow up as nationalist. Side by sideInternationalism and respect for all human beings andenvironment must also be taught right from primarylevel to see to it that narrow nationalistic feelingsdo not develop in individuals.Uniform Civil Code for all citizens of IndiaAll States of the Union to have same status. Nospecial status for any State of India. No reservations in Government jobs or educationalinstitutions on caste or creed basis.
2:53:55 PM
Posted By Satbir Bedi Comments (1) Politics
Comments
K.Venugopal Wednesday, June 6, 2007 5:36:48 PM
Congratulations, Mr. Satbir Bedi. You have penned a very thoughtful and important essay. It should be made the basis of a national debate. All of us should be taught to be nothing less than Indians and everything that makes us universal.