Recently, writers, artists and scientists
have returned their awards. Other similar eminent persons also have
joined hands with these protesters. At this juncture, it will not be
irrelevant to discuss the political views of these eminent persons.
The politics of politicians faces a test at least during elections.
But it is left to the students of Literature and Social Sciences to
discuss the politics of the writers, artists, scientists, social
scientists or historians from time to time.
Semantics
I have to give two clarifications.
First, I am conscious of my vernacular English which may not be of
the standard of the mainstream intellectual discourse in India. But I do
think that intellectual discourse need not be left only to
sophisticated English speaking writers. Therefore I hope readers will
tolerate my English.
The second clarification is more important. It is about the words used in this essay. The word
Hindu used
here is to mean as it means in the government records. It does not mean
a homogeneous unit or does not refer to a single group of people with
certain belief systems. This word includes all those communities, castes
and traditions which are included under the category
Hindu in the census data of the government.
Here, the word
Hinduism does not mean
a religion that is similar to Islam or Christianity. In this essay the word
religion does not include
Hinduism as it includes Islam and Christianity.
The words
secular,
secularism and
secularist are used in the sense they are used by the award-returning writers. I should also clarify that I believe their model of secularism is not the
real secularism, if at all
secularism is the right word to be used and that their idea of secularism does not serve the purpose that it should serve.
Growing Intolerance: Placing the Responsiblity
Those writers who have returned their awards have claimed that this
is an act of protest against the Sahitya Akademi, against the Central
Government or against the rightist groups. The core of all these
statements is that they are protesting against the growing trend of
intolerance in the country.
‘
Growing trend of intolerance’ does not refer to any single
or specific incident. It is something that takes place over a period of
time. Therefore we can agree that the questions such as why they did not
protest when Sikhs were murdered or when emergency was imposed etc, do
not arise.
We can also agree with their argument that, though late, at least now
they have woken up and that it’s better late than never. But the fact
that this growing trend of intolerance has become visible to them only
during the last one or so years shows that they have just got their
spectacles changed and we can easily imagine the colour of the new
spectacles.
We should note one small, but very important difference as far as the
conflicts or relations between communities are concerned. Though
equality between the castes is not achieved completely,
discrimination
based on caste has definitely decreased during the last six or seven
decades and the standard of living of Scheduled Castes and Other
Backward Castes is better when compared to the earlier years.
This is because of the efforts of reformers of the distant past,
recent past or present. We should also take note of the contributions
made in this regard by constitutional measures, various governments and
the writers who created awareness.
The
social unrest caused by the policy on SC, ST and OBC is negligible when
compared to the amount of change or empowerment it caused.
But the policy on Muslims has not brought about any significant improvement in the standard of living of Muslims. If it has helped Muslims, Sachar Report should have shown different findings.
The Indian secular discourse has resulted in alienating Muslims and
in turn, has harmed them. If we see the relations between the
Hindus and Muslims the gap is widening day by day. This has made the award returning writers believe that intolerance is growing.
But who should be held responsible for this intolerance?
Actually the secular discourse during the last sixty years has not succeeded in reducing the tensions between
Hindus and Muslims. Instead, it has increased intolerance.
The award returning writers call themselves as secularists and
advocates of multiculturalism and pluralism. Their writings are the most
dominant part of India’s secular discourse and if there is any fallacy
or contradiction in the secular discourse they must hold themselves
responsible.
What are the ways in which the harmony between various communities
need to be retained and improved? Is it through police action or is it
through the mutual trust, attitudes and mind-set of the people? If it is
through mutual trust and the mind-set of the people, then the state
should create a conducive atmosphere for that. Writers should provide
thoughts, social theories and literature in that direction.
Secular Discourse has Proven Deadly
What did the post independent secular discourse do? The basic premise of this discourse is this:
Hindus are majority; Muslims and others are minority.
According to the secularists, the multiple identities of
Hinduism are considered as a single unit called
majority.
Majority-minority division based on religion is not considered as communal politics by these secularists!
At the same time, the secularists argue that only some
fringe elements are intolerant and only these elements are spreading hatred and that the vast majority of
Hindus are for pluralism.
If this is so, how can they argue for some special status to the
minority, thereby indicating that all the
Hindus are categorized under one unit namely the
persecuting and dominating majority?
If they agree that most of the
Hindus are tolerant and
pluralists then why should they be treated as a majority which can do
some harm to the minorities? Moreover, almost all the secularists have
argued that
Hindu is not a homogeneous entity. For example, see Amartya Sen’s
The Argumentative Indian or any other book by a known secularist.
In which case, how can such heterogeneous groups be considered a single majority? How can there be a
minority when there is no
majority? The secularists use the concept of
minority in their discourse even though they cannot identify the
majority!
The constituent assembly had a very lengthy debate about this aspect of
minority,
but unfortunately it could not give up this notion. The
majority-minority divide holds well only in countries where the majority
of the population follows the religion which considers conversion of
others an important part of religious duties. For instance you can have
the majority-minority concept in Pakistan, UK, UAE etc., but not in
India.
Hinduism
So, isn’t there anything common among the
Hindus? The answer is yes.
Some common features follow: these traditions or communities considered under the umbrella of
Hinduism do not have a ‘religion’ in the sense of Islam or Christianity.
Two: Hindus believe that they should offer Pooja to the created as
well as the Creator. (Amir Khan’s film PK miserably fails to understand
the Indian context when the hero says that all other numbers except that
of the Creator -God- are wrong numbers).
Three: ‘Deva/devathe’ (God/Goddess) can become human beings and vice versa.
Four: Existence of both female and male deities.
Five: Creation, recreation and criticism of written or oral Puranas.
The above features are related to one another. These features are
applicable in case of Scheduled Castes, Brahmins and other castes, even
in case of Adivaasis or Tribes.
Actually the concept of Hinduism refers to the above aspects. This is
what is usually called a way of life. Though some communities claim
that they have
sacred texts, such texts are open for interpretation and criticism.
No sacred text prevented Swami Vivekananda from criticizing oppression based on birth.
In fact, reformers like Vivekananda interpreted the texts according to
the needs of the hour and used them to advocate modern ideals like
equality.
The above-mentioned common features did not give
Hindus the ideology or strategy of conversion. You need not consider it as the generosity of
Hindus. It may be a weakness or vulnerability when compared to Islam or Christianity. In fact the very nature of
Hindus or
the above features do not enable them to have a strategy of preserving
their set of beliefs intact or imposing them on others.
Secularists may mention about the caste hierarchy here and may say
Brahmins imposed their will and rule over others. Even if it was true,
it must have benefitted Islam and Christianity instead of posing any
threat to them.
We know from history that not only the downtrodden were converted but
the families from the so called upper castes were also converted into
Islam and Christianity during the Islamic and British period.
In which case,
why do these secularists consider such weak or vulnerable and separate entities of Hinduism as a majority group capable of domination over the other faiths?
Have any of the Parsee families experienced the feeling of insecurity in India because of Hindus?
Actually, being quite prosperous, Parsees could have easily become
the targets, if we go by some of the Marxists’ theory that economic
condition is one of the main reasons for communal hatred.
A United Hindu Vote Bank?
The innumerable identities or the communities coming under
Hinduism do not have the political power as a
single Hindu unit.
There are talks about caste vote banks, but there still is no Hindu vote bank.
Now there may be efforts to create
Hindu vote bank, but such efforts can yield result only because of today’s
secularism! There are more
Hindus who vote against the so called Hindu Party BJP than those who vote for it.
Elections in India have proved time and again that
Hindus
are the most secular in their voting pattern. But most election
analysts, like secular thinkers, believe that secular votes are divided
if Muslim votes are divided.
The recent Bihar election of 2015 is interpreted as a victory of
secularism. But the irony is, the secularists do not recognize that the
same result demolishes the basic premise or the foundation of Indian
secularism which is the majority- minority divide.
The so called secular thinkers must understand that if the
country is still secular by and large, it is not because of secularism
but in spite of secularism. It is a blunder to think that
tolerance or intolerance is a mere law and order issue, that only a
non-BJP government can ensure tolerance. The actual problem lies in the
secular discourse and the secular policy which various governments
including the BJP follow.
The politicians and secularists of post independent India could have tried to do away with the division between
Hindus and Muslims created by British rulers. Instead, they wanted to have an imaginary enemy to Muslims, Christians and so on.
This imaginary enemy called Majority Hindus helped the politicians and the secularists to project themselves as the protectors of the so called Minority Groups.
Teaching Secularism to Minorities
Till today secularists have succeeded in sustaining their relevance as the protectors of the interests of the
Minority. But
these secularists have never tried to teach secularism to Muslims.
They give silly justifications for this sort of attitude. They argue
that it is the responsibility of the majority to make peace. This
justification falls apart mainly for two reasons. One: as we have seen
there is no such single
majority in our country. Two: intolerance of a very small group can cause conflict in a large society.
It is quite clear that the secular policy of post independent India wrongly considered
Hinduism as another religion just like Islam and Christianity. As a result of this, today some of the
Hindus are trying to convert
Hinduism into Islam by becoming more and more intolerant.
The secular discourse in India tried to preach secularism and toleration to
Hindus who
were naturally secular. What happens when you try to change somebody
who is doing right things? He or she will start doing wrong things. This
is precisely what happens in India today.
The fact that the Hindus not only tolerate others but are
also patrons of other religions, can be easily proved by counting the
heads of Hindus among those who have returned awards.
Our secularists have the objective of correcting
Hindus only and keeping only the
Hindus tolerant.
So, chopping off the hand of a teacher in Kerala is not intolerance.
Kashmir violence does not become an example of intolerance. Are Kerala
and Kashmir not inside India according to them? Actually that is not a
relevant question because
the fact is that the secularists believe that some groups have the right to be intolerant by virtue of their religion.
I do not know how many of the Pakistani writers and artists have returned their awards for the fate of
Hindus
or Christians and even Muslims in that country. What explanation do
these secularists give for the fact that Muslims are safer in India than
in Pakistan?
Does the RSS have any hand in the insecurity feeling experienced by sections of Muslims in Pakistan?
The Indian writers and secularists could have requested at least those
Pakistani artists who were restricted from performing in India to join
hands with them in their protest against growing trend of intolerance
in India (
in India
because there is no intolerance in Pakistan according to the Indian
secular thinkers) as writers and artists do not have geographical
boundaries.
Tolerance and Common Civil Code
Demand for common civil code becomes cultural politics or an attack
on pluralism, especially when the demand is put forward by the Sangh
Parivar. But now Romila Thapar says that common civil code is a
necessity in a secular country. (See ‘Lokajnaana’- Kannada Journal,
Jan-April 2015, published by Tumkur University. I am curious to know the
response of other secularists to this opinion of Romila Thapar).
Amartya Sen says that if Muslim women suffer because of Muslim
personal law, it should not bother Hindus. But the Sachar Committee
blames the society-read
Hindus– for not giving access to
Muslims. If almost 50 per cent of the population -that is to say women-
of one community are not encouraged to work outside in the name of
religion, how can the economic condition of such a community improve?
In such a situation, if you tax
Hindus by way of special provisions, reservations etc. to Muslims, it will automatically create some sort of discomfort among
Hindus.
Sen and other secularists, who wrote lengthy articles about violence,
do not understand that there is every possibility of conflict if, of the
two coexisting communities, one goes forward and the other backward.
Actually this concept of tolerating others with great difficulty is
applicable to Europe or Islamic countries and not India, at least till
the present form of secularism took its birth.
Thinkers like Swami Vivekananda and Ananda Coomaraswamy have given their opinion about the problem in the concept of
tolerance. Their views are very valid in our case. Says Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“..the word (tolerance) is not a pretty one; to tolerate is to
put up with, endure or suffer the existence of what are or appear to be
other ways of thinking than our own; and it is neither very pleasant
merely ‘to put up with’ our neighbours and fellow guests, nor very
pleasant to feel that one’s own deepest institutions and belief are
being patiently endured”.
We know that the word
intolerance is generated from the word
tolerance. But we should note the most important factor that in relations between religions or communities, the concept of
tolerance has its root in
intolerance.
People started to think of
tolerance as a virtue only after they saw the amount of intolerance in some religions.
How does accepting others with pain (tolerating) become a great virtue if you believe that other faiths also have equal right to exist?
Europeans brought this word
tolerance to India by keeping in
mind their own concept of religion. Their religions cannot happily
accommodate other faiths in its neighbourhood, but accept it only with
pain or because of inevitability.
Even after nearly seven decades of independence Indian secularists are not independent.
They still depend on the words and concepts thrown at them by the
British, namely, “tolerance,” “religion,” “majority,” “minority” etc. We
should note that
tolerance has its roots in
intolerance and our
secularism has its roots in
religion!
Contradictions in Secular Discourse
The problem with secularism is that it has wasted its energy by
responding, reacting and criticising the RSS or Sangh Parivar, that too
of Golwalkar and Savarkar. It is amusing to see secularists still
depending on Savarkar or Golwalkar’s writings to attack the RSS or
Hindutva.
Will it be fair if we criticise today’s Marxists on the basis of Marx’s remarks on colonialism? It is not actually the question of fairness; it is the question of usefulness.
Secularists easily blame Sangh Parivar for creating suspicion between
communities or propagating hatred during the past few decades. But we
should remember that almost all the governments, media, various academic
bodies, Sahitya Akademi etc. were headed by
secularists till very recently. There was no opportunity to “
saffronize” the school textbooks till recently.
However, the Sangh could penetrate more and more into the minds of
the people across the castes and communities as the years passed by and
as more and more people received formal education. How was this possible
when everything was in the hands of the secularists?
The answer to this question points towards the fallacies and
contradictions in the secular discourse. Many secularists typically
lament that secular forces are divided and various units of Sangh
Parivar-read communal forces- are united.
This time these secularists must be thankful to the voters of 2014
for uniting secularists by creating a common enemy: prime among them,
Narendra Modi. But this unity has not helped them come out of their
fallacies and contradictions. Actually this unity has made their
contradictions more visible.
To see one of the contradictions in secular discourse, just consider
the following four dicta which almost every secularist subscribes to.
One: We should preserve pluralism and multicultural nature of our country.
Two: We should support inter caste marriages, and annihilation of caste is desirable.
Three: We should not oppose conversion.
Four: The Sangh Parivar is a threat to pluralism and multicultural society.
I just wonder how can those who agree with the second and third statements make the allegation we see in the fourth statement?
Doesn’t the first statement contradict the second and the third
statement? In an inter caste marriage, either both or at least one
partner has to give up his or her culture, at least a part of the
culture.
In the same way, loss of one’s own culture happens in the case of conversion. Moreover, according to the secularists,
culture does not imply only values or virtues and such other things; it includes food habits, rituals, language etc.
In which case, how should the Constitution, or the real secularists have treated Muslims? Thousands of villages where
Hindus and Muslims lived in perfect harmony could have shown the answers.
There were no cases of intolerance. The concept of
tolerance was not required there because the existence of others was not something to be disliked.
In such villages Muslims were of just another caste or jaathi. The
same thing is true in case of Christians, Jains or others. All the
castes were maintaining their respective beliefs and practicing their
cultures without any problem.
Of course the government or constitution had to rightly intervene in
some of the practices of some castes, such as untouchability etc. The
OBC reservation as and when implemented could have anyway been applied
to Muslims and others just like
Hindus. It is not too late now to have a relook at our form of secularism.
The above analysis shows that all the problems we face today are because of our secular policy which viewed
Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains or Parsees from the point of view of Europe or more precisely, from the point of view of ‘
religion’
instead of traditional Indian point of view. This traditional Indian
view was of Muslims and others in India as much as that of the
Hindus.
Imagine somebody saying that he or she does not want to live in the
country if Mr. ‘X’ becomes the Prime Minister (which can happen only
after being elected by the people democratically). Isn’t this
intolerance?
But these award returning secularists do not think so. If you do not like the existence of something and still
tolerate it, then it is called
‘tolerance’. Running away or not intending to stay near the people you dislike cannot be
tolerance.
Today we just start thinking whether these secularists have suddenly lost faith in democracy.
Do they at least believe that the people of this country are competent enough to elect their representatives? They had no problem with the decision making capacity of the people when there was a very high percentage of illiteracy.
But now, when the people are more and more informed because of
education and various media, these secularists have started to suspect
the voters’ decision making capacity! Majority rule, single party rule
etc. have suddenly become dangerous.
This kind of intolerance in the name of secularism frustrates the
common man and makes the members of some particular groups more and more
intolerant.
Dr. Ajakkala Girisha Bhat
teaches Kannada at an undergraduate college.He has authored more than
ten books in Kannada including ‘Buddhijeevi Versus Bouddhika
Swathanthrya’
