Never mind if it was divine intervention or crafty cunning. The brotherhood of Hindutva seemed quite thrilled that the Government of India’s Republic Day advertisement had a photograph of the Preamble to our Constitution where the words “secular” and “socialist” were missing.
That’s the original, they declared smugly, the two words were added much later, during the Emergency. Parliamentarian Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena swiftly suggested that these words be deleted from the Preamble, since India was a Hindu nation. In his defence, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad spoke about the need for historical perspective and called for a debate on the relevance of these words in the Preamble. The Hindutva agenda was back on track.
Thankfully, saner voices in the NDA spoke up. “Shocking!” said S. Ramadoss, founder of the PMK, an ally in the NDA. And insisted that Narendra Modi and the NDA government “avoid such unwanted controversies and focus more on development activities”. They had electoral promises to keep.
The BJP moved to put a lid on it. “We are committed to secularism and we don’t have any idea to drop it,” said Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu. He also explained that secularism was in our blood, it was “part of our culture”.
The immediate danger of pulling out secularism from the roots seemed to be over. But it did highlight the Hindutva agenda once more. We were told once again that India was a Hindu rashtra and secular ideals were irrelevant. After a suitable number of repetitions, in a suitably saffron era, we may take this to be true.
The Hindu right’s attempt to keep their sectarian flag flying is not surprising. Audacious, yes, since the controversy about the Constitution was stoked not by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, sundry sadhus or local leaders but by members of Parliament, one of them a Union minister. People who have sworn their allegiance to the Constitution of India.
Surprisingly, the controversy was limited to the words in the Preamble, ignoring the spirit of the Constitution. As legal experts have pointed out, it makes no difference whether the word “secular” was included in the original Preamble or not, since our Constitution itself is indubitably secular.
It believes in the equality of citizens irrespective of religion, caste, class, or gender. Even in the Preamble (in the “original” as our Hindutva brothers would say) it promises liberty of faith and worship.
If we had not been so blinkered by words, we may have been really affronted by the accompanying photograph in that fateful ad. That was far more offensive, deliberately violating the spirit of the Constitution. It showed a choreographed clutch of Hindus and adivasis in ethnic garb, apparently depicting the people who drive the democracy that is India.
Whatever happened to the smiling Rahim chacha figure in beard and fez cap, the jovial Sardarji in his colourful turban, or the benevolent nun flashing her rosary?
Perhaps it is not a bad idea to reflect on our secularism. Is India truly a socialist, secular, democratic republic, as we claim in the Preamble?
I don’t believe we are. I believe it remains our goal, but we are not there yet, and are in danger of being waylaid.
We are certainly not a socialist republic, since we still can’t offer social and economic equality, or equality of opportunity. We can’t even guarantee social justice. Class is determined as much by caste, religion and other factors as money, access to power shapes our lives, not all citizens of India get the same opportunity to live, to work, or to be free.
We are a flawed democracy, burdened by corruption and feudal power structures. Very often we vote in blocs, guided by factors like religion, caste and sub-caste, very often we vote in fear.
The wonderful democracy that we are so proud of is falling into disrepair. With a remarkably free media and admirable technological progress, we have the means to set it right. We just need the will for it.
And our secularism is severely flawed as well. Which is why we can regularly massacre people of a minority community and get away with it. Whether it is Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, or Muslims in Kokrajhar, Assam, or Christians in Kandhamal, Orissa, or Muslims in Gujarat, or Sikhs in Delhi.
Which is why we can have the involvement of political leaders and often the state in these sectarian massacres and hear our top leaders justify it. Every action has a reaction, they say. They say: When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.
There is very little hope of justice for the victims of the minority community. The law is slow and tedious, heavily dependent on those eager to be influenced, and not easy for the powerless to manoeuvre.
In a secular nation the gates to the Babri Masjid would not have been opened for political gain, and later, the 400-year old mosque would not have been razed to the ground as the police and Army stood by, and a horrified nation watched on live television.
In a secular nation there would not have been disproportionately more Muslims in prisons as under trials. In a secular nation government ceremonies would not always be limited to Hindu cultural rituals and shlokas, however beautiful and philosophically astounding they may be which I believe they are.
In a truly secular nation, Hindus would not be defined as inclusive of Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists, denying these religions offspring of Hinduism their own space to grow. Similarly, I believe Scheduled Caste reservation only works for Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists not for Christians and Muslims, a large proportion of whom were originally low-caste Hindus. In a secular state equidistant from all religions, this would not happen.
Besides, Indian politics is largely driven by the demands of Hindu majoritarianism on the one hand and of minority appeasement on the other. We have never really tried to be truly secular.
As I write, Hindutva groups are busy putting up statues of Godse, hailing the murderer of Mahatma Gandhi as a hero on Gandhi’s death anniversary. The “ghar wapsi” programme is busy converting minorities into Hindus with great pomp and glory all over India.
We need to take bigger strides towards that goal enshrined in the Constitution. It is time we stopped fooling ourselves, time we truly became a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic.
The writer is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com
