SECULARISM - INDIAN STYLE

Most of the western countries have separated the religion from the state administration but they have no qualms in proclaiming that they are a majority Christian nation. The president of the US or the prime minister of UK or the chancellor of Germany have no qualms in attending the Sunday mass or special mass for any occasion. There is a celebration of Christmas and Thanksgiving in the White House, the residence of the POTUS.  China, of course, had remained a country with no state religion and also tramples upon the individual freedom to practice religion. Its recent crack down on the Uighur Muslims and various reported bans on the identity of Islam are pointers to this.  Before the disintegration of USSR, there was no state religion and there was no freedom to practice religion by any section of society.  But after the disintegration of USSR, the independent countries have allowed practicing of religion by individuals and even in Russia, the orthodox Christianity is slowly being revived.

The separation of state and religion had been one of the hall marks of the Indian constitution designed by the founding fathers of the nation in the pre-independence days. The framers of the constitution  have done a wonderful work in that though there is no state religion but they have allowed freedom to the individual citizens to practice the religion of their choice.  The separation of state and religion with freedom for the individual citizens to practice their choice religion and treating all religion equally is the hall mark of secularism as provided for in the constitution.

The principal actor of freedom struggle who is hailed as the father of the nation, M K Gandhi had a preferential treatment to the people of the faith of Islam.  He started the Khilafat movement in total disregard to the opposition from the congress leaders which had absolutely nothing to do with the Indian independence movement.  He also sat in fast in the immediate aftermath of the independence in Kolkata against the Muslims being killed overlooking the fact more than a million people of Hindu and Sikh faith were massacred by the people of newly formed Pakistan in the western borders and millions who became refugees in the country.  The first prime minister of the country, though a Hindu, did not believe in any of the Hindu rituals and practices. He looked down upon and voiced his strong dissension on the practices of Hindu faith especially performing havans in which the ghee is being used extensively.   This laid the foundation of the successive governments to practice this brand of secularism in the country contrary to what is the actual meaning of the word.

The successive Congress governments have used the block Muslim votes to win the elections and for that the people of Islamic faith  were treated preferentially.  This farce went to such an extent that a Sikh prime minister openly declaring in his speech that the minorities especially the Muslims have the first right over the national resources. The temples in the country managed by individual trusts or association of people of Hindu faith were taken over by the government alleging mismanagement.  The politicians irrespective of his ideal or party affiliation eyed the huge money that is being generated by the temples. Despite total disregard to the Indian Laws and rules, when the places of worship of minorities are being managed by themselves the governments turned the blind eye.  The actions of Jarnail Singh Bindranwale and his followers using the Golden Temple complex in Amrtisar for storing arms and ammunition to wage war against the country is a pointer to this fact.  Presently the arms and ammunition unearthed from many places of learning of Islamic faith in different parts of the country is also a fact that cannot be brushed under the carpet.

The governments have used the huge collections from the temples for the development of the minority communities' places of worship, pilgrimage travels, etc. There are countless temples across India which are much older than the earliest religious offshoot from the Hinduism, still languishing for daily worship or lively-hood for the priests.  But the same governments did not even ascertain the revenue and the source of revenue of the minority community places of worship.  How and for what purpose these funds are being used is also not being ascertained by the governments.  Most of the preachers of the minority places of worship enjoy all creature comforts and some of them live in palatial buildings rivaling the Presidential palace in the capital of the country.  

The chief minister of a south Indian state proudly proclaims that during his reign in the state, he had helped (with tax payers' money) to build many places of worship for Muslims.  In another south Indian state, atheism has gone to such an extent, that the practitioners of the majority religion are alone targeted and the politicians from the parties do not have any word against the practitioners of other religions in the state.  In Bengal, the Chief Minister is ordering the Hindus to postpone the Durga idol immersion from the tenth day to some other day to allow the Muslims to celebrate their festival which fell on that day.  The Chief Minister of a state announces that 5 MT of rice has been allotted to the mosques in the state to celebrate Ramadan during this festival month for their Roza in the early morning before sunrise. He seems to be totally oblivious to the fact there are countless temples in his state that do not have money to buy oil or pay salary to the priest to light the lamps in the temple or performing worship there.

The present issues raised by the axed Chief Priest of the Thirumala Balaji temple and his press conference with a few other priests of the temple call for a national debate and an audit of the wealth by way of land holdings and ornaments of temples by a SC monitored independent committee formed with people drawn from different walks of life.  The inclusion of the politicians in the committee will defeat the main purpose for which it will be constituted.  There had been regular looting of temple wealth, either the the lands getting appropriated by vested interests, the ornaments missing, the idols getting smuggled out of the country, replacement of the centuries old idols with newly minted ones for obvious reasons or the collections of the temples being used for purposes for which such collections were made by the devotees.  

The controversy involving the minting of new idol to replace the centuries old one at one of the most famous temple in Tamilnadu which is being investigated by the police team is a pointer to this. It is a sad reality that there are no records of what were the original wealth of the temples especially by way of ornaments as there are no records of the original antique ornaments of the centuries old temples either during the British times or at the time of independence.  The wealth that was brought out by the government action under the SC monitored committee in the capital of Kerala from the vaults of the Ananthapadmanabhaswamy temple which is basically a family managed temple, is so huge that it is giving an idea of what would have been the actual wealth of some of the temples like Srirangam, Tirunelvely, Madurai and other important places where the temples exist for many centuries.  The people managing the commercial activities in the lands of the temples adjoining the temples do not pay the revenue due to the temples properly.  There are boards displayed in almost all temples in Tamilnadu, of the rents due from the defaulters.  Another serious issue is that most of the biggest defaulters in most of the temples are people of Islamic faith having commercial interests in the lands of the temples.

There are epigraphs both on the walls of the temples and in copper plates as to which King or landlord donated what to the temples.  But what happened to those wealth in the many years that have elapsed is a moot question.  The governments do not seem to unduly concerned with the theft of these wealth by the politically powerful people or others.  Even the smuggling of idols out of the country had not attracted the attention of the governments and there had not been any record created of what idols are there in each temple and what is their antiquity.   All these are dismissed in the garb of secularism but the revenue generated by the temples alone is required for the governments for various measures.

The arch bishop of Delhi in a letter addressed to the churches under his control informs them to pray the whole year now till the next elections to the parliament in 2019 to get a government that safe guards the interests of the minorities.  The reference in the letter is very obvious that the letter is written to implore the people of Chiristian faith to vote as a block to non BJP parties in the next election to the national parliament.  Similar tactics was used during the elections to the state legislature of Delhi and the party against the BJP was voted to power garnering 67 out of 70 seats in the assembly.  The preachers of the various mosques had been exhorting their followers to vote for congress to defeat the BJP in the hustings in Gujarat and Karnataka elections.  They religious leaders themselves or the political leaders do not seem to mind such meddling in politics by the religious leaders. The moot question is whether the religious leaders of the majority faith in the country will give such a call? And if so, whether the Hindus will follow such a diktat? Whether the political leaders will take it lightly as in the above cases?  

The brand of secularism being practiced in the country by the successive governments and all the politicians is that any religious issue of the people of majority faith is not of serious concern and their religious aspirations and practices can be trampled upon, ridiculed but when it comes to minority communities they are holier than the holy cow and silence is the watch word.  The political class has honed the ideals of the tall leader of freedom struggle M K Gandhi and the first prime minister of the country to such an extent that secularism in the country has acquired a new meaning.  It would do well for the Oxford or Cambridge universities to adopt this meaning for the word Secularism in their dictionaries.  It is a sad commentary on the happenings in the country.