A brief history of Pseudo Secularism

Our constitution was written with the highest possible ideals. It provides for equality of citizens before law. It guarantees them liberty, justice and dignity. In theory, these are wondrous words whose magical powers should surely make a nation great. Unfortunately, however, the constitution fell into hands of men, who unlike the great men and women who had framed the constitution, were small in stature and intellectually petty. The words of the constitution were then freely interpreted so as to sound the same but to mean the opposite- a case of adhering to the letter but tossing out the spirit. And thus, the modern Indian Republic finds itself grappling with what is called Pseudo Secularism. Interestingly, the original constitution did not include the word Secularism, (although it can be argued that it was implied as the constitution guaranteed citizens liberty and equality before law), the term was added by Mrs. Gandhi in 1976, during the heydays of Emergency.

Some of these petty politicians discovered that the Hindu majority of the country was divided into castes, language groups etc., making it difficult to organize them as one massive voting block. The minorities, on the other hand were easier to organize. In the aftermath of the partition, some of these minorities felt vulnerable in a Hindu-majority state. In a parliamentary democracy, strength is in numbers and hence some of the more astute politicians, exploited the fears of minorities to first guide them into a common block and eventually win seats. Over a period of time, politicians of all hues and colours realized the importance of vote banks. Caste, creed, religion, language, race etc.- all eventually served as vote banks. These vote banks are used to primarily exploit the fear that the group has of the invisible other- minorities of being subsumed in a Hindu monolithic whole, castes of being dominated by stronger castes as was the case in the past, linguistic groups of losing their unique identity etc.

The politics of vote banks might have begun in the 60s and the 70s but came to the fore in the turbulent 80s. Three stark cases that put a question mark on the policy of the state are recorded below-

1. Shah Bano Case

In 1978, after 46 years of marriage, Shah Bano’s husband, Mohd. Ahmed Khan, a lawyer in Indore, divorced her. For 32 of these 46 years, Ahmed had kept 2 wives. Overnight, the 62 year old Shah Bano and her 5 children found themselves destitute. Her now ex-husband offered her a measly Rs. 5400 as maintenance as prescribed by Sharia law. Shah Bano ran from court to court, pleading her case and demanding monthly maintenance. In 1985, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a previous decision of the High Court and ordered Ahmed to offer monthly maintenance to Shah Bano. The Muslim orthodoxy seethed with anger at what they saw was the Court’s attempt to dilute the provisions of Muslim Personal Law. Sensing an opportunity to get hold of the Muslim votes, Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress sided with the Muslim orthodoxy and passed a bill in the Parliament to undo Supreme Court’s orders. All of Shah Bano’s travails came to nothing. Politics in the garb of orthodoxy had triumphed over reason. Not for the first time, would the interests of the State and Society be sacrificed at the altar of Electoral politics- Pseudo secularism triumphed!

2. Khalistan Movement

The politics of Punjab, after the creation of Punjabi Suba were dominated by Akali politics. Although Congress won electoral victories, the Akalis continued to grow strong. The shrewd politician that Indira Gandhi was, she propped up Bhindrawale as a tool to wreck Akali power. The emergence of Bhindrawale caused a great disarray in the Akali camp and Indira continued to use him to meet her political objectives. It was only later, when she realized that Bhindrawale was a double edged sword that she sent the army to crush him. But by then it was too late. Punjab would suffer for more than a decade, paying the price for Indira’s follies. And upon Indira’s assassination, Congressi Secularists left no stone unturned to avenge her death by Sikh extremists. Sikhs were hunted down and slaughtered in the national capital. Once again, lip service was paid to the ideal of Secularism and extremists were freely deployed to meet electoral objectives- Pseudo Secularism triumphed again!

3. Ram Janmabhoomi Andolan

The demolition of the disputed structure is seen by Secularist-liberals as a big setback to the evolution of secularism in India. They show it as an example of what India would become if majority communalism were to be allowed to thrive. They conveniently choose to overlook the fact that as on today, there is no doubt that an ancient structure was demolished to construct the mosque in 16th century. They choose to deny that Ayodhya and Ram are an integral part of the Hindu identity. For them, the history of the structure, begins with Babri Masjid and ends at its demolition. All they do is harp on the fact that a Ram Mandir on the disputed site will not help further India’s secular credentials and that majority communalism will reduce the country to cinders. Minority passions are whipped up and electoral dividends collected. Once again, logic, reason and sanity have had to make space for blatant minorityism -Pseudo Secularism triumphs still!