It appears that the Supreme Court is visibly the most hard-working body amidst all other constitutional luminaries that are crying foul over demonetization! ‘The SCs new ruling of banning religion or caste based politics to seek votes in elections might have come as a pounding gavel stroke on most secular political blocks that owe their existence to the polity of polarization and is certainly a welcome move in a country stricken with the catastrophic clutter of caste but no matter how noble or well-intended a legislation is, it the timely action that matters most and in this context that people cannot help but ponder if the new ruling is just 70 years late and less than 70days prior to the Uttar Pradesh elections!
Although religion is more about the path one chooses to condition his mind, body and soul, or simply a measure to keep in check one’s social, spiritual and mental wellbeing and a reflection of our beliefs and practices it can be free and fair when unconstrained and away from political framework and compulsive diktats to yield best results when not used as a state tool but often times religion is rendered as a weak tool in the hands of polity that often uses it to castigate people into abysmal vote banks of caste. Just like the word ‘Politics’ which has become an abhorrent word in today’s world, caste until it is mixed with polity, is just a simple term that denoted professions in the past and even today largely denotes cultural and customary commonalities or nuances in the ritualistic practices, clothing, food habits beliefs and values of various sects in the society which might stem from varying geographic locations and climatic conditions and availability of resources.
So how practical or paradoxical is the purpose of this new SC ruling in a country where people carry caste surnames like medals on their sleeves, how realistic is it when we have educational institutions, universities, political parties, Government schemes and incentives, army regiments, hospitals, banks and hotels named after religion? The very concept of providing reservation quotas in our country is based on castes!
Whether or not we declare our actual incomes but we surely declare and announce our religion caste and sub caste in the annual census surveys mandated under the constitutional frameworks!
We have states divided on linguistic basis. Every other media house blares blatantly about their exit polls based on the castes equations in the most atrocious methods of caste analysis by projecting the contesting candidate’s caste and religious inclinations openly which has tremendous potential to shape mindsets of voters in recent times where caste and not development is the subject matter of analysis. Today we like or not there is a tinted coat of religion, caste or lingua in every other aspect of our daily lives, whether it is schools, colleges, employment banks, civil service exams, house rentals, marriages, our esteemed RTE system, rapes, suicides everything and anything has caste and religion today but for terror for politically correctness.
In fact, religion is a recent term for cultural or civilizational commonalities and to that effect every Indian has a Vedic past which when reiterated, goes on to become combustible material for religious flare-up! So essentially we have arrived at a situation where it is bigotry if we talk of religion and byzantine, if we don’t talk about it! Because every time an attempt is made to identify all Indians as people from one ancient ingenious civilization there is a divisive religious furor invented and debates of intolerance reinvented where pro UCC debates are thwarted and choked and terrorists are sympathized and celebrated! No matter how much we advance in the field of science or technology or excel in our economy, there is one vicious word we have often succumbed to which has kept us away from the climbing the global ladders of super powers and that venom is called divisiveness!
And divisiveness indeed has the inherent potential of more disruptiveness than what religion alone could do, as it is often a conquering ideology to set stage for subservience that uses religion as a social tool to build or break societies. But history has revealed that the sustenance of an ideology is integral for meaningful and respectable existence and in fact it has been the very foundation for any civilization to survive and cannot be done away with so easily. It is a universal phenomenon where logical ideologies and narratives emanating from mass moods move up the social cycle of choosing their reigning glories.
Hence religion can neither be overestimated to single handedly fetch results with blaring appeasement gimmicks nor underrated by ignoring ground realities of crying needs to address a retrograding administrational apathy.
In the 1989 election manifesto of the Congress party, Rajiv Gandhi had openly declared in Mizoram that if they voted for the Congress then the Government would run on the teachings of the Bible!
The Mamta Banerjee Government has been another glaring example for minority appeasement votebank politics that is resplendent and recurring by each passing day and not restricted to just election seasons but extended throughout her rule because the modern day electoral strategies are very efficient and functional from day one, similar is the case with the Karnataka Government which has ardently and brazenly advocated a Ahinda administration which is again an across the year and across the tenure electoral strategy to woo the gullible caste votebanks, and talking of the ugly caste and religion based politics of Kerala, TN or Telangana, Bihar or UP the lesser said the better hence to assume that using religion to seek votes during elections is a little disconnected and far off from the truth as the founding stones of divisiveness are laid slowly and sequentially without an air of religion in it. Most religious or caste appeasement programs are masked as reforming and uplifting schemes and policies for the backward or religious minority at the cost of the voiceless many who could also be backward economically if not socially!
Talking of Uttar Pradesh elections which has been the choking bone in many necks, and is perhaps the basis for newer legislations today has been the epicenter of caste based politics where it is alleged that even the lords are pledged for polity but time is testimony to the fact that people who voted earlier for the BJP during their RamJanmaBhoomi card have vociferously conveyed their anger through decisive mandates and nothing is permanent in the power games of politics. If one carefully observes the ongoing political opera in Uttar Pradesh electioneering, it is the fear of losing to the developmental manifesto as against a traditional caste card which is why a father-son Tempest is orchestrated where the father pitches his old Akhada ways to retain his staunch steeds with religious winkers who will not look beyond caste and the known devils, while his son _ the Junior Yadav is pitching a development card to capture the rest of young political market for a grand union later in the day, like the Southern matinee of Devegowda-Kumarswamy father-son tussle a few years back. And it certainly does not require an MBA from abroad to decipher the ugly marketing strategy of ‘Confuse if you cannot Convince’!
But what is indeed intriguing is that after decades of blatant minority appeasement and backward caste politics in the name of secularism today there is a sudden awakening about how religion/caste was, is and will be highly misrepresented and misused, nevertheless it is never too late to learn or unlearn a lesson especially a political one but if there is any sincere intent to refrain and restrict the regressive abuse of religion and castes, our honorable governing bodies should ideally start with honouring merit and empathizing with the economically backward and dare to impose upon incumbent state governments to compulsorily provide standardized education facilities across all religions and ban the public acknowledgement, appeasement or accreditation of sharing personal religious information for any given basic clerical formalities and reversing this caste based phenomenon cannot happen overnight like seeking plebiscite in Kashmir today after all Hindus have been driven out and a fair election manifesto with pure developmental promises without socialist cards of casteism can be a reality only when the masses are meaningfully educated and become well informed and politically aware of the existing national scenarios until such time even the most noble of noblest intentions cannot nudge this narcotics of sane thinking called Religion based politics because creative minds are always at work and exiting intellectuals are always in a dash to prove their worth and make their mark in the eleventh hour!