Home minister Rajnath Singh said on November 26 that "secular is the most misused word in the country." According to him the preferred Hindi translation of the word 'secular' in the Constitution should be Panth nirpesksh or 'sect neutral' and not dharm nirpesksh or 'religion neutral'. Is Singh's linguistic excursion valid? The word 'secular' is defined in most dictionaries 'as not concerned with or devoted to religion': it does not limit its meaning to sects because these are just subdivisions of religions.
At first glance reducing the meaning of a word from the general to the particular is plain ludicrous. But look closely. What Singh was attempting to do was not to show his erudition as a linguist; he was lighting the fuse to steer the debate to honour Ambedkar and the Indian Constitution in order to discuss, debate, defame, and destroy the importance of the word 'secular' in this document. If Singh had his way then the Indian state would reduce itself to the role of an umpire between sects, denominations, and schisms; between Shaivites and Vaishnavites, Sunnis and Shias, Catholics and Protestants, and many, many, more. Instead of good old fashioned precision that the country and its legal system have accepted we would have got a lot of hot air, dank, disagreeable, and leading to discordance. Singh's ludicrous linguistic excursion was to rekindle the NDA's attempt of 1998 - 2004 to refashion the Constitution.
There were no takers for Singh's ploy. Narendra Modi himself put a stop to this play (because he needs a less combative Parliament) by describing the Constitution as India's holy book and Sonia Gandhi made a reasoned defence against the attack on the principles, including secularism, enshrined in this document. In the light of Singh's attempt to deny the word 'secular' it's true meaning, one must thank Indira Gandhi for the foresight to buttress the Preamble of the Constitution by defining India as a "sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic" through the 42nd Amendment of 1976.
A perennial argument that the BJP has used is that secularism need not be stressed because India is a tolerant country and Hinduism preaches and practises tolerance. This is a myth. Every religion differentiates between 'Us' and 'Them'. In the annals of warfare, religious wars to determine the superiority of the Us against the Them occupy a prominent and bloody position. But unlike other religions Hinduism is the only major religion which also differentiates between its own members or followers on the dubious basis of caste as opposed to just class. Hindus 'tolerate' caste by ignoring the lives of those who belong to castes different from theirs. Indifference rather than tolerance is the distinguishing trait of Hinduism. Unlike many well-meaning intellectuals who stress the inherent tolerance of Hinduism because they have never had to cope with mind-numbing indifference, Gandhiji understood it. This is the reason that he made the eradication of untouchability a major aspect of his political work and that of the Indian National Congress. He instinctively understood that without fighting untouchability it would be impossible to present a unified India against the British empire. On the other hand, Ambedkar exhorted his followers to leave Hinduism and embrace Buddhism because he was convinced that the ingrained indifference of the upper caste Hindus holds no hope for the untouchables. Whether Gandhiji and Ambedkar were fully successful or not is another question. But the undeniable fact is that they made untouchability a politically incorrect term, much like the American civil rights movement trashed the words Negro, Nigger, and Black. Pushing words that have been around for centuries out of a society's daily usage is not an inconsiderable achievement.
The discussion in Parliament on November 26 was to commemorate the Constitution and its framer, Ambedkar on his 125th birth anniversary. This is chronologically wrong on two counts. First, Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891, hence his 125th birth anniversary would be next year April not November this year. Secondly, as Sitaram Yechuri pointed out in his lucid speech only the draft of the Constitution was signed on November 26, 1949. Part XXII, Clause 394 of the draft said that the "commencement" of the Constitution would be from 26 January 1950. That date was chosen in order to commemorate the declaration of January 26, 1930 that the aim of the Indian freedom struggle was Purna Swaraj or complete independence. The declaration was made by Jawaharlal Nehru at the Lahore conference of the Indian National Congress.
Singh was not the first in the sangh parivar that has juggled with the word 'secular'. Years before Singh, the RSS ideologue M.S.Golwalkar, Guruji to his followers, had given the version of what secularism means in his book Bunch of Thoughts:
"A dubious argument that is repeated ad nauseam is that the concept of Hindu Rashtra is against 'secularism'. ... if 'secularism' is to mean only the mundane things of life and something divorced from the higher and nobler attributes of the spirit, as it is sometimes made out to be, then we will not touch it even with a barge-pole. If, however, 'secularism' is to mean, as it ought to, not anti-religion but scope and opportunity for every religious persuasion to grow, and restraining of one religion from pouncing upon another, then that is undoubtedly in tune with the spirit of Hindu Rashtra." ( Part Two - The Nation And Its Problems, XIV. Uniqueness of Hindu Rashtra.)
A political state where "every religious persuasion" has "scope and opportunity to grow" sounds very nice and persuasive. That is until you notice that the state in question is the Hindu Rashtra which is quite different from an Indian Rashtra or state. The Hindu Rashtra according to practically any authoritative text is headed by a Kshatriya King, anointed and advised by Brahmins, protected both in defence and offence by other non-royal Kshatriyas, supported by the wealth generated by the Vaishyas, and the labour of the Sudras. This is nothing but the Varna system where the 'untouchables', including Ambedkar, primus inter pares or first among equals who headed the drafting committee that gave us the Indian Constitution described by Modi as our "holy book", will be perpetually kept out in the cold. It is the chronic divisiveness in India or what Ambedkar described as a society "so full of inequities, so full of inequalities, discriminations, and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights", that made it a necessity to keep the state above all matters religious, or secular.
Assuming that what Golwalkar had in mind was not the classic form of the Hindu Rashtra, a monarchy, the fact remains that his secular state is a Hindu state. The Indian Constitution guarantees in its Preamble, "Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship". That is the nearest it comes to the question of religion other than in the Seventh Schedule, List III, Concurrent List, Clause 28, where it deals with religious endowments, quite a few of them inherited from the princely kingdoms. Our Constitution's reference to religion is brief and succinct: citizens have the freedom to practise any faith and the Indian Rashtra has nothing to do with it unless it is a law and order problem.
That the Home minister of India does not understand this, is the real problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment