THE INDIAN POLITICAL & ECONOMIC DOSSIER

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By Anil Nair

Secularism or rather pseudo-secularism, let us admit is the exclusive preserve of the secularists, and might be of the minorities. One can never see common people travelling by Mumbai suburban trains animatedly discussing the issue of secularism. Yet, let us concede for the sake of Shri Mani Shankar Aiyer and his tribe of Congressmen who look at every political development through the secular-versus-communal prism, which more often than not, degenerates into name-calling rather than a definitive and polemical debate.

Aiyer's book Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist is by far the most authoritative on the subject only because he has covered almost all the issues regarding secularism. The book raises a number of questions even for a secular mind and the inconsistencies of the secular philosophy will have to be addressed so as not to give it a decent burial. Even as there are valiant efforts made to damn communalism, read Hindutva, the subtlety with which Muslim fundamentalism is made to appear sanguine and harmless makes the arguments most unconvincing. Shri Aiyer all through the book has tried to equate Muslim fundamentalism with Hindutva, even arguing that Hindutva is more dangerous than jihad, of course with corny reasons.

By saying secularism has to be the bedrock of our nationhood a clever preemption is attempted at anyone who argues that Hindus have to get equal rights, privileges and recognition and not less because the minorities have to be provided for first. It is made to conjugate that when minorities are given equal standing in a secular country the majority community, needless to say, enjoys the privileges of being a majority. But this is not what happens in secular India.

Chalk and cheese. It is necessary to reiterate here the innate difference between Muslim fundamentalism and Hindutva. As Shri Arun Shourie explained in the prologue of the book, Muslim fundamentalism propagates the idea of gaining supremacy over all other religions, rather no other religion has the sanction from Allah, and kafirs and idol worshippers have to be done to death. Even extremist Hindu organizations, if there were any, do not propagate the idea of killing other religious followers. They all seek equality for Hindus, nothing more nothing less. Shri Aiyer's book is confounding as it never enters into the nitty-gritty, even though Shri Shourie mentions these aspects of Islam in the beginning of the book as a conversation with the author.

According to Shri Aiyer, secularism in India is a unique concept -- matters of faith in private realm and matters of state in public realm. It is this over-simplification which proves the inanity of secularism. Hinduism, admittedly is a way of life (also explained as dharma) which encompasses every aspect of life -- birth, education, upbringing, health, philosophy, marriage, sex, recreation, etc. How can you separate religion from public realm. Renowned Carnatic vocalist K.J. Yesudas (a Christian by birth) once said that to be a carnatic singer one has to be Hindu. Basically, carnatic music is temple music. Can you sanitise carnatic music and stop the recitals praising the deities of various temples in the south?! Rather, secularists can choose not to learn carnatic music instead. On the other hand, Islam does not prescribe personal lifestyle alone for Muslims, it also clearly gives edicts on state policy on issues like earning interest on idle cash (bank deposits). Aren't international banks in Muslim countries both in the Gulf and East Asia following separate interest policy in tune with Islamic traditions. How can you keep religion in the private realm in these matters?

The author repeatedly mentions Mahatma Gandhi as the true secularist who did not show any concern for reforms in other religions -- ''his zeal for social reforms was directed entirely to his own community, (ie: Hindus and Hinduism)''. That is the way forward, Shri Aiyer tells communalists, (read Hindutvawadis) and ostensibly secularism should always be directed inwards. Shri Aiyer forgets that Hindus are seeking reforms in Islam only because they are threatened by that religion. Hindus, or for that matter any other community, has neither the time nor the inclination to reform the Muslim society. Before September 11, few in the US knew about Islam or jihad. Today they are all trooping to the nearest bookstore every time some phoney book on Islam or jihad is released, not because they want to interfere with Islamic traditions and suggest modern methods to Muslims, it is only because Americans are suddenly at the receiving end of Islamic terrorism.

Communitarian versus communal. Organiser also has come in for some disparaging reference in the book, which is par for the course -- you don't expect secularists to sing paeanes to the RSS magazine. Shri Aiyer could have in 'secular objectivity' tarred all such magazines and organizations as communal and hence reprehensible. But no, according to the author, Muslim India brought out by Shri Syed Sahabuddin, with all its crass anti-Hindu, anti-Ayodhya rhetoric, is a paragon of secular virtue. He calls Muslim India 'communitarian' (whatever that means), while Organiser is communal. Muslim India, the author says, only looks inwards of Muslim community and does not comment on reforming Hindu society. All those propaganda on Ayodhya for which Muslim India is famous for is supposedly, in Shri Aiyer's reckoning, meant to reform the Muslim community. Then, he has all praise for Teesta Setalvad's Communalism Combat. But every issue of that magazine refers to reforming not just Hindu society but also Muslim, often with hard-hitting articles on triple talaq, etc. Does that not contravene Shri Aiyer dictum on ''mind you own religious reforms''.

But the worst kind of hypocrisy is on the issue of Veer Savarkar. Shri Aiyer refuses to recognize Shri Savarkar's contribution to freedom struggle. He accuses Savarkar for having aligned with the British after his release from prison. But readers will find this passage on page 49 incredulous. ''While Raja Rammohan Roy showed the way to progress for the Hindus, it was left to Syed Ahmed Khan to rejuvenate the Muslims who were still caught in the past. Sir Syed represented the new generation of post-Mughal Muslim gentry who realised that it was not in the interest of the community to nurture resentment against the British or be confrontational with them. Recognising that for Muslims the way to development lay in co-operating with the British, he led the resentful community to the realization that 'British sovereignty cannot be eliminated from India', holding, as Rajmohan Gandhi puts it, that rebellion was folly and loyalty rewarding''. Amen!

In the chapter Secularism: An overview, the author tries to make up a case against the Hindu 'zealots'; talking about the contribution of the Muslim rulers and Islam to the Indian society. No one is denying that the Muslims ruled this country for centuries, and today our tourism brochure cannot do without the Taj and Fatehpur Sikhri. But Shri Aiyer assiduously avoids to mention the atrocities committed by the Muslim rulers in their quest to subjugate the Hindu population and covert them to Islam. Nor does Shri Aiyer say a word about the alienation that Hindus face in their own country because of secularism.

Ivanhoe among marauders. In the same chapter he compares good Muslim rulers with bad ones and suggests that for every bad Muslim ruler there was a good, compassionate counterpart. So it probably offset each other! Also, all the Hindu kings were not maryada purshottam, he adds. That is a subtle and clever way of equating Muslim and Hindu rulers. But can Shri Aiyer show us even one Hindu king who went about demolishing Masjids, converted Muslims to Hinduism by sheer force and violence, and killed Muslims in millions because they did not recognize the supremacy of Hinduism?

The Union petroleum minister also quotes Shri Golwalkar saying that Muslims and Christians have one prophet, one scripture and one god other than whom there is no path to salvation for the human soul. But isn't that a fact, though Shri Aiyer might find it a 'denigration' by the communalists. Can any Muslim or Christian authority contradict Shri Golwalkar's statement. Shri Shourie's books on Christian missionaries are full of evidence to show exactly that. Moreover, have you ever heard of a secular, moderate Muslim propounding the idea of contravening the edicts of Islam which prescribe death to kafirs who do not recognize that statement. Shri Aiyer's wild secularism tandav continues through the next chapter where he even finds Vande Mataram 'reprehensible'. Probably, Shri A.R. Rahman's inspiring rendition will have to be banned by the UPA government to redeem Shri Aiyer's secularism. He also goes to absurd lengths when he asks the 'communalists' how the Muslim turning to Mecca to pray can harm Hindus? Well, have you heard the RSS/VHP/BJP raising that issue ever? Nor did the RSS/BJP ever call the Muslims a 'community of terrorists' or 'enemy of the nation'. Where did the author get all these muddled opinion. Or is it a way of gaining support by provoking outrage amongst the readers, even if it is by falsehood and lies.

In the chapter Ideological dimension he calls Muslim rulers' atrocities on Hindus ''imagined wrongs'', probably conjured up by the RSS/VHP/BJP for political reasons. He also finds Vasco da Gama's arrival with the missionaries in India sanguine and even romantic. All that happened to the Brahmins in Konkan who were persecuted and driven to the forest by Vasco da Gama were the figment of imagination of various Hindu writers. This is perhaps the failing of this book. In his eagerness to defend secularism Shri Aiyer has gone overboard in making Muslim rule in India for nearly a millennium look like the Mughal-e-Azam movie -- full of romance, art and love. The sophistry with which he argues is breathtaking. ''The two centuries between Ghazni and Ghori were notable for their spread of the message of the Prophet through large swathes of north India. Again, it was not the sword but the appeal of Islam that promoted its propagation...'' The atrocities committed by the Muslim rulers on Hindus ''were only comparable to what Hindu rulers would do to other Hindu kings''. What Aurangazeb did to Guru Teg Bahadur is legendary violence that people shudder to hear even today. Guru Teg Bahadur was not any king threatening Aurangazeb with military action. He only tried to guard the Kashmiri Hindus from forceful conversion to Islam. Guru Teg Bahadur was tortured, publicly flogged and finally beheaded at Chandni Chowk when he was served with the ultimatum to convert. Can Shri Aiyer convert that into romance?

In a later chapter, Secularism in a time of communal activism the author defends Emperor Aurangazeb's penchant for demolishing Hindu temples. He even quotes a story by Dr Pattabhi Sitarammaiya in which Aurangazeb actually saves the honour of the Hindus and in the process destroys the temples! Shri Aiyer's query to Uma Bharati has not been satisfactorily answered, accuses the author. ''If for 300 years the azaan sounded in the masjid has always been heard in the mandir, and if the temple bells of the mandir have echoed in the masjid, should not the co-existence of the mandir and the masjid be celebrated as a symbol of secular India. Why would you want to demolish the one to celebrate the other?'' Good question, we need to give the answer. One, Ayodhya is one the most religious pilgrimage centers for Hindus and we cannot visit a masjid during our pilgrimage for the sake of secularism. Second, will a temple built in a show of arrogance at the Central Cathedral in Rome or at the Kabba in Mecca survive for the sake of secularism?

The 'Hindu origin of partition' theory of Shri Aiyer is the most confusing bit in the whole book. Muslims, just like Hindus in places like Sind, had fears of subordination to the majority community, he explains, the reason for which Muslims had often been on the side of the British! It is pertinent to ask how many Hindu minority regions in India asked for sovereignty and got it. His contention is that the Hindu demand for making Sind a part of India triggered the demand for Pakistan by the Muslims! Not just that, Hindus in Sind had 'an unfounded fear' of being swamped by majority Muslims. Unfounded because ''the Hindus in Sind are enjoying as much freedom as Muslims in India''. Further, although Ayub Khuhro ''comfortably slipped into the vocabulary of Muslims communalism and did not articulate a composite (secular) Sind identity'', Shri Aiyer finds Shri Khuhro's paper 'Sufferings of Sind' which took on the anti-separatists in India, a masterpiece. Then he goes on: ''the anti-separatist Hindu lobby at the first Round Table Conference was led by the die-hard Hindu communalist of the Hindu Mahasabha, B.S. Moonje, while Jinnah and others, notably two Sindhi Muslim grandees Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah and Shahnawaz Bhutto (father of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) steered the discussions to more rational channels''. If anyone has missed the delicious paradox here -- separatists being Muslims are rational but anti-separatists Hindus are 'die-hard communalists'. Does Shri Aiyer hold the same opinion on Kashmir too. In the next chapter on how Bengal premier A.K. Fazlul Haq forged a cross-communal alliance with Hindu Mahasabha Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, the Union petroleum minister has only accolades for the Muslim leader but Shri Mukherjee is called a political opportunist.

Romanticising insurgency. In the same chapter, he argues that the concerns of the Muslim minorities in the Hindu majority areas mirrored the concerns of the non-Muslims in Muslim majority areas of the country. But the Hindus in the Muslim majority regions never took to separatism like the Muslims, never resorted to terrorism to fight their alienation, neither then during the last century nor today. There has also never been any threat to national security or terrorism from Hindu refugees like the Kashmiri Pandits staying in Delhi or those crossing over from Bangladesh.

Shri Aiyer labours hard to justify the separatist mentality of the Muslims, especially in the 1945-46 elections to the Central Assembly in which the Muslim League won 427 out of the 507 seats in the provincial legislatures on their pro-Pakistan plank. In an attempt to prove that the British were actually culpable in the creation of Pakistan, Shri Aiyer says that ''the British deputy high commissioner of Pakistan was such an enthusiastic supporter of Pakistan that he gleefully filled the ballot boxes with bogus Muslim League votes''. In any other part of the world if elections are massively rigged as Shri Aiyer suggests, people would come out in thousands on the streets in a show of defiance and political strength to create an upheaval and right the wrong. Why Muslims in India never chose to do that to protest? More importantly, the author also says that Muslims in the princely states like Kashmir and Hyderabad never got around to say what they wanted as elections were confined to British India. If that were so, why was the Congress mortified with the idea of holding a plebiscite in Kashmir if it was so sure that the Muslims there would join India if given a choice.

On the issue of Christian missionaries Shri Aiyer is not able to explain why the Christian converts come back to Hinduism -- either they are completely disillusioned by their new religion or that they find it worse than Hinduism with all its attendant casteism.

The cow is protected in all the states not under Communist or Christian sway, enunciates Shri Aiyer. If the cow protection is not extended to these states because the majority are beef-eating population then shouldn't the same logic apply to the whole country, ie: cow slaughter should be banned as the majority in the country is Hindu.

SC asks uncomfortable questions. During the hey days of the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation Shri Aiyer asked Shri L.K. Advani in the Parliament if the constitutional oath he has taken is bigger than the Ram saugandh to build the temple at the disputed site. Shri Advani politely told him the constitutional oath is over-riding. But when the same question was addressed by Supreme Court chief justice Chandrachud in the Shah Bano case regarding the predominance of the secular law of the land over the Muslim Personal Law Shri Aiyer finds it ''a needless intrusion into controversial realm'' by the chief justice.
In Secularism in a time of communal activism chapter Shri Aiyer explains that ''in case of Jammu and Kashmir unity in diversity means a Kashmir administration run by and for the Kashmiris''. Now, that sounds like his bete noire Shiv Sena's philosophy of amchi mathi amchi manse. Why is that when Kashmiris talk about Kashmiriyat no one finds it reprehensible but when Balasaheb Thackeray says the same thing for Maharashtrians these very secularists call it sub-nationalism and even anti-nationalism.

There is another of those strange theories of Shri Aiyer on the Gujarat riots. Gujarat is the fastest growing state in India and has been naturally well-endowed. But all this hi-tech growth has led to severe unemployment in the last decade, according to the author. No statistics to prove it but it is a catchy secular theory nevertheless. It does not occur to Shri Aiyer that Gujarat has been in the throes of communal violence through out recorded history, much before the advent of technology and export processing zones. But such historical niceties are not for secularists who are out to crucify the BJP and its policies.

Lastly, towards the middle of the book Shri Aiyer has gushing praise for Pandit Nehru for having stopped state sponsorship of re-building the Somanatha temple. That has to be done by a public trust, he avers. Pandit Nehru even admonished the Congressmen who supported the cause and prevented President Rajendra Prasad from inaugurating the temple. But in the concluding chapter Shri Aiyer finds that there is nothing non-secular in government improving pilgrimage centers at Vaishnov Devi or Haz Manzil in Mumbai. One wonders if improving Vaishnov Devi is a secular act because there is a parallel demand to build Haz Manzil, but there is no parallel demand to build a masjid and hence building Somanatha temple by the government is communal.

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