Open Forum

New Delhi, 12 August 2008  

Muslim Factor In Politics

HALT  SELECTIVE SECULARISM

By Prakash Nanda

The nation’s focus may well be on the troubles in Jammu and Kashmir, but a comparable unrest is all encompassing the State of Assam.  In a sense, the problems in the two States are compounded by one factor – the factor of religion. In Kashmir, when the Ghulam Nabi Azad government transferred a piece of land to facilitate the safety of the devotees’ yatra to the Lord Amarnath shrine for just two months every year, it was interpreted as an act against Muslims. 

The criticism against Azad’s decision by the agitationists and politicians in the Valley is based on the spurious argument that the land transfer (the land owned by the government was transferred to a body run by the government) would change the demographic composition in Kashmir and reduce the Muslims into a minority!  In other words, the message that the agitationists, including top Kashmir politicians, whom our Delhi-based intelligentsia and media project as great secularists, convey is that they are Muslims first and Kashmir is essentially for Muslims. 

In Assam, the Muslim factor is aggravating the problem the other way round.  The State is literally invaded demographically by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.  And, this is something both the State judiciary and the Supreme Court have concluded repeatedly in recent years.  In fact, recently the Guwahati High Court rued that “It can happen only in Assam”, while castigating the authorities over a Pakistani national entering Assam from Pakistan through Bangladesh, roaming around the Indian soil, but also contested an election.

Sadly, majority of our political parties and intelligentsia are least bothered. The ruling Congress doesn’t dare take any action because doing so would hurt the Muslims and their votes. In the name of secularism, it pretends as if the problem doesn’t exist, despite growing intense popular anger all over Assam against the illegal immigrants.  

This apart, the Muslim factor is also hampering our efforts to fight terrorism, notwithstanding that India is one of the worst victims of terror. In order to protect our so-called secularism, we cannot frame special laws, something which most countries the world-over have done, to fight terror. Why? Simply, because any such law will be branded as anti-Muslim.

Worse, even the conventional law-enforcement mechanisms are not being allowed to be used under political pressure if the members of the Muslim community are suspect. The police force in various States, the counter-terror veterans in the intelligence agencies and even the Army have given enough hints that their hands are tied in apprehending the Islamic terrorists these days.

It is true that overwhelming majority of the Muslims in the world are not terrorists.  But it is equally true that overwhelming majority of the terrorists in the world happen to be Muslims.  Of course, terrorists are found in all religions.  There are Hindu terrorists in Sri Lanka (LTTE) and India (ULFA in Assam and Naxalites all over).  There are Christian terrorists in many parts of Africa and Latin America.  And, there have been Sikh terrorists in India and Canada. 

However, there is a fundamental difference. Unlike terrorists of other religions, Islamic terrorists, invariably, justify their actions in the name of their religion.  And unlike terrorists of other religions, whose goals are political and country-specific, Islamic terrorists have an international dimension. They all believe in Wahabism that talks of the absolute supremacy of Islam over all other religions. They fight to strengthen their ultimate goal of establishing the Islamic domination all over the world.  If they die in the process, they are “confident” of going to “paradise” of their God.

Wahabism is totally opposed to Sufism, the main guiding force of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent for ages that talked of peaceful and harmonious co-existence with other religions. But the vote-bank politics in recent years has become so pervasive that our politicians and intelligentsia are totally defensive and often apologetic to the champions of the xenophobic Wahabism that is dividing not only the Indians but also other “world citizens”.  See the way some of our leading politicians defended the SIMI last week until the Supreme Court stayed the verdict of a lower court removing the ban on the extremist outfit. 

The Muslim factor in Indian politics has become so entrenched that foreign policy issues are now being seen in pro-Muslim or anti-Muslim terms. The much-debated India-US nuclear agreement is a case in point.  A leading CPM member and BSP supremo Mayawati, who also happens to be the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, have openly described the nuclear agreement as anti-Muslim. 

What has a nuclear agreement between India and the US got to do with the Muslims and their religious convictions?  And why those opposed to the deal are doing so in the name of Muslims?  If the deal is really bad, then let us point out how this is against India’s long-term interests and how this is not really going to help the country meet its growing energy needs, as some enthusiastic supporters of the arrangement claim.

With the country poised to celebrate the 61^st year of its Independence, it is high time that we all see ourselves as Indians, not in terms of our caste, community and ethnicity.  That is the true meaning of secularism.  But then, unfortunately the fact remains that our politicians and intelligentsia have reduced secularism just to a slogan.  They find in it a panacea to explain and justify all their deeds (or misdeeds).

For years, you may be in the ranks of the “communal” BJP, Shiv Sena and Akalis, but if you change sides then the best way of explaining this is your discovering virtues of “secularism”.  You or your party may have been in the alliance with the “communal parties” in the past, but if you or your party is now in the other side, it is because of your concerns for minorities and convictions to “secular politics”! 

Ironically, “secularism” has been never defined by its champions in India.  Though the 42^nd Amendment in 1975 by Indira Gandhi’s Congress Government did incorporate the word “secularism” in our Constitution, it did not define what secularism was.  Ironically, her Congress party, which dominated the then Rajya Sabha in 1978, foiled an attempt to actually define secularism as “equal respect to all religions” by defeating an amendment-Bill that had already been cleared in the Lok Sabha during the Janata regime of Morarji Desai.

Thus, in the absence of a clear definition of secularism in our political parlance, we will continue to witness “communal politicians” becoming “secular” overnight and vice versa, with everything depending on the political convenience of the parties and their supporters.  Last year, the UPA and its then supporters in the Left Block were singularly guided by the principle of secularism in electing Ms. Pratibha Patil as the country’s President. They were against making the then Vice President B S Shekhawat the head of State, as that would have adversely affected their “secular character”. 

In fact, the Left reportedly did not agree to the candidature of not lesser a person than the country’s home minister, Shivraj Patil, the first choice of the Congress for the post of President. Apparently, Patil was found wanting in his commitment to secularism since he was a devotee of Satya Sai Baba!  He also had invited the displeasure of the Left because he, as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in the early 90s, had allowed the “communal” BJP “too much time” for airing its views in the House! How absurd. It is time that we define secularism.---INFA

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