The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a US Congress mandated body reporting to the US President, Secretary of State and the Congress, has found fault with India’s secular credentials for all the wrong reasons and placed the country on its “Watch List”. What do they want to “watch” in an open society like India is anybody’s guess and it could possibly be an euphemism for unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign democratic republic.
For once, India behaved with a sense of diplomatic and political maturity when it denied entry to the USCIRF and the minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor, atypical of his cringing boss, expressed his annoyance over the report and said that India need not learn from others about secularism which is inalienable part of Indian traditional and civilizational ethos. Thank God, Dr Manmohan Singh did not enter the scene. He would have said “let us have a composite dialogue over the issue”.
Do you know which are all the countries in this “Watch list”? They are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, the Russian Federation, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela. Demographic profiling of these countries would reveal a pattern in the mindset of USCIRF. Barring Cuba and Venezuela which are anyway hostile to the US, rest are all countries where Islam is the predominant religion with the exception of Laos.
Interestingly, Pakistan does not find a place in this warped list. The minority population in Pakistan has come down to less than 2% from 18% or so at the time of partition. The minority community has the status of second class citizens and they cannot, as decreed by the Constitution, hold high offices. Ahamadiyas are already outlawed in Pakistan. But, if we go by the list of USCIRF, Pakistan must be a secular country giving equal status to its minorities.
Well, where are countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran? Are they secular countries? Do the minorities have a semblance of freedom in those countries? Can the US President carry a copy of the Bible with him when he enters the Saudi territory? Does France permit its minorities to follow their religious practices? President Sarkozy has a plan up his sleeves to impose a ban on Muslim women wearing veil in public places.
Egypt’s inclusion in the list merits attention. It is from this land President Barack Obama wanted to improve relations with the Islamic world, ruled by Sheikhs, kings and dictators, repudiating the theory of “Clash of Civilizations”. But it appears that the US commission is working at cross purposes and it does not seem to care if America’s relationship with peaceful, democratic and secular nations like India is jeopardised.
It is possible that the USCIRF was peeved because it was refused entry into India though it was allowed on previous occasions thanks to the pressure brought up by the so-called secular elements in the country who, in fact, damaged the image of the country with their pathological hatred and prejudice towards the majority community. In 2002, the USCIRF recommended to the state department that India be designated a “country of particular concern” following events in Gujarat.
India is the largest functioning democracy in the world with an independent judiciary, statutorily constituted human rights body, an independent press. Why should it allow another country to meddle with its internal affairs?
The question is who gave the US the right to monitor religious freedom in the rest of the world? According to its own President, racism is alive and kicking in the States despite having elected a Black President. As recently as a week or ten days ago, a highly respected Harvard Professor Gates was put behind the bars for no reason just because of his racial background. We have seen the acrimonious debate over race during the run up to the Presidential Polls last year. So, it does not lie in the mouth of US bodies to talk about the treatment meted out to the minorities in other countries.
Now, let’s come to the facts. USCIRF placed India on its “watch list” because of largely inadequate response in protecting its religious minorities and disturbing increase in communal violence – specifically against Christians in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. The US commission seems to be selective in applying “cause and effect” theory. What caused the unrest in tribal areas of Orissa? Did it ponder over that? It was simply carried away by the propaganda unleashed by the “secular” media and the pseudo-secularists of the country. Did the Commission find out about the diversion of funds , in billions of dollars, from its soil for the cultural molestation of the poor tribals and dalits in the remote areas with the misdirected objective of harvesting of souls.
What sort of freedom it wants when the Western countries trample upon the religious freedom of people in other countries exploiting their social exclusion, poverty and illiteracy. Not only India, but all the Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, South Korea etc are facing similar problems and wherever the missionaries land, there is friction. In fact, Sri Lanka banned religious conversion. First, you create friction among different sections of the society in a country where you have no business to operate and then blame one community for the consequences. If the West, particularly the US, wants communal harmony, let the US commission tell its government that they should stop sending funds and evangelists to other countries for conversion. This will greatly reduce the tension between communities and resultant violence.
As far as Gujarat is concerned, the commission has conveniently forgotten the death of 58 innocent pilgrims which resulted in communal violence.
As I said in the beginning, India is blamed for all wrong reasons. It is not that India does not follow secular principles. It definitely does and overdoes. But, it does to the detriment of the majority community. That is the problem. How do you accept Indian brand of secularism when the government allocate funds for Haj pilgrimage and not for Hindu pilgrimage? It meddles with Hindu temples and their funds, but it is coy when it comes to other religions. Take the field of education. Minority institutions are misusing the privileges. How does the country have different sets of personal law? A secular nation should have uniform personal law and it does have the sanction of our Constitution. But do we have one? So, the US commission, misguided by the indigenous seculars and their shameless propaganda, seems to be barking at the wrong tree.
Showing posts with label Pseudo secularism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pseudo secularism. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
SECULAR VOTES
By S R Ramanujan
Citizens of this country have been familiar with the oft-repeated expression coined especially by the dwindling Left forces. That was the label given to select combination of parties clubbing them together as “Left, Democratic and Secular forces”. It is passé. Now the language is different. It is “either you are with us or with our enemy” language. Either you are “secular” and “inclusive” or your are “communal” and “divisive”. The Left, as we all know, is quite adept at labelling depending on their convenience and on whose side the party is. Any party that distances itself from Sangh parivar is a secular party. For the CPI-M in Kerala, Abdul Nasser Madani’s “Peoples Democratic Party” is a secular party, never mind Madani’s earlier avatar as a rabid communalist, founder of Islamic Sevak Sangh and now against whom there is growing evidence of alleged terror links which the chief minister of Kerala himself wants to investigate. Biju Janata Dal is “communal” so long as it had an alliance with the BJP. Now that it has severed its connection with the BJP and is the darling of the Left, it has become “secular”. One can do business with them. AIADMK’s Jayalalithaa, who had never hidden her proximity to the Hindu cause whether it is Ayodhya, Gujarat or Ram Sethu, was communal as long as she sailed with the BJP, particularly during the last elections. Now that she has alliance with the Left, as a tactical retreat to take on her first enemy Karunanidhi, she must be “secular” in the estimation of Karat and Co.
Another political phrase that is hurled at the enemy by the so-called “secular forces” is that such parties represent “divisive forces”. A party that wants Uniform Civil Code so as to have one law for all citizens irrespective of caste or religion is a “divisive force”. A party that may not hesitate to run counter to the letter and spirit of the Constitution just to get Muslim votes, like in the case of Shah Bano, or proscription of “Satanic Verses” or the way we treated Taslima, will be branded as “secular” and inclusive in its political philosophy. If Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Lalu Prasad Yadav or his new ally, Lok Janasakthi Party (LJP) chief Ram VilasPaswan, go about their poll campaign with Osama bin Laden’s look alike during the previous polls to placate Muslim voters, do they or their parties represent unifying forces. Is it “inclusive” politics? Yes, according to our secular pundits. After all, they fight the “obscurantic” forces like the BJP.
If the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee chief D Srinivas says he would cut the hands of those who oppose Muslims, it is not “divisive” and not “communal”, but Varun Gandhi’s support for majority and his outburst against the minorities are communal and are out to destroy the social fabric of our society. Interestingly enough, it was only the media and the so-called secular hacks who were egging on the Muslims for retaliation while the community itself did not take Varun seriously and fortunately there was no communal violence even after a month or so. If there is a competition between Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to garner Muslims votes, their parties are secular and if BJP raises Temple issue with an eye on Hindu votes, it is communal politics. If RJD chief threatens Varun to crush him under road roller had he been a Home Minister, he is preaching communal harmony! Because his party is deemed to be “secular” and so he cannot incite communal passion.
Take the case of our Harvard educated Home Minister P Chidambaram. He says that unless we fight and vanquish communalism we cannot fight terrorism. What communalism did Pakistan and Bangladesh practice for terrorism to take deeper roots in those countries and for export to their neighbours. Is it not a fact that the Congress government’s unabashedly short-sighted policy in allowing illegal migrants from Bangladesh to settle in the North East that contributed to the menace of terrorism that we witness today in the region? What he probably means is that the Congress party will continue to pamper a particular community for votes and if any party opposes such a policy, that party will be dubbed “communal” and that party is promoting “communalism”.
Chidambaram has an astonishing explanation for not hanging Afzal Guru who is awaiting capital punishment. According to Chidambaram, some parties are seeing this issue through the “prism of religion”. May be, it is a Freudian slip or the boot is on the other leg. It is the government that does not want to hang him because of his religion. True, some more are in the queue awaiting the noose. But, the government had every reason to jump the queue so as to demonstrate its zero tolerance against terrorism. Action should have had a telling effect than pious statements about zero tolerance.
When we talk about Chidambaram, we are necessarily reminded of the shoe attack though the attack was not personally aimed at him. But the shoe achieved what pen or sword could not achieve though the journalist tribe boasts that pen is mightier than sword. But an unfortunate fall-out of this episode could be that many activists will try this strategy in future as it is paying dividends. In fact, Jarnail Singh’s act also was not original. He only followed the “foot”steps of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi who flung his shoe at George Bush and this was followed by similar “Paduka Seva” in China, Sweden and our own Supreme Court. But Jarnail Singh achieved what political parties with their agitational approach could not achieve for decades. Just a shoe could put the mighty Congress on a spot.
Similar is the case of Varun Gandhi’s speech and the attention it drew all over. He must have spoken in a gathering of some three to four hundred people in a remote border village. Thanks to our hyperactive media, the CD of his alleged hate speech is the most sought after one by various parties for various purposes. That is not all. Leaders of different parties are using the same lingua for different effects like our APCC president.
Besides secular parties and secular forces, we talk, these days, of “secular votes”. Ours is the only democracy where we have categorised the votes of our people into “secular votes” and by extension “communal votes”. If we take into account the votes polled by the two major national parties, more or less equal number of the electorate are either “secular” or “communal”. In 2004 polls, BJP had polled 8,63,71,561 votes (22.16%) and in 1998 polls, the vote percentage of the party was 25.61% with total votes of 9,42,66,188. The Congress polled 101,34,08,949 (26.53%) in 2004 and its percentage of votes in UP and Bihar was 12.04 and 4.49 respectively. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP had a vote share of 48.13% while Congress had 34.07%. Does this hold any lesson for our secular parties and politicians? It is for the secular parties to introspect whether it is proper to look at the electorate through the prism of their own prejudices. What more can be “divisive politics” than this?
Citizens of this country have been familiar with the oft-repeated expression coined especially by the dwindling Left forces. That was the label given to select combination of parties clubbing them together as “Left, Democratic and Secular forces”. It is passé. Now the language is different. It is “either you are with us or with our enemy” language. Either you are “secular” and “inclusive” or your are “communal” and “divisive”. The Left, as we all know, is quite adept at labelling depending on their convenience and on whose side the party is. Any party that distances itself from Sangh parivar is a secular party. For the CPI-M in Kerala, Abdul Nasser Madani’s “Peoples Democratic Party” is a secular party, never mind Madani’s earlier avatar as a rabid communalist, founder of Islamic Sevak Sangh and now against whom there is growing evidence of alleged terror links which the chief minister of Kerala himself wants to investigate. Biju Janata Dal is “communal” so long as it had an alliance with the BJP. Now that it has severed its connection with the BJP and is the darling of the Left, it has become “secular”. One can do business with them. AIADMK’s Jayalalithaa, who had never hidden her proximity to the Hindu cause whether it is Ayodhya, Gujarat or Ram Sethu, was communal as long as she sailed with the BJP, particularly during the last elections. Now that she has alliance with the Left, as a tactical retreat to take on her first enemy Karunanidhi, she must be “secular” in the estimation of Karat and Co.
Another political phrase that is hurled at the enemy by the so-called “secular forces” is that such parties represent “divisive forces”. A party that wants Uniform Civil Code so as to have one law for all citizens irrespective of caste or religion is a “divisive force”. A party that may not hesitate to run counter to the letter and spirit of the Constitution just to get Muslim votes, like in the case of Shah Bano, or proscription of “Satanic Verses” or the way we treated Taslima, will be branded as “secular” and inclusive in its political philosophy. If Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Lalu Prasad Yadav or his new ally, Lok Janasakthi Party (LJP) chief Ram VilasPaswan, go about their poll campaign with Osama bin Laden’s look alike during the previous polls to placate Muslim voters, do they or their parties represent unifying forces. Is it “inclusive” politics? Yes, according to our secular pundits. After all, they fight the “obscurantic” forces like the BJP.
If the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee chief D Srinivas says he would cut the hands of those who oppose Muslims, it is not “divisive” and not “communal”, but Varun Gandhi’s support for majority and his outburst against the minorities are communal and are out to destroy the social fabric of our society. Interestingly enough, it was only the media and the so-called secular hacks who were egging on the Muslims for retaliation while the community itself did not take Varun seriously and fortunately there was no communal violence even after a month or so. If there is a competition between Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to garner Muslims votes, their parties are secular and if BJP raises Temple issue with an eye on Hindu votes, it is communal politics. If RJD chief threatens Varun to crush him under road roller had he been a Home Minister, he is preaching communal harmony! Because his party is deemed to be “secular” and so he cannot incite communal passion.
Take the case of our Harvard educated Home Minister P Chidambaram. He says that unless we fight and vanquish communalism we cannot fight terrorism. What communalism did Pakistan and Bangladesh practice for terrorism to take deeper roots in those countries and for export to their neighbours. Is it not a fact that the Congress government’s unabashedly short-sighted policy in allowing illegal migrants from Bangladesh to settle in the North East that contributed to the menace of terrorism that we witness today in the region? What he probably means is that the Congress party will continue to pamper a particular community for votes and if any party opposes such a policy, that party will be dubbed “communal” and that party is promoting “communalism”.
Chidambaram has an astonishing explanation for not hanging Afzal Guru who is awaiting capital punishment. According to Chidambaram, some parties are seeing this issue through the “prism of religion”. May be, it is a Freudian slip or the boot is on the other leg. It is the government that does not want to hang him because of his religion. True, some more are in the queue awaiting the noose. But, the government had every reason to jump the queue so as to demonstrate its zero tolerance against terrorism. Action should have had a telling effect than pious statements about zero tolerance.
When we talk about Chidambaram, we are necessarily reminded of the shoe attack though the attack was not personally aimed at him. But the shoe achieved what pen or sword could not achieve though the journalist tribe boasts that pen is mightier than sword. But an unfortunate fall-out of this episode could be that many activists will try this strategy in future as it is paying dividends. In fact, Jarnail Singh’s act also was not original. He only followed the “foot”steps of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi who flung his shoe at George Bush and this was followed by similar “Paduka Seva” in China, Sweden and our own Supreme Court. But Jarnail Singh achieved what political parties with their agitational approach could not achieve for decades. Just a shoe could put the mighty Congress on a spot.
Similar is the case of Varun Gandhi’s speech and the attention it drew all over. He must have spoken in a gathering of some three to four hundred people in a remote border village. Thanks to our hyperactive media, the CD of his alleged hate speech is the most sought after one by various parties for various purposes. That is not all. Leaders of different parties are using the same lingua for different effects like our APCC president.
Besides secular parties and secular forces, we talk, these days, of “secular votes”. Ours is the only democracy where we have categorised the votes of our people into “secular votes” and by extension “communal votes”. If we take into account the votes polled by the two major national parties, more or less equal number of the electorate are either “secular” or “communal”. In 2004 polls, BJP had polled 8,63,71,561 votes (22.16%) and in 1998 polls, the vote percentage of the party was 25.61% with total votes of 9,42,66,188. The Congress polled 101,34,08,949 (26.53%) in 2004 and its percentage of votes in UP and Bihar was 12.04 and 4.49 respectively. In Madhya Pradesh, BJP had a vote share of 48.13% while Congress had 34.07%. Does this hold any lesson for our secular parties and politicians? It is for the secular parties to introspect whether it is proper to look at the electorate through the prism of their own prejudices. What more can be “divisive politics” than this?
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