COMMUNAL-SECULAR BATTLE – A constant theme in Indian election?
Paper No. 5684 SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP Dated 09-Apr-2014
By R. Upadhyay
Communal-Secular battle has been a constant theme in Indian elections since Independence. But for the sixteenth Lok sabha, this campaign has been more intensive and vituperative, a development that has never been experienced before. It looks that some political parties are bent upon keeping this issue permanently alive!
Appending this divisive issue as a bigger challenge than corruption in their war cry, the parties have not only sidelined the major problems of the people like corruption, price rise and unemployment but have directly or indirectly communalised the scenario. Believing in the formula of scaring the Muslims with the ghost of communalism, they have taken it for granted that the master key to reach to the political throne of Delhi is by playing on the so called “communal divisiveness”.
When India is in the process of developmental march and also at the door step of electing a new government, focussing on aggressive communalism in electoral campaign is only damaging the secular fabric of the country. Sad that this is not being realised even by parties who claim secularism as their main creed!
Even before the election schedule for the sixteenth Lok Sabha was formally announced, Congress president while laying the foundation of Aligarh Muslim University centre in January last in Kishanganj, Bihar said “It is a contest between secularism which is one of the most crucial aspects in laying the foundation of our nation, and communalism which leads to backwardness”. The Union Information Minster Manish Tewari on the other hand just after the announcement of schedule for this election parroted, “This election will be a clash between two visions; secularism and pluralism represented by the Congress and sectarian communal vision”.
Similarly, when speculation began in Aam Aadam Party that its convenor and former Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejariwal could be fielded against the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, he too switched over from his party’s prime agenda of corruption to communalism. Addressing the Muslim intellectuals at the India Islamic Cultural Centre, he said that “communalism is a bigger challenge for India than corruption”. Another Congress leader Rashdi Alvi offered to contest against Narandra Modi from Varanasi. Contrary to the iconoclastic history of Moghuls in Varanasi, Mathura and many other places in the sub-continent, he said that Mogul emperors used to visit Banaras to learn from the “learned Brahmins” and now he would teach real secularism to Modi!
Apart from Congress and the Aam Aadami Party, some regional leaders who are self-centric to their core and nursing ambition for prime ministerial chair also joined the same chorus of communalism.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), an internationally acclaimed French philosopher observed that “The future belongs to those who give the next generation the reason to hope”. The secular brigade in India appears to be determined to polarise the Muslim voters by scaring them of ‘communal’ riots in Gujarat of 2002. The Muslim leaders are also playing into their hands and are not yet ready to allow the community to be free from their captivity.
Maulana Azad, a revered leader of Indian Muslims tried to point out the wrongs done by the community members. Unfortunately, they did not listen to his advice either before partition or even after this unnatural divide of the sub-continent. Can any Muslim leader in secular and democratic India claim that they ever propagated the often quoted advice of Maulana when he had addressed the community members at Jama Masjid, Delhi in 1947 just after partition? He said: “When I used my pen to write, you cut off my hand, when I spoke up, you cut off my tongue, when I turned in my sleep, you broke my back. And today you are in a helpless, hapless and in a miserable condition….” Ignoring the advice of Azad, the community leaders instead of advising their co-religionists to integrate in the secular and democratic mainstream of the country have made them a marketable commodity and selling them during election to the highest bidder.
Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid had given support to the BJP in 2004 electionand had supported Samajwadi Party in last Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. This time on April 2, he met Sonia Gandhi with a delegation of Muslim leaders for playing the same game of vote bank politics. With such hop-step and jump politics, the self-seeking Muslim leaders have become permanent brokers of the community votes which too have polluted the purity of election. An attempt is being made as was done by the British to make the Muslim voters a captive bank by some political leaders.
It is a well known fact of Indian history that truncation of the sub-continent was the natural culmination of the communal card t by the British since 1909 followed by the communal award in 1932. The post-partition political parties have unfortunately revived the same divisive British policy of divide and rule and not letting them join the political mainstream. Ironically it is the political parties that have ensured permanent alienation of the minority community from the rest of the people in the country.
The ‘secular’ hopefuls of political power in current election do not realise that the reality of the centuries old communal mistrust between the two major religious communities will not be resolved by keeping the divisive British legacy alive. They must understand that had communalism been the bigger problem in post-partition India, by now the religious minority (Read Muslims) would have ceased to exist in this country for all practical purposes as has happened to the Hindu minority in Pakistan as well as in Bangladesh.
Promoting the divisive politics, the Machiavellian forces segregate the voters in the name of caste, religion and region and entice them to garner their votes. Instead of explaining their respective vision to meet the challenge of the flagging economy which affects everyone in the country, they are scratching the dry wounds of Muslims by reminding them of 2002 communal riots in Gujarat but not any other one!
Factually, intrusion of religion in electoral politics by the seekers of political power is the main source of their election strategy and therefore they keep reviving this divisive menace particularly in election. This is very unfortunate.
Recent interview of Muslim masses in TV however suggests that they are increasingly realising that the wild cry of communalism is not going to improve their economic condition. Unfortunately, they are still under the siege of their own community leaders who are auctioning them in election market in the name of religion and selling them to the highest bidder.
The migration of many political leaders from ‘secular’ parties to ‘communal’BJP suggests that communalism is gradually losing its political relevance. Justifying his decision to join hands with BJP, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) President Ramvilas Paswan who was also an important member of secular brigade perhaps rightly said that secularism and communalism were just “poll ploys”. Similarly, M.J.Akbar a known secular face of Muslim journalists who was a strong critic of the BJP also joined this ‘communal’ party.
A sensible method to elect a new government would be to abandon the issues which provoke communal divide among the voters. People of India need a government that restores its civilisational ethos of “Sarve bhavantu sukhinah ….” irrespective of the religious identity. Only such government can call itself truly “secular”.
