Dangers of mixing religion with politics
There is an old and cynical saying that advises one to “join them, if you cannot beat them”. This must have weighed with the Congress Working Committee when it passed a resolution claiming that India’s secular credentials had been maintained because of Hinduism. By this game of one-upmanship, the Congress has eroded opposition to the Hindutva line which is the sheet-anchor of the BJP’s political programme. This stance lends credence to the charge of the Congress being only pseudo-secular.
To seek to give an exclusive role to Hinduism as the sheet-anchor of secularism is to offer a gratuitous insult to other religions.
How can the role be denied to Islam with its ultimate message of a total surrender to God, similar to that of the Bhagwad Gita, and the Koranic axiom that all the created ones belong to the family of God? In what manner is the compassion even for one’s tormentors, in the line “Forgive them for they know not what they do” which is the core of the message of Christ, any less of a contribution to the development of the Indian ethos?
That Hinduism has had its core of tolerance owed a good deal to its origin in the rich Indus valley thousands of years ago. There were then no other rival religions to contend against and Hinduism had exclusively a big area like the Indian subcontinent where peaceful coexistence could naturally blossom. These favourable circumstances were denied to Christianity which had to struggle hard to establish itself against the butchery and desolation by pagan Roman Empire and to Islam with its origin in arid Arab land and also facing the challenge of religious crusades of the Middle Ages. Though not in any way diluting the noble teachings of Islam and Christianity, these circumstances did create a climate of some rigidity and exclusivity.
It is not as if Hinduism has remained in its pristine purity for all these thousands of years. Ritualism, casteism and obscurantism had to be continuously fought by great souls like the Buddha, Mahavir, Nanak, Vivekananda and Swamy Dayanand.
Congress spokespersons accept that grammatically speaking, the Hindutva of the BJP and Hinduism as put forth by the Congress mean the same thing. But in a politically obtuse manner, the Congress claims that the BJP offers a distorted version of Hindutva, while it is going to present Hinduism in the right perspective. Pray, are we having a theological debate about the core and essence of Hinduism in a religious conference?
The reality is that the Congress is going back to the old strategy of shilanyas (1989) – of appeasing the conservative Hindu vote bank by claiming to be better Hindus than the BJP. What else can explain Sonia’s crowded itinerary of visits to religious places like Tirupati, Haridwar and mutts in Kerala?
More quixotic was the statement of P.A. Sangma that Sonia was not a practicing Christian. Why this unnecessary reference to her faith? There is nothing wrong in Sonia being a devout Christian. Those who oppose her becoming the Prime Minister do so not because she is a Christian, but on the ground that she is not India-born citizen (the same prohibition as in the USA) or that it will encourage dynastic rule (they may or may not be right). But certainly no one can be ruled out from aspiring to the highest political office in India only on the ground of religion. That would be repugnant to our Constitution. How differently President Kennedy reacted when his being a Catholic was made an issue in his election. He said that he was not a Catholic President but a “President who happens to be Catholic”. The same approach applies to all political offices in our country and for members of all religions. The Congress, by the change in its stance, has seriously damaged the secular fabric.
In India, whether under a Hindu or a Muslim rule, the secular authority was never sub-ordinance to religious authority and neither of the two religions claimed that the sacred was superior to the secular.
Unfortunately, with Sonia Gandhi now launching on a journey of religious pilgrimages, the BJP’s emphasis of Hindutva is likely to get more respectable acceptance.
That the Congress is not prepared to collide with the obscurantist ranks in Hinduism is clear from the fact that she did not, rather the Congress did not, protest and demand the end of practice at the Tirupati temple of asking for a declaration of faith in Hinduism before being allowed to visit it. In my view, such obscurantism breeds discord and is the antithesis of the basic philosoply of Hinduism – that truth is only one, though there are many paths that lead to it. Gandhiji had shown his protest by refusing to enter a temple where Dalits were not allowed entry; the abodes of God cannot be the monopoly of any particular religion or caste.
This surrender by the Congress to invoke religiosity in political field is doubly dangerous, when the country is already undergoing a trauma of minority witch-hunt and killings of Christian missionaries.
That good governance must have a foundation of secularism was realized by Jinnah who played the communal card skillfully to create Pakistan. He was far too intelligent and responsible not to realize that mixing of religion with politics would spell disaster. That is what made him proclaim at the inaugural session (1947) of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly (and I had the good fortune to hear it personally): “You are free, you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
It is a pity that Pakistan lost the guiding hand of Jinnah soon thereafter, and the loss encouraged religious bigotry. That is why this effort of the Congress to outdo the Sangh Parivar in the race for capturing obscurantist and fundamentalist trend in Hinduism is a matter of deep concern and bodes ill for the development of a healthy, secular political agenda.
Surely politics is not to be reduced to showing off avowed knowledge about such subjects as the real essence of Hinduism. Politics, one would have thought, was about the removal of poverty and inequality, for the establishment of a secular and socialist republic as mandated by the Constitution. But then, probably, the Congress wants us to unlearn the lessons learnt during the freedom struggle. The Indian masses, however, will not surrender to communalism notwithstanding political parties antics.
