Striking at India’s secular foundations

No wonder Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the foundation stone laying ceremony that the struggle for the Ram temple was tantamount to the freedom struggle. For the Sangh Parivar, the struggle for the Ram temple was a kind of freedom struggle. If the freedom struggle led to the rise of the Indian National Congress, the Sangh Parivar laid the groundwork for its rise to power through its actions, including the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Of course, this was a day of unity and celebration for Modi and Sangh Parivar leaders who consolidated their power even before the construction of the Ram Temple. It wouldn’t be surprising if politicians say in future that the struggle for the construction of the Ram temple is bigger than the freedom struggle. Indians have already initiated the recasting of the significance of many historical events.

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It is also not surprising to see Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and other senior leaders, supported and greeted Ramashila Puja. Priyanka Gandhi went a little further and said that Ram Bhoomi Pooja is an opportunity for national unity.

Even as we hold high with pride the concept of a secular India, the fact remains that we have never followed in the footsteps of European countries like France that forbade religions from interfering in power or kept them out of politics.

Religion has been involved in politics since the time of Gandhiji. There have been many exchanges between religion and politics in the history of independent India. Our rulers have never tried to implement secularism in its actual sense. They have not been able to bring a unified civil code in a country where there is a unified criminal law because the shadow of religion has always been in Indian politics.

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It is this political environment, with only the outer label of secularism and the over-influence of religion, that became the fertile ground for the growth of the Sangh Parivar. Neither our leaders nor the rulers thought that attending religious ceremonies would tarnish their secular image. They have always shrugged off religion, believing that religious support is conducive to bargaining in power politics. It was the mixing of religious support in politics that paved the way for the Sangh Parivar’s triumphant march.

It is this strange Indian secularism that is reflected today in the words of the ruling party leaders and various non-BJP leaders alike during the Ramshila establishment. Everyone has the same voice. India’s secular proclamations were always a mere ritual in the shadow of religion, until the great leader of the opposition was able to say that the glory of Rama, the central character in an epic book written centuries ago, would bolster our nationalism, even when churches were closed for fear of the corona.

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A country moves on the path of true secularism only when it is liberated from religion and led by modern-minded leaders who do not follow religious way of life. In a country where the Prime Minister lays the foundation stone to build a shrine to a religion and the ceremony is glorified by the opposition leaders and the media, there is no real secularism or modernity.

It is an unfortunate fact that such a ceremony would get so much newsworthiness only in a country that has abandoned the path of progress towards modernity and embraced the call of decline into the obsolescence of the past.