Secularism ............... India Style

Noted historian John Keay in his book 'India: A History' writes about operation Bluestar and its larger impact on Secular fabric of India. He blames the Congress party squarely for the damage. The Congress party flirted with radical Sikh elements with an intention to harm the Akalies in politics of Punjab. After casual flirting they ignored the radicals and the rest is history. But the process did an irreversible damage to the secular fabric of India. Keay notes following for the period after peace in Punjab and 1984 riots:

"But the damage to the India's proud boast of non-discriminating against any of its citizens on the grounds of religion remained. The nation's secularism had been compromised. In an atmosphere of heightened communal tension, any incident of religious conversion became headline news. Muslims closed ranks and increasingly looked to their coreligionists in Gulf for reassurance, Sikhs and Christians likewise cultivated their overseas connections, and Hindu activists sensed a long-sought opportunity to assert their own conception of India as a Hindu nation. The floodgates of sectarian antipathy had been opened."

The floodgates are still open but the dams are strong enough. The fact remains that the Congress party damaged the secular fabric of India. The Janta Dal, the BJP, and the SP the BSP and other political parties did further damage. Now it is free for all.

After losing the original secularism, the Congress party coined a new secularism based on their convenience. Now they want to cover all their sins by invoking the bogey of this new found Secularism. Henry Adams saying ‘Practical politics consists in ignoring facts’ is absolutely true in this case.

The political parties today have absolutely nothing to offer as per as Secularism is concerned; their thinking is of creating the problems and ignoring the facts. 

Albert Einstein famously said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

We will have to revisit our present thinking.

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