A Nehru and a Modi
The ideal of secularism is under threat in the biggest democracy of the world because Narendra Modi is expected to become its prime minister in the next summer. In a religiously plural society like India dominated by an overwhelming Hindu majority yet inhabited by about half a dozen minorities professing different religions, a secular state seems to be the best hope for equal rights as well as social integration for all of its citizens. This is only possible if the ruling party is secular in its guiding principles and its prime minister is fully committed to the secular ideas. Unfortunately, Modi and his party, the BJP, are die-hard opponents of secularism.
It is not that the Indians do not know how Modi will act as chief executive of the country. On the contrary they know his credentials perfectly well because till to-date, he has been the longest serving chief executive of Gujarat province and intends to rule India the way he has governed Gujarat. In the process, he has built the image of not a conciliator but of a leader, who is controversial, divisive and polarizing.
Criticism over Modi is not totally unfounded. His political birth, nurturing and grooming have been among the most virulent and violent communal Hindu organizations: as a member he has received training from Rashtriya Swayamsavak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur. He has been in charge of Sangh Parivar’s student wing and an organizer of covert agitation. Yet another religiously extremist Hindu organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) claims that he is the ‘creation of VHP’. And what is the end objective of all these communal outfits? It is to take control of the Indian state and make it “100 per cent Hindu” because their cardinal principle is that India is the land of Hindus, only.
How threatening the religious rancor could be to the stability of the Indian society might be understood from the July 1926 letter of Jawaharlal Nehru in which he warned that “religion in India will kill that country and its politics if it is not subdued”. The allusion was not to the Muslims only because he felt that the communalism of the Hindu majority was much more dangerous as it could masquerade itself as the Indian nationalism. Exactly this is happening in India, now, because with all the trappings of communalism, Modi is calling himself a Hindu nationalist, which automatically excludes from the national polity all those who are not Hindus.
Nehru as the founding father of independent India served as its first prime minister for almost seventeen years. In the ever widening sea of Hindu-Muslim religious hatred before and after the Partition in 1947, any political leader could have easily lost his moorings but not Nehru, who told the nation in an unambiguous public broadcast in 1948 that “We are building a free secular state, where every religion and belief has full freedom and equal honour, where every citizen has equal liberty and equal opportunity.” Such a society could only be established if the state totally dissociated itself from all religions and did not exhibit the slightest hint of being an agent of any type of creed.
Nehru was immaculate in upholding the secular principles in personal as well as public life as the premier of the government. He knew India was a very religious country and being an Indian it was impossible for him to not to be influenced by religion in any way. His religious views could best be understood in his response to a question, when he elaborated, “I am not attracted to the dogmas and conventions of religion, but I have certainly been attracted to the spiritual values in life… I have no doubt that the great religions of the world contain vital truths. But unfortunately these vital truths are often forgotten and some superstructure is emphasized.” A few years before his death, he clarified to a British journalist that “I am not exactly a religious person, although I agree with much that religions have to say.” Whatever his personal religious understanding, he was careful as a prime minister not to associate with any public activity that was non-secular. On the other hand, Modi openly patronizes and participates in the Hindu religious functions and a VHP leader Ashok Singhal has declared that on becoming the Premier, Modi will build the Ram temple in place of the demolished Babri Mosque at Ayodhya. The issue of Babri Mosque was also instigated in the time of Nehru when some images smuggled inside the mosque were proclaimed as the manifestation of the avatar Rama in December 1949 but the issue could not grow due to a censure from Nehru to the Uttar Pradesh government.
While the minorities had unflinching confidence in Nehru’s leadership, the situation is reverse in the case of Modi. Sajan George, a leader of the Global Council of Indian Christians is on the record to have said that “religious freedom in India will be in danger”, if Modi ascends the throne of power. Just like the Christians, the Muslims are equally apprehensive. While a leader of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind has stated that “The BJP is fundamentally an anti-Muslim party and Modi proved that with his role in the massacre of the Muslims in Gujrat;” another leader of Darul Uloom Nadwatul Lucknow said, “Narendra Modi is the No 1 enemy of India’s Muslims.” If such are the feelings of the two leading minorities about the future premier of India, one may expect worse from his coterie ministers.
Herein lays the seeds of mayhem and anarchy. While a BJP rally honoured two of its politicians, who have been accused of fanning the Hindu-Muslim riots in the town of Muzafarnagar in UP in September 2013; Nehru always snubbed and condemned such characters and occurrences though not always with much success. There are at least two instances on historical record- one in 1948 and the other in 1961 in the wake of communal riots- when Nehru directed his government to ban the communal parties but the law ministry dithered that not only was it difficult to define a communal party, the issue of ban could be construed as an infringement of fundamental rights.
Nehru even did not shirk from showing open disapproval of some of the actions of Rajendra Prasad, who compromised the secular standing of the office of the Indian President. Immediately, after attaining freedom, President Prasad proposed a ban on cow slaughter in August 1947 which was summarily rejected by Nehru. A few years later, he reproached Prasad for holding a conference in Rashtrapati Bhavan in which missionaries were criticized. Nehru was visibly unhappy, when one of his cabinet ministers, K M Munshi actively patronized the rebuilding of the Somnath temple and President Prasad inaugurated this rebuilt temple.
For decades, Nehru had fought for democracy but he attached even greater importance to the ideal of secularism, which he intended to pursue through the Congress party at every cost. That is why, when the democratically elected President of Congress, Purushottam Das Tandon stated that the Indian Muslims should adopt ‘Hindu culture,’ Nehru forced Tandon’s resignation and made a public comment that “If any person raises his hand to strike down another on the ground of religion, I shall fight him till the last breath of my life, both as the head of government and from outside.”
If India is to progress as a well-integrated multi-religious polity, it needs another Nehru and certainly not Narendra Modi because latter’s ascension to the top slot will exacerbate both internal fissures and external tensions, possibly war, particularly with Pakistan because one of the leaders of BJP has sounded the tocsin by saying, “Small countries like Pakistan… are issuing threats because we are unable to take action. Narendra Modi is a man who is capable of breaking anyone’s jaw if it comes to that.”
With militants on the loose in Pakistan, a party spewing venom and fire in India is likely to stoke the smouldering fire than cooling it. The idea of liberal Pakistan was hijacked immediately after her creation; the reality of a secular India is also in jeopardy, should the radical Hindu nationalists adorn the garb of power in Delhi under the leadership of Modi next year.
The writer is an academic and journalist. He can be reached at qizilbash2000@yahoo.com.