Author: Editorial
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: August 8, 2007
Is secularism what our Comrades say it is?
Or is there a basic definition of one of the most abused terms currently in
use Indian politics? Broadly speaking, for a layman secularism ought to mean
a conscious erection of an impregnable wall between religion and politics.
Neither the State nor politicians ought to
demolish this wall while going about their affairs. Now, politicians could
be highly religious in their private lives. Or could be absolute atheists.
But so long as they did not mix religion with politics they were adhering
to the laudatory concept of secularism. The above, somewhat lengthy, amplification
of the term `secularism' was necessitated by the unseemly competition between
the Kerala Comrades and the Kerala unit of the Congress Party with each trying
to claim as his own the State's most powerful Islamic fundamentalist leader,
Abdul Nazer Mahdani.
That both the parties do not tire of advertising
their faith in secularism is public knowledge. That they lose no opportunity
to dub the opposition BJP as anti-secular, nay, communal is also commonly
known. But what is not widely appreciated is that both these self-styled secular
parties seek to woo the minority Muslim community with the same sort of soft
`communalism' which the BJP is accused of using in order to appeal to the
majority Hindu community.
A distorted political discourse and the reluctance
of the liberal English-language media to hold the self-styled secularists
to their own professions of faith in this alien concept, which strictly canvasses
a divorce of religion from politics, has resulted in the Marxist and Congress
hypocrisy to go unchallenged.
Last week S. A. Basha, founder of the Islamic
fundamentalist outfit, Al Ummah, was convicted along with 72 others for the
1998 Coimbatore blasts. Though the real target of the blasts, L.K. Advani,
had miraculously escaped, 58 people were left dead by the blasts at the election
rally scheduled to be addressed by the BJP leader.
Most notable among those who was acquitted
for want of evidence was Mahdani. Mahdani was in jail during the trial. By
all accounts the left secularists were always solicitous of his well-being
in prison, ensuring that all creature comforts were provided to him during
his stay there. Immediately upon his release, the leaders of the ruling Left
Democratic Front and the opposition United Democratic Front rushed to hail
his acquittal as an act of personal vindication. Mahdani was feted at a public
reception with the leaders of the rival front competing with another to lay
claim on him.
An unabashed Islamic fundamentalist who spews
venom against secularism and its cohorts, he was in great demand by the self-styled
purveyors of secularism. Kerala Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan hailed
the verdict as did his bitter rival and the CPI(M) Kerala unit chief, Pinarayi
Vijayan. Likewise, the Congress leaders too expressed similar sentiments while
trying to ingratiate themselves with the radical Islamic leader.
Now, it maybe that the votes of the Muslim
community in Kerala are crucial to the rival political fronts. Often the wining
difference of one or less percentage between rival fronts would depend on
as to which front manages to win over the en bloc Muslim vote in the State.
This gives Mahdani and his political outfit, People's Democratic Party, an
inordinately high importance in the politics of Kerala.
But, then, the demands of electoral politics
ought not to cancel out the self-avowed faith of our Comrades and Congressmen
in secularism, or should it? Unfortunately, true believers in secularism,
believers in the separation of religion and State and its affairs, would feel
let down by the naked pursuit of Mahdani by the leaders of the two fronts.
If the Karats and the Yechurys and Sonia Gandhi
have not reacted in protest, it is because they too realize the value of Mahadani
to their respective parties in Kerala. Politics sans principles having been
reduced to a no-holds-barred pursuit of power for its own sake, it matters
little to politicians whether they pander to Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists.
It is, therefore, time politicians stopped
hurling terms such as secularists and communalists as invectives at one another.
These have been denuded of all meaning thanks to their opportunistic conduct.
When it comes to votes, all are secularists or communalists. For, truly, in
the Indian context the two terms are interchangeable.
