Pseudo-Secularism

Hindu dharma is implicitly at odds with monotheistic intolerance. What is happening in India is a new historical awakening... Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Not just appeasement, but a design to undo India

Wednesday February 22 2006 00:00 IST

‘Sonia Gandhi has asked for a list of minorities – read Muslims – employed in the education, health, telecom and power sectors in the states and also at the Centre. This is not any Bajrang Dal activist accusing Sonia of appeasing Muslims. This is what Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, the Information Minister in the UPA headed by Sonia Gandhi as the chairperson, proudly claims.

Thus, what would be normally an accusation against Sonia is proudly proclaimed as her programme by her fans! The news report from Kolkata says quoting Dasmunshi that following a ‘‘categorical directive’’ from UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the government is working on an ‘identical survey’, that is, headcount in other areas. Thus that she was the one who directed the Muslim headcount in the Army is now admitted by her own UPA minister.

It would be unintelligent to dismiss the ‘categorical directive’ as just another ‘secular’ game for votes. The directive conceals far more. A deeper danger – than mere desire to transform Muslims into ballot papers – is inherent in it. Not just as a consequence, may also be as a design. It needs a closer look as it touches a sensitive issue, the Hindu-Muslim issue.

Balanced Hindu-Muslim relation is key to India’s progress. Yet, it has been mishandled time and again. Tinkering with this sensitive relation on trivial political expediency has cost the nation dear both in the pre-partition India and in free India. Most national issues have been converted by pseudo- secular politics into Hindu-Muslim issues, like Article 370, Common Civil Code, Bangladeshi infiltration, even TADA and POTA.

It is in this background that Sonia is unveiling the agenda of headcount and reservation in the Army. She knows that ‘secular’ India will not oppose it as that will be perceived as opposing Muslim interests. It will fall on Hindus to oppose this anti-national agenda. Once this happens, yet another national issue will be turned into a Hindu-Muslim issue! More. Reservation for Muslims in the Army will be opposed by the Army and by the Hindus and, therefore, will not happen. This will persuade many Muslims to feel that the Army which is a truly secular and constitutional institution is a Hindu outfit.

One can imagine how anti-national the Sonia agenda is. It will not stop here. From there the vote-hungry political parties will poll-promise to the Muslims that they would make what cannot happen to happen. The consequence will be a Hindu-Muslim clash with the ‘secular’ politics taking sides with Muslims.

This is precisely the West would want in India today. The present-day West, which is founded on Christian civilisational values, is in direct clash with traditional Islam. What started of as a political clash has expanded into civilisational and religious clashes and has begun retailing violence even as it incubates more of it.

The West is today seen as anti-Islamic and Islam is seen as anti-West. The cartoon controversy is only the tip of the iceberg. So the West desperately needs to deflect the attention and energies of Islam away from itself. It has to share its anti-Islamic game with non-western geographies. What other geography is ideally suited for this experiment than the India which houses the second largest Islamic population along with overwhelming majority of non-Muslims, essentially Hindus.

So a clash between the Hindus and Muslims in India will suit the western strategists as that will dilute the image of the West as anti-Islamic and also reduce the volume of the threats it faces from Islam. The agenda unveiled by Sonia Gandhi, even though seen as a vote-catching gimmick, has the potential to create clashes between the Hindus and Muslims in India, even if it is not aimed at such result. So what Sonia is doing compliments the agenda of the West for India. So Sonia’s new agenda should not see as just an appeasement of Muslims. It is designed to undo India.

Writer’s email: comment@gurumurthy.net

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