Secularism to Sickularism

“India is secular not because Muslims need it, but because Hindus want it.” M J Akbar

Read the full article here: http://mjakbarblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/bjp-needs-to-convert-modern-hindu-woman.html

I see/hear “Secular” world lot especially in our Media and Polity and the take away of all my seeing/hearing is if you belong to Majority i.e. Hindu Community then you have to be Secular but if you belong to Minority then you can be Anti-Secular i.e that you can demand your rights from States on the basis of religion..

Dictionary meaning of Secular: not pertaining to or connected with religion

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular

If I go by dictionary meaning than most of the Indians are not Secular Individuals. Only our State/Nation is Secular i.e. not pertaining to or connected with religion so it means that personally I can be a religious person but when I function as part of State than I should be secular in performing my duty. But is this true…The answer is big NO.

General Trends of our Elections are 40-60% polling of which 25-35% goes to winning candidate i.e. if 100 people are eligible to vote, 40-60 will vote and 15-20/100 votes are enough to win you election. Politicians in their wisdom knew that Hindus are not homogenous group so it is hard to convince the whole group to turn in single vote bank especially on the basis of perceived threat. On the other hand largest Minority community i.e. Muslims can be converted into single vote bank by keeping them in fear of Hindu Fanatics of which Mr. Narendra Modi is a poster boy. To play this dangerous game the best of our Secular leaders work in anti-secular way. They target a group based on Religion and pitch one Religion versus other to get the arithmetic right. And due to this a large section of Indians are kept improvised and uneducated so that they don’t understand this game.

Even our Media gets into this trap. Instead of empowering a community they pity them and play out their agony to pitch their Secular Credentials. A MOB is a MOB is a MOB. It doesn’t have religion. It just looks for binding factor and the factor can be Nationalism, Sex, Color etc and Religion. And when a Mob forms, the logic go for toss and most gruesome crime can happen. So why a crime committed by MOB, made up of particular religion, is paid so importance. Why Media does not go after a State/Police which allows such MOB to form in first place. Indian has been suffering from Religious tension since Independence and many gruesome riots happened under Secular Government but instead of looking it as complete failure of Indian State and Police Media painted a picture of Fanatic Hindus which further installed fear in a community. Media as a fourth state of Indian Democracy could have done better by not foolishly playing out Secular Credentials of Politicians who are worst Anti-Secular.

But I wonder most of the time why people don’t call this bluff. Even the worst riots happened for a building or a land. There was never a riot in Independent India because Majority community planned to change the Constitution to make India a Hindu State. This thing can never happen because Average Indian has utmost faith in Democratic and Secular Credential of this country. Then why a Mob clash between a piece of land/building continues to divide the population of Indian. Why don’t average Indians (from all community) just tell Politician that if our Police and Judiciary will work as they should be then life of Indians (not a particular community) will be safe. If government school and hospital will work fine then all Indians (not a particular community) can get a shot to a better life.