Secularism under threat in India

The events that have unfolded in India over the last few months are in sharp contrast to the image that the country and its founding fathers had established; that India would be the role model for the developing countries seeking to establish their own countries on democracy and secularism. In fact, India has been so successful in establishing its role model status that even the developed world felt that India had a few lessons to teach them on issues of democracy and secularism. In fact while the USA proudly claims itself to be the world's oldest democracy; India equally proudly claims itself to be the world's largest democracy.
The above notwithstanding that India's claims on secularism would come under the cloud was clear with the emergence of the BJP on the national stage in the 2014 elections. The last time the BJP was in power in 1998-2004, its leaders, particularly Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was successful in keeping at arm's length the party shady connections with the Hindu fundamentalist organization the Rastriya Sevak Sangha (RSS). Leaders like the former Prime Minister and his colleagues with vast experience of the dynamics of politics on an all-India basis knew that for India to play a major role in international politics and economics, its secular credentials could not be under any shadow at all.  More importantly, they knew that encouraging RSS would destroy secularism that holds the key to India's future. Thus they successfully delinked the BJP from its deep-rooted connections with the Hindu fundamentalist RSS.
Narendra Modi did not emerge on the national scene with the visions of Atal Bihari Vajpayee because of his route to national politics. In fact, his first attempt at politics in the centre was in the May 2014 national elections. Narendra Modi's political career before that was confined in Gujarat. He was the state's longest serving Chief Minister. Narendra Modi and Devi Gowde are only two of the 14 Indian Prime Ministers who made it to the top elected political job in India through the state level politics.
Narendra Modi's role in Gujarat was marked by phenomenal economic achievements. He showcased the state for India bringing both Indian and foreign investments into the state in heaps. Narendra Modi became the star attraction of India's corporate world that wanted him to lead India. Economics soon got mixed with politics and Narendra Modi dramatically became the best prospect in the country for the coveted post of Prime Minister of India; a transformation that was quite contrary to traditions in Indian politics where a Prime Minister rises through the ranks of politics at the centre.
A few realities about Narendra Modi were cleverly sidelined in the process of his transformation. First, was his role in the Gujarat riots of 2002 that had kept him in US' "no visa" list for nearly a decade. Second, his roots in the RSS in which he actively worked in his younger days before he actively joined BJP. In fact, his links with the RSS started at age 8 and as a student, he was a Pracharak in RSS' student wing. As Narendra Modi rode the country like a colossus before the elections, Indians who matter, namely the urban class saw in him the key to their economic prosperity and went into denial over the other truths about him.
But the crowds that thronged Narendra Modi's public meetings in hundreds of thousands were not the suave, secular urban class. The large number of those who cheered him was those who like him had deep roots in the RSS. And that is where those who looked at Narendra Modi leading to 2014 elections either deliberately or unwittingly failed to see what Booker Prize winner Arundhuti Ray saw clear as daylight; that Indian secularism would face its most formidable challenge with  Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. Arundhuti Ray exposed the RSS' true colors. She talked and wrote about Sadashiv Gowalkar (1906-1973), the second RSS Chief and his views on India and Hinduism. In his book "We or Our Nationhood Defined", he openly idolized Hitler for his policy of ethnic cleansing. He considered India the land of the Hindus that had been contaminated by Muslims that he considered as "traitors" who should be allowed to live in India in total subservience to the Hindus as "idiots".
It did not take long for Arundhuti Ray's warnings to take shape. The RSS supporters this time did not need the BJP to encourage them. They appeared in national politics like they too were also a part of the BJP and thus had the legitimate right to exercise power. Thus Hindutva unofficially became this Government's avowed policy. Also, under RSS' influence, overtly Hindu fundamentalist beliefs and principles started to manifest all over the country with indulgence of the BJP Government. Thus on National Minorities Day, a RSS affiliate organization, The Dharam Jagran Manch, publicly set 2021 as the deadline to cleanse India of "alien Islam and Christianity." At the same time, RSS started campaigns to "reconvert" people of other religion back to Hinduism. School curriculum has been changed to put Hindutva at the heart of education in the schools.
Things came to a head over the issue of cow slaughter. Hindus do not eat beef out of deep religious conviction. Manil Suri an Indian author wrote in the New York Times: " The sacredness of cows in India...is deeply rooted in the history of Hinduism… The cow is divinely associated with Krishna, the cowherd, and is considered a mother figure because of the milk it gives." Thus 25 of 29 Indian states have banned cow slaughter in one form or another. Nevertheless, even in the banned states, beef has been eaten by Muslims (15% of Indian population), Christians and lower caste Hindus while the majority Hindus with their religious beliefs looked the other way. Export of cow to Bangladesh fetches India a hefty amount annually despite the fact that India has built a water tight barbed wire fence on the Bangladesh-India border.
This time with RSS flexing its power with active indulgence of the Modi led BJP Government; the cow slaughter became a national focal point of underlining and manifesting Hindutva or India as the land of the Hindus. In Maharashtra, India's second largest state,  "slaughter of cow was extended to the bull and oxen" and sale of beef was made punishable by jail sentence for 5 years. Haryana followed Maharashtra and imposed the cow slaughter ban immediately afterwards. The moves by the two states were welcomed by Prime Minister Modi's office as "models for other states to emulate."
If Hindu fundamentalist organizations and groups such as the RSS needed any more encouragement than that for making India the land of the Hindus, they received that too. Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh campaigned for the cow slaughter ban and fanned up sentiments against Bangladesh by demanding the total ban on export or smuggling of cow to Bangladesh. In fanning this cow slaughter ban, the strong anti-Muslim current was palpably evident with a bias of Hindu fundamentalism. Both came to a head when the priest of a Hindu temple not far from Delhi pointed finger at Mohammad Akhlaq for cow slaughter and storing beef in his house. The mob of Hindu fundamentalists took him out of his house and killed him in public. His eldest son, a corporal in the Indian Air Force, gave a most poignant interview on NDTV and hit the nation conscience bull's eye. He sang "Saare Jahan se accha, Hindustan Hamara" that bared the extent to which Indian secularism had degenerated at the hands of Hindu fundamentalism.
The news of Mohammad Akhlaq's lynching made headline news all over the world. The link of the BJP/RSS leaders to the killers of Mohammad Akhlaq has been revealed. In fact, far from hiding complicity, BJP leader Sakshi Maharaj commented to CNN/IBN in the aftermath of the lynching: "We won't remain silent if somebody tries to kill our mother. We are ready to kill and get killed." The most disappointing aspect of the phobia by the Hindu fundamentalists over cow slaughter is of course the element of official sanction. What has been damning for India and its image has been the silence of Narendra Modi who did not even consider such a monumental national issue to deserve even a mention in his now famous tweets with 9500 so far since becoming the Prime Minister. After 10 days of Mohammad Akhlaq's lynching, all the Indian Prime Minister could muster was "Dadri (where Akhlaq was lynched) and Ghulam Ali incidents are sad."
The Indian National Congress, the party of such stalwarts of secularism as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru also joined the Hindu fundamentalists. The Congress said that it too would support a national ban on cow slaughter! Thus on a fundamentally fundamental Hindu and anti-secular agenda, it is not just the fundamentalist BJP and the RSS advocating it; the Congress too has joined the fray. It is surprising that neither of these two parties is considering the rise of intolerance in the country; in particular against the Muslims that is directly linked to the encouragement these political parties are giving to the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India. Romila Thapar, the famous historian lamented about the predicament of secularism thus: "one party endorses it (secularism) in theory but hesitates to apply it properly in practice, the other makes fun of it since its foundational ideology is anti-secular."
Kadayam Sunderam, a former Director-General of Police in Northeast India in an article "Persistent anti-Muslim violence in India (1992-2015)" published in Asia Times on October 25 showed the direct relation between the emergence of the BJP nationally from just 2 seats in the 1984 or 8th Lok Sabha to its huge victory in 2014 to rise of anti-Muslim violence in the country. Thus he concluded that "it is not at all surprising that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hesitant to condemn clearly the Hindu communal mobilization and violence that confronts him as Prime minister, no matter if it gives his party and government a bad name and his country a black mark."
Secularism that made India acceptable to the rest of the world is thus facing its greatest challenge. The once vaunted civil society has also receded. It did not come into the act on the anti-Muslim acts of recent times and was silent over the cow slaughter and Hindu fundamentalist frenzy over it leading to the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq. They however acted over the government's silence to punish the killing of elderly academic Malleshappa Karbulgi in early September for criticizing idol worship by the Hindu fundamentalists. A good number of winners of the prestigious Sahittya Academy awards returned their awards in protest against growing intolerance. Unfortunately, in the absence of political backing, these protests have had only cosmetic impact on the growing intolerance and the damage it is causing to India's secularism.
And the intolerance is falling disproportionately upon the cornered and persecuted Muslims. In fear, former cricketers and now cricket commentators Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar and umpire Aleem Dar have withdrawn from their involvement in the now underway India-South Africa cricket series and have gone back to Pakistan.  
India is at a historic crossroad. If the cow slaughter ban were to become an all-India law, then India's claim, as a secular country that always was doubtful will no longer be a tenable one. And a non-secular India would only be communal, anti-Muslim, anti-minority that could eventually lead to India's disintegration. Therefore it is high time for Indian leaders to see what is happening in the country and take corrective measures because it is the veneer of secularism that has kept India together and given India the high moral ground to believe it itself as the natural leader of South Asia. At the moment, to rest of South Asia, India appears the same if not worse on religious fundamentalism than Pakistan that it condemns; ridicules and then dismisses for the same.
India's way out of its present dangerous predicament would have to be to return to its belief in secularism. "Secularizing India" according to Romila Thapar "has to begin with a uniform civil code that ensures equal rights to all citizens without exceptions." It is a very simple way out but would require a monumental change in the mindset of the majority Hindus and their political leaders. On them depends whether Indian secularism lives or dies.
Postscript: Forensic tests of the meat found in Mohammad Akhlaq's house revealed that it was goat meat and not beef!

The writer is a retired Ambassador. [email protected]