26th January marks India’s Republic Day. Indians celebrate this day as a great benchmark in its so-called democracy and see this day as a great symbol of secularism in India. On this day India’s constitution came into effect in 1950. One must ask the question, especially if you are an Indian, is India really a secular state? What constitutes a secular state? The separation of church from state, in other words, religion should have nothing to do with the state’s official affairs. The government should have no discrimination among its citizens in the context of what religious belief system they belong to. Neither should the state have any official religion nor does that state have any power or authority to enforce and impose other belief systems onto the minorities.
A secular state doesn’t just mean that the constitution has a clause or chapter that says it should be a secular country. Actions are more powerful than words. There is substantial evidence in the form of incidents, events, and government decisions that suggest India is far from being a secular state. These incidents and government decisions are religiously motivated and they indicate that minorities are treated as a second-class citizen. Minorities are not safe in their own country with a constant and ever-increasing threat from nationalist Hindus who try to either “reconvert” minorities back into Hinduism or to deport all non-Hindus from India as Akhand Bharat is a land only for Hindus to live in.
Gandhi’s tolerance vs RSS’ nationalism:
There is no second opinion that India’s founding father Mr. Gandhi was a staunch supporter of a secular democratic system in India. Pre-partition congress’ ideology was based on secularism and liberalism but post-partition India didn’t adopt Gandhi’s political preaching and ideology but rather went in a different direction. Gandhi’s liberalism and somewhat tolerance are nowhere to be found in today’s India. Hindu nationalism was so strong that it eventually led to the assassination of the founding father of India. On 30th January 1948, Mr. Gandhi was shot by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist from RSS that disagreed with Gandhi’s secular ideology. Not only Indian minorities but national leaders have also suffered from the offshoot of Nazi-inspired RSS and their extremist ideology.
BJP and RSS:
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has strong historical and ideological bonds with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which pursues a Hindutva ideology. The RSS promotes the idea of a Hindu state through its use of extremist concepts such as Hindutva, a doctrine that says Indian identity is linked with the Hindu religion. RSS also believes that the Hindu community should respond to perceived threats from Indian minorities to the Hindu religion and seek to sustain the supremacy of the Hindus in India rather than any other religious belief. This is done by either converting those minorities into Hindus as discussed above or by eliminating them.
The RSS also runs summer camps, where volunteers train with weapons to defend themselves from a non-existent threat, the minorities. RSS’ political wing is the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose candidates now hold the highest offices in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a long-time RSS member, and the group’s influence is apparent in his Hindu nationalist policies. The RSS gained prominence in the 1980s by calling for a Hindu temple to be built in Ayodhya, in northern India. A 16th-century mosque sat on the same spot where the Hindu faithful believe the Hindu God Ram was born. In 1992, Hindu activists destroyed the Babri mosque in which thousands of Muslims were killed in riots afterward.
Situation of minorities:
India has the world’s second-largest population of Muslims but unfortunately, India has very few Muslim lawmakers in the parliament. Moreover, an apparent absence of Muslims from the military, civil administration, and civil armed forces such as police and paramilitary forces can be seen. These facts result in the under-representation of Muslims in India. Furthermore, lynching incidents, terrorizing minorities, and other despicable acts have not only been ignored by the ruling BJP government but rather encouraged them. At the beginning of 2020, multiple BJP leaders gave speeches targeting the Muslim community. Such as BJP MP Ananth Kumar Hedge said, “Till Islam is in the world there can be no end to terrorism!”
The increasing incidents of Hindu bigotry and persecution of minorities are a reminder that India has become an intolerant state rather than a secular one. Government policies and laws such as the CAA and NRC are other examples of rising intolerance of Muslim minorities in India. According to a UNCIRD report in 2019, Indian religious liberty “continued a downward trend.” Furthermore, it categorized India as a Tier-2 country because of persistent conditions unfriendly to religious freedom. In addition to that, a Human Rights Watch report from February 2019 found that between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people, including 36 Muslims were killed across 12 Indian states.
BBC’s documentary on Modi:
Recently the Indian government blocked BBC’s documentary about PM Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujrat riots. This documentary also revealed a British government report that stated the riots had “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleaning”. This report also called that there was widespread rape of Muslim women during these riots. Modi was the chief minister of Gujrat during the time violence broke out in Gujrat. He was accused of pulling back police and encouraging the Hindu extremists.
In an interesting development, Twitter and YouTube have reportedly taken down dozens of accounts that shared video clips of the documentary following the orders of the Indian government. Opposition parties in India have accused the BJP government of abusing censorship laws for banning the documentary. BBC’s documentary exposing the nefarious agenda of Modi and his party is an indication that the international community is eventually getting to know the truth of India’s so-called secular democracy. The question stands yet again, is India really a secular state? Or is India becoming a Hindu Rashtriya where minorities fear for their lives every single passing day?
