Author: Ram Gopal
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 15, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=113&%20%20page=25
In a discussion on 'Secularism in India, its
meaning, significance', at the India International Centre, New Delhi, eminent
personalities, like the former Central Minister, Shri Vasant Sathe, ex-MPs.
Syed Shahabuddin and Shri Prafull Goradia, the chief of Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind,
Maulana Ansari; VHP President, Shri V.H.Dalmia, and some others, expressed
their views.
While Shri Sathe, Shri Goradia and Shri Dalmia
pointed out certain portions of the Indian Constitution and government orders
which militated against the secular character of the Indian polity, surprisingly
Shri Shahabuddin too complained that India was not truly secular, albeit for
entirely different reasons. He said that, in spite of the Constitutional guarantee
for equal respect and protection to every religion, Islam and the Muslims
of India were not getting their due. He argued that secularism, namely Sarvadharmasambhava
(equal respect to all religions), meant that Islam, in its entirety, should
enjoy full respect and immunity in India. Carrying his argument further, Shri
Syed said that while other religions, like Hinduism and Christianity, were
confined to spirituality, (relationship between God and man), Islam covered
all aspects of human life and that the Shariat (Islamic law) is an essential
element of Islam. Hence, according to Shahabuddin, respect to Islam is incomplete
without providing full play to Islamic laws of the Muslims. He also asserted
that all protagonists of a common civil code for all, (including Muslims),
were non-secular and thus anti-Muslims. Maulana Ansari shared his views.
Secularism means that the State should not
interfere in the religious belief of its subjects, should not discriminate
between individuals on grounds of religion, race, birth or sex and should
not propagate any particular religion from State funds. Muslim intellectuals
and their leaders, however, stick to their own version of secularism which
means equal or even more rights for Muslims in a non-Islamic State and denial
of any right to non-Muslims in their Islamic States.
The roots of Shri Shahabuddin's thesis lie
in the Gandhian philosophy of Sarvadharmasambhava (equal respect to all religions
on earth), a slogan repeated ad nauseam by every Hindu activist. It is a one
sided proclamation that comes only from Hindu platforms-social, religious
or political. Their own chosen leaders and the Parliament allowed the Muslims
to have their separate Shariat law, their separate Urdu language, subsidy
for their Haj pilgrimage, in addition to mushrooming of mosques and madrasas.
Following these concessions, they themselves have set up Shariat courts. And,
yet they complain of their persecution, discrimination, and backwardness.
To assuage their feeling, the Indian prime minister has set up the Rajinder
Sachar Committee to find ways and means to grant job reservations to Muslims.
The finance minister too has asked the Reserve Bank to take similar action
for setting up an Islamic bank in India. According to latest reports, a memorandum
prepared by 46 Muslim organizations and signed by 420 individuals, including
300 women, has been submitted to the prime minister urging him to bring agricultural
land of the Muslims within the purview of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat)
Act. The signatories include Syed Shahabuddin, former chief justice of India,
A.M. Ahmadi, noted actress Shabana Azami and Iyricist Javed Akhtar.
Tailored reports of Muslim backwardness, concocted
stories of their persecution and other grievances will go on multiplying till
they do not become absolute rulers of Hindu India.
Will the non-Muslim secularists of India even
now understand the Muslim mindset in its correct perspective? Tailored reports
of Muslim backwardness, concocted stories of their persecution and other grievances
will go on multiplying till they do not become absolute rulers of Hindu India.
This is how, step by step, they went on increasing
their demands in undivided India since 1906 till 1940 when they declared that
they could not live in peace with Hindus on an equal footing, proposed Partition,
started a civil war in 1946 and got Pakistan in 1947. An avowed anti-Hindu
British regime was at their back. History is being repeated so soon. The only
difference is that the anti-Hindu secularists have taken the place of the
anti-Hindu British rulers.
It is notable that, howsoever, the world may
call Pakistan or Bangladesh a failed State, the Muslims there won't complain
of backwardness, discrimination or persecution. It is only in a democratic
and secular India that they are using 'secularism' as a weapon to make it
a Dar-ul-Islam, (land where Islamic rule prevails), from a Dar-ul-harb, (land
where Islamic rule does not prevail). Syed Shahabuddin's definition of 'secularism'
is a clear signal towards this goal. It is a warning not only to the Hindus
but to the entire non-Muslim world.
(The author is a freelance journalist and
can be contacted at A-2B/94-A, MIG Flats, Paschim Vihar, New Delhi-1100 063.)
