India has been declared a secular state by its written constitution and it is everyones duty to stand by and believe in this declaration. And yet recent political and social events have questioned this declaration. Is India a secular country only on paper or does secularism actually exist in India, or is it in the form of pseudo- secularism.
Late 70’s and the early 80’s, communalism got a strong boost and it started attacking secularism in a big way. The B.J.P. was quick to take up the mantle of the communal party, riding on the wave of the post-mandal upper class/caste backlash. The BJP began attacking, what they called pseudo-secularism, which pampered the minorities at the expense of the majority and demanded that special rights for minorities be taken away.
Supporting the BJP was the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a relatively new outfit with branches all over the world and drawing on support, both moral and financial, from the Hindu diaspora in the West. This took an aggressive form when the Babri Masjid controversy erupted. That period also saw the rise of other militant Hindu organizations such as the BajrangDal and the Shivsena. These groups quickly mushroomed and poisoned the social space with communal rhetoric and the agenda of Hindu Rashtra; and launched an ideological, social and political onslaught on secular ethos, syncretic culture and composite nationalism. They refused to recognize the contributions of Muslims and other minorities, to Indias history and culture.On December 6, 1992, a mob of 300,000 fanatics, brought together by the BJP and other extreme right-wing groups, demolished the Babri Mosque at Ayodhyaand promptly built a shrine dedicated to Rama which led to a rash of violence across the country. The result was a series of riots in which more than 1,500 people, largely Muslim, died.
The year 2002 witnessed one of the most devastating riots in Gujarat where mobs went on a rampage, destroying Muslim homes and businesses, killed 8,000 Muslims, including men women and children and drove thousands of people away from their homes. Fifty-nine people including women and children died in the fire. An Indian tribunal investigating the massacres found that Hindu nationalist groups had methodically targeted Muslim homes and shops. In 2012, Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlighted in a report that in the past decade increasing evidence had emerged of the complicity of Gujarat state authorities in the anti-Muslim violence. The human rights organization went on to note that instances of harassment, threats, and intimidation against activists and lawyers involved in the 2002 riot cases go on unchecked.
Dr. Abdul Bari Naik
Kulgam, Kashmir
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