Delhi archbishop warns of threat to India's secular fabric

 

The archbishop of Delhi has called for a prayer campaign until the next general election in an unprecedented political intervention, citing a threat to the country’s secular fabric, triggering angry reactions from the ruling Hindu nationalist party. "We are witnessing a turbulent political atmosphere which poses a threat to the democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution and the secular fabric of our nation," Archbishop Anil Couto wrote in a letter issued this month to all parish priests and religious institutions in the archdiocese of Delhi.

• Christians constitute less than 3 percent of Hindu-majority India’s 1.3 billion people. India is officially secular, but four-fifths of its population profess the Hindu faith.
• The BJP said the letter was akin to calling people to vote along communal lines, and that it was unfortunate. The next election has to be held by next May.
• The Archbishop’s secretary, Father Robinson Rodrigues sad that such prayer campaigns took place before every general election, but the exercise was being politicised this time.
• The spokesman for the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, Father Savarimuthu Sankar, said the archbishop only called for a prayer campaign not an election campaign. He said the letter, the first of its kind from Archbishop Anil Couto since he was installed in 2013, was prompted by continued violence against Christians over the past four years and following attempts to bring back to Hinduism people who converted to Christianity. We try to influence at least those people who are educated, who are balanced. So far we have been saying these are fringe elements who are behind the attacks. But there is a danger that fringe elements may become the mainstream. To some extent they are succeeding also.
• Responding to questions about the letter, Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh told reporters that minorities are safe in India and that no one is allowed to discriminate on the basis of caste and religion. Between 2014 and 2015, Couto and other Christians in the national capital region of Delhi told Rajnath Singh how violence had picked up after Modi came to power, detailing at least five cases of attacks on churches in New Delhi following which extra police had been deployed to protect 240 churches in the capital.
• The prayer for our nation says, “Let the dreams of our founding fathers and the values of our Constitution – equality, liberty and fraternity – be always held in highest esteem. Let the people of all castes and creeds, all denominations and persuasions live in harmony and peace steering far away from hatred and violence." The prayer also focuses on the poor and the marginalised, saying, “Let the poor of our country be provided with the means of livelihood. Let the dalits, tribals and the marginalised be brought into the mainstream of nation building. Let justice and integrity prevail in every sphere of our life.”
• The prayer further says, "Protect our legislature as a place of discerning minds. Raise our judiciary as the hallmark of integrity, prudence and justice. Keep our print, visual and social media as the channels of truth for edifying discourses. Protect our institutions from the infiltration of the evil forces.” 

While the letter and prayer has no inflammable content, the underpinning is very clear that minorities have apprehensions about their safety, rights and privileges compromised. They are all living with their mouth shut for the last 4 years, with fear gripping them choking. Now that Modi & BJP got weakened, vulnerable and uncertain of wining no more elections owing to his worst performance in all fronts, it is natural that all suppressed sections of people will speak out their mind ventilating their grudge reflecting their anger. With minorities at 20%, dalits at 18% thoroughly alienated, there is no way BJP can win 2019 general elections unless oppositions parties fail to put up common candidates. But with Karnataka episode, Modi has himself united all the opposition parties, underwriting his own defeat. 

India losing its way, 70 years after independence

• In 1960, an American writer predicted that in an unstable India no outsider will be able to say with assurance where political legitimacy resides.
• Three years earlier, C.Rajagopalachari had predicted that “the centrifugal forces will ultimately prevail”, bringing anarchy or fascism. Older generation people, who had survived partition, mournfully surveyed the country’s future, some even hoping the British would come back.
• Even in 1969, India relied on wheat given away by America, and a “guest control order” specified that only 50 people could be invited to parties where food was served. To travel abroad, Indians required the approval of the Reserve Bank.
• India has not reduced poverty levels as dramatically as China. Still 250 million Indians live on less than four dollars a day, but the progress since the British left has been impressive.
• In 1947 life expectancy was 32 years, now it is 68. The per capita income in India was $439. Now it is US $1861, an all time high and was at record low of US$ 304 in 1960.
• In 1947 only 1,500 villages – a mere 0.025% – were electrified; now 97% of 6.41 lakh villages have electricity. After two centuries of British rule, literacy in India was only 12% of the population and now 74% are literate.
• Every change of government since 1947 has been via the ballot box, with the army never involved - something Greece, Spain, Portugal or even France can’t claim..

As its 70th anniversary approaches, India beset with fears? 

• The way, since Narendra Modi’s astonishing election victory in 2014, the country seems to be turning its back on the tolerant, secular society India’s founding fathers wanted. 
• Modi has always ridden two chariots: Modi’s real business of making India prosperous; and his Hindu business of appeasing his fanatical Hindu followers.
• Some people are confident that Modi will change India for the better, and that the Hindu business will amount to nothing.
• Yet Modi has proved a timid reformer, whose tinkering has included an overnight demonetization that led to such chaos that many people died.
• His Hindu followers have been given free rein. This has seen a ban on the slaughter of cows, and a growing intolerance of minorities and their lynching.
• Today in Mumbai, there is now a form of religious apartheid in housing. A Muslim client wanted to buy a flat in a suburb but the broker said “You are a Muslim. This building is not for Muslims. Hindus only.” 
• In some parts of Mumbai, the most vibrant city, have become so segregated that “owners say this building is for vegetarians only, so no Muslim, Christians, Jews, Parsis or even meat-eating Hindus”. Ironically 31% of Indians are vegetarian and 69% are non-vegetarian.
• In Mumbai of the 50's and 60's, all faiths lived side by side. 

Narendra Modi: Is he India's saviour, or sectarian with blood on his hands?

Hindu Raj: Ambedkar’s warning

• Proponents of Hindu supremacy knew that democracy could be used to establish a Hindu Raj. They and their followers have sought to use the vote for ends of power using the Hindutva card.
• If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country.… Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost - wrote B.R. Ambedkar in 1946. He was against majoritarianism, which in the Indian context meant unbridled rule of the majority community, the Hindus.
• Unfortunately for the minorities in India, Indian nationalism has developed a new doctrine which may be called the Divine Right of the Majority to rule the minorities according to the wishes of the majority. Any claim for the sharing of power by the minority is called communalism, while the monopolising of the whole power by the majority is called nationalism. Under these circumstances there is no way left but to have the rights of the Scheduled Castes embodied in the Constitution. 
• In the forties, even Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was sometimes accused of being soft on the Hindu Revanchists, who believe in and practised tit-for-tat in that turbulent and fateful period.
• Patel’s retort to BM Birla on announcement of Independence: “I also feel happy that the announcement of June 3, 1947 at least settles things one way or the other. There is no further uncertainty. I do not think it will be possible to consider Hindustan as a Hindu state with Hinduism as the state religion. We must not forget that there are other minorities whose protection is our primary responsibility. The state must exist for all, irrespective of caste or creed.”
• Ambedkar was perceptive. It is not necessary to declare India a Hindu state formally by amending the Constitution and making Hinduism the state religion. The same result can be achieved by administrative measures. The Supreme Court has held secularism to be part of the basic structure of the Constitution which cannot be discarded even by constitutional amendment.
• Ambedkar thought that the elaborate constitutional provisions on administration would work. He told the Constituent Assembly on November 4, 1948, when he moved for the adoption of the Draft Constitution: “While everybody recognises the necessity of the diffusion of constitutional morality for the peaceful working of a democratic Constitution, there are two things interconnected with it which are not, unfortunately, generally recognised. One is that the form of administration has a close connection with the form of the Constitution. The form of the administration must be appropriate to and in the same sense as the form of the Constitution. The other is that it is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form, by merely changing the form of the administration and to make it inconsistent and opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. Can we presume such a diffusion of constitutional morality? Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realise that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic”.
• The leaders of the Congress sought to inculcate secularism right from the first Congress held at Bombay in 1885. S. Srinivasa Aiyangar, president of the 41st Congress in 1926, articulated the credo of secularism very ably. So did Vallabhbhai Patel in the presidential address to the 45th Congress at Karachi in 1931. Hindu-Muslim “unity can only come when the majority takes courage in both hands and is prepared to change places with the minority. That would be the highest wisdom.”
• But by then, forces that did not share the Congress’ ideology, did not participate in the freedom movement and were charged with revivalist hate had come to the fore.
• Nehru once remarked that Hindu communalism was the Indian version of fascism, and, in the case of the RSS, it is not difficult to perceive certain similarities. The leader principle, the stress on militarism, the doctrine of racial-cultural superiority, ultra-nationalism infused with religious idealism, the use of symbols of past greatness, the emphasis on national solidarity, the exclusion of religious or ethnic minorities from the nation-concept—all of these features of the RSS are highly reminiscent of fascist movements in Europe.
• With an RSS pracharak, Narendra Modi, known for his antipathy towards Muslims, as Prime Minister, and Yogi Adityanath chosen by him as Chief Minister of India’s largest State, Uttar Pradesh, we have crossed the threshold to a Hindu state. The BJP’s presidential candidate, Ram Nath Kovind, is “deeply rooted in the ideological stream of the RSS”. A brand new rubber stamp has been manufactured for the Rashtrapati Bhavan, 25 years after the last rubber stamp, R. Venkataraman.
• We now have a Prime Minister whose Hindutva puts Vajpayee’s Hindutva in the shade. Lynchings of Muslims has become common. So are cries for a Hindu state. Yogi Adityanath said on the Hindu Swaraj Diwas that no Indian should be hesitant about being proud of his or her Hindu identity.
• The drive will pick up speed. Modi made blatantly communal speeches during the Uttar Pradesh election campaign, as 65 former civil servants recalled in their open letter. He will do worse for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. He aims to claim that he has fulfilled the BJP’s triple demand. His Kashmir adventure had “solved” the problem. For a uniform civil code, no other Prime Minister has so relentlessly campaigned for a reform of Muslim law. As far as the Ram temple at Ayodhya is concerned, he will say: “have patience, I have crossed the threshold to a Hindu state in India. Can’t you see the dread on the faces of Muslims, Christians, Dalits and other minorities?

My View:
Democracy in its true spirit is rule by people. Among all models, the model of rule by majority is the most popular and probably the best. That doesn't mean that minorities can be thrashed out by majority. Rule of the law must prevail. This Hindutva philosophy will only lead to civil war, sooner or later. In a democracy, ruled by majority, it is the duty of majority to uphold the rights & dignity of minorities. Polarization of people on the lines of religion, caste or creed - is not democracy. It is only a distortion and perversion. In a society corrupted with religious extremism all constitutional provisions and laws of the land will not work properly and the country will be heading for anarchy. When constitution fails, it is mafia that rules and then nation will be heading for disintegration!

Modi's rule: Our democracy in peril

Modi's three year rule is characterized by ...

• Disregarding democratic principles for economic progress and shunning democracy for majoritarianism.
• With his anti minorities attitude and a Hindu hardliner, Modi can hardly be a true statesman.
• There is a lot of difference between governing a state and an entire country full of diversity, which he doesn't realize.
• People’s desires for economic progress have been channelized into the sentiment that democracy isn’t working for them. 
• He is making people believe that shunning democracy and sacrificing a few democratic values paving way for authoritarianism is an easier way out.
• Economic progress and diplomatic fanfaronade are made more important and fundamental rights, individual freedom and secularism have been reduced to useless hyperboles.
• Dissenters have been pushed to the periphery and have been blamed as anti-nationals, for whom petty personal freedoms are more important than the nation’s glory. 
• Complete faith has been bestowed into the PM and questioning him means going against the nation’s sentimentality. 
• A brand new nationalistic discourse has been charted. You are either on the side of your nation or on that of abhorrent Islamic neighbor.
• It has never been controversial to be secular in this country. While just a few years ago it was largely considered a virtue, secularism today stands abused and bastardized. 
• The pride associated with being secular for over six decades since the inception of our Constitution has been reduced to the malicious fallacy of being minority appeasers.
• He is not directly propagating chauvinist nationalism and aggressive jingoism, but he is basking in its glory.
• He is hypersensitive to any criticism or even analytical critiques.
• Today, the country is completely divided on communal lines with Muslims and Christians being considered enemies unless they bow down to majoritarianism. 
• There has been rising violence and hooliganism against Muslims and Dalits in the name of cow protection. These are law and order problems unacceptable in any civilized society.
• Dalits feel that discrimination against them has increased since Yogi Adityanath was appointed CM of Uttar Pradesh. 
• When the PM and Yogi Adityanath do not wholeheartedly condemn atrocities against minorities, it gives a free hand to those who believe in an aggressive communal Hindu nationalistic ideology.
• It is true that previous governments and political parties have exploited both Dalits and minorities, indulging in vote bank politics and have contributed little to their upliftment. Failures of the past do not justify wrongs of the present. National Commission for Minorities is not having a single member for months now. 
• Modi puts his foot down against the Sangh Pariwar, occasionally. Modi praised Mother Teresa for serving the poor  “As Indians we feel proud about the canonization of Bharat Ratna Mother Teresa.” 
• RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat had in 2015 said that Mother Teresa converted people to Christianity in the name of serving humanity and demanded that the Bharat Ratna bestowed on the Saint in 1980 be withdrawn.
• Last year Modi cited quotes from the Quran and said Islam was “a religion of peace”, is another example. But there has been no conscious effort on his part to keep the country’s secular fabric intact.
• Neither can Islamic fundamentalism be controlled nor RSS’ dream of a Hindu Rashtra be realized by resorting to lawlessness and savagery. On the contrary, it could backfire and more people could get disillusioned and take recourse to Islamic fundamentalism.
• There is contradiction between our Constitutional values of pluralism and equality and the concept of Hindutva. 
• Indian’s dreams of development and progress and to making our country a fast-growing economy will be successful only only there is harmony.
• It is an irony that while millions across the world are giving up their lives for democratic values, today a large number of Indians find no virtue in democracy. 
• As Modi is confident of his victory in the 2019 general elections, it’s just a matter of time our democracy gets reduced to a farce.

My View:

Instead of engaging people of Kashmir valley with economic progress and politically, deploying half of Indian Army and their resistance of military atrocities reflected by stone throwing even by women and school girls doesn't august well with our democratic principles. Voter turnout in recent Srinagar Lok Sabha bye-poll from 64% in 2013 to under 7% is glaring and worrying example of total alienation of Muslims in Kashmir by Modi government. Unless some drastic steps are taken, which is unlikely by authoritarian Modi, it is matter of time we end up losing Kashmir forever. Modi's senseless demonetization busted all sections of people and GDP taking a big hit. Today's farmers unremunerative prices is attributed mostly to currency shortage, consequent to demonetization, still prevailing especially in rural India. And his farmer loan waiver loan announced for winning UP elections is resulting in announcing the same by all states, one after other. GST without enough lead time for preparation is likely to hit supply chain of most commodities resulting in lower GDP apart from higher inflation. Demonetization and GST roll out, without preparation and mitigation, and farmer loan wave offs , Modi in fact is destroying economy while talking of high speed reforms.