India Should be Truly Secular

I always wonder what we are talking about when we say Secularism. Unfortunately we use the word so casually in our daily life. It is a very common word for the Left and Congress and their psuedo secular allies, to stamp all others as anti-secular elements. The Dictionary meaning of the word...(as per Oxford Little Dictionary.) “doctrine that morality and education should not be based on Religion.” Then how can we call our selves a secular nation and go on talking about reservations, minorities and other matters that divide the people and disrupt peace. We talk about minority communities, reservations for admissions into universities and colleges including medical and professional colleges. We want to extend them to private business and industry. Any one who opposes them is branded as the enemy of social justice!

Where is morality? Secularism’s definition says Morality is not based on religion. How can the Civil Laws be different for different citizens based on religion? The country is fighting against the population explosion, and the family planning cannot be implemented just because one or two religious faiths do not accept family planning! The religious head of Christianity sitting in Vatican gives his comments on anti conversion laws and family planning in our country. We immediately agree that anti-conversion laws are anti-secular. I do not belong to any political party. My concept of secularism is, non-interference in the other religions’ matters and faiths. Follow your faith; allow the others to follow their faiths. Do not lure or force others to change their faith. Have a peaceful co-existence. That is religious harmony. What are we doing here? Conversions galore. There are instances where people were caught red handed in the holiest of holy places for Hindus, Tirumala. What was the outcome? No one knows? Train loads of people were carried to Rajasthan from Andhra Pradesh for Baptisation. The victims confessed that they were promised cycles, money etc. The organisers claim they came forward on their own initiative for graduation in Christianity and conversion. Are they genuine conversions?

We lived in Indonesia, a country where the Muslim population is over 90% and the president of the country was openly propagating the Family Planning even on TV. Once he was joking with a worker working on off shore drill “if you come home once in three months, automatic Family Planning”. The industrial units in that country compete amongst themselves for the first place in the implementation of Family Planning programmes.

Coming to Marriages. In India Muslims can have a number of wives. They can divorce their spouses just by saying Talaq.. Talaq.. Talaq. In Indonesia if a couple wants to separate there will be a number of meetings of the couple with the Government and religious authorities. There will be negotiations for bringing them together and if all these efforts fail then only they will be granted divorce. Are those Muslims different from the Muslims we have here? Bible does not permit Family Planning. We cannot ask the Christians to fall in line.

We have to learn lessons from Indonesia. In Jakarta we have a small Durga Temple. In fact it was just a small building reminding us of the houses in our villages in a very narrow street. That was the only Hindu house cum temple in that street. Just twenty yards away from that small house is located a Mosque. This is also very small house. During the Navaratri, we the Indian expatriates living in Jakarta used to make it a point to visit that temple at least a couple of times during the nine days. The small street used to be filled with the Hindu community with the loud singing of the Bhajans and other devotional activities. There is a mosque next door. The Muslims offering Namaz never complained of disturbance. We attended these festivities for over twelve years and we never saw any one raising their voice. That is religious harmony. It is strange that we have problems during religious festivals in India.

The one festival the Muslims celebrate with all their hearts in Indonesia is Idul Fitr. We call it Ramzan here. After the fasting for 40 days is completed, the break of the fasting is celebrated in a real festive way. That goes on for days and days. Every weekend they have the feasting somewhere or other. We used to get invitations and we used to go to their houses with our families to participate in their celebrations. In fact a couple of my Hindu colleagues used to observe the forty days fasting with local Muslims. They used to appreciate our participation. They made it a point to keep some exclusive vegetarian food for us. They call it Gado Gado, mixture of boiled vegetables etc. It was a delicacy we enjoyed eating. They used to keep some fruits and typical sweet preparations.

Let me take the case of a small miniaturized world, the Factory where I worked in Jakarta. We had about 1200 workers and over 90% of them were Muslims, The rest were Indian Expatriates and a handful of Christians. The Factory was an Indian venture. We used to celebrate Deepavali in the factory. We used to perform Lakshmi Pooja and offer prasadam. We used to give Harathi. All the staff members majority of them being Muslims used to attend the pooja. They used to be present when we were offering the prayers. When we gave Harathi some of them used to join us. They too used to give Harathi. After that we used to distribute prasadam to all of them. Some typical Indian sweets were served to all of them. The staff members used to make it a point to visit our houses in the evening and wish our family members a Happy Deepavali. I am under the impression that children of Indonesia may be more conversant with Maha Bharath and Ramayan than an average Indian child. Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan was shown on Indonesian TV twice.

In the heart of the Jakarta city a grand statue of Lord Krishna’s discourse of Bhagavat Geetha was erected. It was unveiled by no other than the President of Indonesia. The youth of Indonesia were advised to emulate Arjuna, a symbol of youth and valour. There were never any wide spread religious problems there during our stay of over sixteen years in Indonesia. I am sorry to say that things are different and deplorable in India.

Do you feel that with this policy of vote banks we can ever establish peaceful co-existence of all the religions? Don’t you feel we are only widening the gap between the religions instead of bridging the gap? Don’t you sincerely feel that undue support to one religious community antagonizes the others?

It is sad to hear about communal violence. After all religion is just a personal faith. You follow your faith. In what religion you are born is immaterial. Is it necessary to tell each and every one what faith you follow? Is it necessary to teach people to follow your religion? Is it necessary to convert oneself into another faith? Every religion says there is only one God. Then how come we have so many Gods?

Close your eyes. Imagine a congregation of the leaders of all religions in the World. Imagine each one speaking about what is good in the other religions/faiths and trying to explain that there is only one God (whatever name we call him) and you have to follow your own faith with sincerity to reach the goal. If we do this will this world not be a better place to live in than what it is today?
-The author lived for sixteen years in Jakarta (Indonesia).