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Whither secularism?

Kuldip Nayar writes from New Delhi
Ido not want to belittle the Bhartiya Janata Party's victory in the; Karnataka state election, which has given it a foothold in the South for the first time since independence. My contention is that every such success lessens the space for secularism in India. When the chips are down, the BJP represents Hindutva and all that goes with it. The Congress may be opportunist in outlook, dynastic in attitude and authoritarian in approach, its ethos is secular. It represents pluralism, which was also the characteristic of the freedom struggle.
The BJP has, over the past few years, hewn a path which circumvents the Muslim community. The party did not field a single Muslim candidate in Karnataka, Gujarat, or a couple of other states where it fought elections in the last one and a half years. This seems to be the party's new policy. Muslims are roughly 15 percent in the country. Still the BJP has preferred to ignore them. They do not fit into the scheme of the India the party has in view.
I am not suggesting that the BJP does not have Muslims as members. A couple of them are even office-bearers at its central organisational setup. Yet, the image of the BJP is that of a party which is anything but secular. Its constant, close links with the RSS makes the BJP still more suspect, because the Sangh dictum is: Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan.
This is not a healthy development in a society which is constitutionally pluralistic, and which is vehemently opposed to the two-nation theory. No doubt, the Congress is the most to blame because communal forces over the years have thrived at its expense. The party leaders, if they have the courage to speak out, must analyse why the Congress has lost its secular credentials.
When a leader of the Nationalist Congress party, the Congress ally, proposes a joint government with the BJP at the centre and when RSS chief Sudarshan endorses the suggestion, the Congress must
wake up to the general perception that it is not very different from the BJP.
The larger question which the country must face is why secularism is shrinking in the country. That the obsession of caste considerations is driving out the interest of community is largely true. Elections are fought primarily on the caste basis. But why has the Congress never projected class, an economic conglomeration, to defeat the caste? It looks as if the party's own commitment to socialism and pluralism has got eroded. In away, this is natural in a party where the decision-making process is confined to a few, and when the upper middle class frames the policy. History is replete with examples where a top person has changed the thinking of people, with disastrous results.
What about the other non-BJP parties? The Congress is not the country. All secular forces, big or small, have to think how to refurbish the value of pluralism, which is losing its appeal. Getting
together of pluralistic parties is worthwhile in political terms, so that the secular votes don't split.
However, the challenge is moral. A nation traversing the pith of constructing a secular polity is being pushed towards a direction which is divisive, destructive and communal. It is not the structure that faces the danger. It is the very existence of the polity which has come to have a question mark against it. Why has the country, even after 60 years of independence, failed to implant pluralism firmly, which has the topmost priority?
India is proud of democracy. The system is based on the participation of all, equally and unequiv-ocally. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs or Parsis are limbs which provide nourishment to the body politic. How, and for how long, can it stay healthy if some limbs are discarded or considered inferior for use? Pluralism and democracy are two sides of the same coin. When separated, religion with all its exclusiveness and bias takes over.
Sometimes I wonder whether Hindutava is creeping in slowly and relentlessly. That may well have been the reason why the BJP did not communalise the election campaign in Karnataka, and had no hesitation in getting Narendera Modi, of Gujarat carnage fame, electioneering for more than a week. The party had kept him away in some earlier elections. Modi represents the anti-thesis of pluralism. After all. he is the successor to LK Advani, the BJP's candidate for the pose of prime minister, as the latter has publicly said.
Muslim extremists only aggravate the situation because they strengthen the BJP and its type of thinking when they indulge in bomb blasts, or help outsiders to do so, and provide them with shelter. An SMS sent on mobile telephones after the blasts at Jaipur was: Muslims are not terrorists but terrorists are Muslims. This went to the houses of Hindu middle class people.
Some Muslims organisations are doing a commendable job in holding public meetings and seminars denouncing terrorism. But extolling the virtues of Islam from the same platform does not mix well. They are confusing the public. Terrorism per se is reprehensible. On the other hand, the harassment of Muslim youth in the name of fighting terrorism is instilling fear and a sense of insecurity into the community. A Muslim lawyer had a tough time at
Faizabad court in UP the other day when he appeared for terrorist suspects. The bar had asked all lawyers not to defend them.
Yet, the basic question that Karnataka has thrown up remains unanswered. Is the Congress saleable as an alternative in the country? It has lost six states in a row in the last eighteen months. Party president Sonia Gandhi is a crowd puller. But the crowd does not seem to be getting translated into votes. Can the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) be 'projected with different cbnstftu-" ents?
At present, the Left is part of the UPA. Understandably, the Left wants to contest on its own. What about other non-BJP parties? Some of them have joined hands with the BJP in forming governments both at the centre and in the states. A few are still members of a coalition they jointly run.
The Lok Sabha elections are only eleven months away. Some combinations are being discussed behind the scenes. Let the example of former prime minister Deve Gowda be not repeated. He first cheated the Congress, then the BJP, and is now available to the highest bidder. This is the time for the parties to show their commitment. They may have to retrieve the Congress. A country which is proud to call itself secular cannot be left at the mercy of one party which is committed more to power and less to pluralism.
Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian courn-ist.