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By Inder Jit<\/strong><\/p>\n (Released on 10 March 1987)<\/strong><\/p>\n \n \n India once again stands on the cross-roads of history. Will we have the good sense and wisdom to move towards secularism? Or, will we allow unprincipled politics and the pursuit of power to push us down the road to communalism and perdition. My questions may surprise the readers against what has come to pass during the week since I wrote my last column on combating communalism untitled: Brave Rhetoric, Little Action. Strong and splendid words have been spoken afresh to denounce communalism and to underline the need to separate religion from politics. None less than the Prime Minister himself has thundered at least twice on the subject in Parliament, first in the Lok Sabha and then in the Rajya Sabha. But there is no firm assurance yet of any decisive action to halt the drift towards communalism. In fact, my great fear is that we may well miss another moment in history of saving our country from being torn apart. We lost our first chance after the Mahatma\u2019s martyrdom in 1948. In recent years, we missed an opportunity after \u201cOperation Blue Star\u201d and then following Indira Gandhi\u2019s assassination. We are now face to face with yet another chance.<\/p>\n The Prime Minister said in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, March 3: \u201cCommunalism is one aspect which is worrying every section of this House, which is worrying every section of society in our country. It threatens the nation as a whole and there cannot be any partisan considerations when we are faced with the threat of communalism. We must join together to fight communalism, to isolate and defeat the minority of fanatics and fundamentalists and terrorists that try to build their strength on either religion or other forms of communalism. We must be careful and work unitedly, as we are doing in Punjab, to fight this evil… It is time that we concretise these issues and (specifically set in motion certain stops to separate religion and politics and interference of religious bodies in the political system. It is going to be difficult to get the definitions and get the finesse that may be required, but even if it is difficult I think it is time that we put our heads together and get something down on paper and get something going… We will welcome any suggestion provided it is constructive…\u201d<\/p>\n All those who heard the Prime Minister in the Lok Sabha were happy. The speech raised great expectations. He looked like undoing the great wrong committed by Nehru and Indira Gandhi in 1960 when the Congress Party gave respectability to the Muslim League and joined hands with it to form a coalition Government in Kerala. (Remember, Nehru then came forward with the astonishing justification that the Muslim League in Kerala was different from Jinnah\u2019s Muslim League before independence!) But Mr Gandhi\u2019s observations on the subject in the Rajya Sabha seemed to raise a question mark over these hopes, even as he repeated some of the points made by him in the Lok Sabha and emphasised that politics based on religious fanaticism was dangerous to India\u2019s unity and integrity and nothing must be allowed that \u201cwill tear the country apart.\u201d The BJP leader, Mr L.K. Advani, interrupted the Prime Minister at this point to observe and ask: \u201cI entirely agree with you. Therefore, I would plead with the Prime Minister not to have any truck whatsoever with the League in Kerala. That would be the proof of the Congress Party\u2019s attitude on this question.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Rajiv Gandhi\u2019s reply to Mr Advani was significant in the context apprehension. He said, \u201cI started off by saying that it is important how we tackle communal forces. If we raise a counter communal force, we do not kill communalism\u2026 We only increase communalism. What we have to do is to bring the fringe elements, those that feel that they are not involved in our mainstream, into the mainstream of our society. We have to make them feel involved. We have to isolate fundamentalists. That is what is essential\u2026. What I am trying to point out is that in a country like India, we have different religions, different regions and different languages\u2026 It is a total mix of a society with examples from backward to primitive and from modern to advanced\u2026 It is very easy for us to make some small groups feel that they do not belong to us\u2026 We may not do it deliberately\u2026 But it is for us to deliberate over it, make them feel involved and pull them into the mainstream. That is our responsibility and that is how I would appreciate if the whole House stands together and does not make communalism a platform during elections or at any other time\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, the Janata leader, Mr. M.S. Gurupadaswamy, interrupted the Prime Minister at this stage and said, \u201cI welcome your statement\u2026 Can you assure the House that your Party in future at least will not have anything to do with the communal forces and activists.\u201d Mr. Rajiv Gandhi shot back: \u201cUnfortunately, the Hon\u2019ble Member has not understood what I have said. That is the whole pity of the situation that they do not understand what builds communalism, they do not understand what kills communalism.\u201d When Mr. Gurupadaswamy interjected, \u201cWe do not understand you at all.\u201d Mr. Gandhi explained: \u201cWhere we feel that certain religions of groups, people or particular sections feel isolated, where we feel there is a danger that with the isolated feeling they will behave in a manner which is detrimental to the interest of the nation, where we feel\u00a0 there is a possibility of pulling them back into the mainstream, where we know that they are not fundamentalists and where we know that they are not religious fanatics, we will cooperate with them to bring them back into the mainstream. This is the only way this country is going to remain united and one. We are not going to compromise on that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Gandhi\u2019s observations in the Rajya Sabha on communalism have left my mind the impression that these were made on second thoughts and were intended mainly to justify the Congress Party\u2019s decision to pursue opportunistically its policy of continuing its alliance with the Muslim League. (I wrote last Tuesday: Even today the Congress-I does not appear to see anything wrong in joining hands with the Muslim League.) Nehru entered into an alliance with the Muslim League in 1960 at the instance of Indira Gandhi, then Congress President, essentially in the pursuit of power. But he seems to have satisfied his secular conscience outwardly by arguing, howsoever facetiously, that the Muslin League in Kerala was different. Now Mr Gandhi has sought to put forward a new justification. He appears to draw a distinction between communalism on the one hand and fanaticism and fundamentalism on the other. He has talked of cooperating with certain religious or other groups of people who feel isolated and are not fundamentalists or religious fanatics \u201cto bring them back into the mainstream.\u201d But this raises some pertinent questions which need to be asked.<\/p>\n How far has this policy of \u201ccooperation\u201d with the Muslim League over the past 20 years succeeded in pulling the party and its supporters back into the mainstream? Regretfully, the answer is a no. In fact, the blunt truth is that this so-called cooperation has only fed the fires of communalism in Kerala, and encouraged fanaticism and fundamentalism elsewhere in the country. The Muslim League is fully conscious of is communal clout and has, therefore, declined all along to join the mainstream. It has instead chosen to function as parallel stream. In fact, the Muslim League in Kerala even got its Government to carve out a small Pakistan within the state \u2014 a separate Muslim majority district of Malapuram. That is not all. Some five years back the Muslim League and like-minded people even felt abandoned to press quietly for job reservations. Unknown to most people, Indira Gandhi was initially inclined to concede the demand on an informal basis. But the idea was dropped when it was emphatically pointed out to her that this would lead to formal quotas \u2014 and in due course even to separate electorate, which first owed the seeds of partition.<\/p>\n What can or rather need to be done? The Prime Minister told the Lok Sabha that the country was ready for debate on separating religion from politics and added: \u201cI am willing to start such a debate, participate in such a debate with the opposition, with anyone because this spectre must be faced by us together.\u201d Candidly, there is really no need for any such debate especially since, according to the President\u2019s recent address to Parliament, the nation \u201cis fully conscious of the dangers posed by religious obscurantism and communalism.\u201d Nevertheless, the Prime Minister could get free India\u2019s Parliament to adopt afresh the resolution first voted by the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) in April 1948 (or bring forward a new version) calling upon the Government to take steps to eliminate communalism from political life. The resolution could be moved by Mr Gandhi as the Leader of the House in the Lok Sabha. That, however, must not be all. As The Prime Minister himself stated in the Lok Sabha, the most important thing will be \u201cto concretise these issues and not just have a grand debate and leave it as nebulous, with no results.\u201d<\/p>\n Once the old (or revised) resolution is adopted by Parliament, the Government could come forward before the two Houses within a fortnight with separate lists of administrative and legislative measures to combat the evil. (It could start the exercise straightaway.) These measures could then be referred to an all-party Committee of the two Houses which could be asked to report back within another two weeks. The Joint Committee\u2019s report could then be debated and the Government given the required mandate to go ahead. Importantly, all this should be done within the budget session. Parliament could sit for longer hours or meet on Saturdays. If necessary, the session could be extended. The crucial thing is that concrete administrative and legislative measures for separating religion from politics and imposing a ban on communal parties should be taken without further delay. Undoubtedly, the exercise will pose some problems. But my study of the matter and quiet probing shows that this should not be too difficult. As the wise old saying goes, where there in a will, there is a way. Destiny may not give us another opportunity. \u2014 INFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Inder Jit (Released on 10 March 1987) India once again stands on the cross-roads of history. Will we have the good sense and wisdom to move towards secularism? Or, will we allow unprincipled politics and the pursuit of power to push us down the road to communalism and perdition. My questions may surprise the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}