Sick & Tired of the myopia of doomsday predictions made by people about the rise of fascist forces in India. All these predictions do, is demonstrate a very poor understanding of the Indian ethos! Secularism is the most misunderstood term going around. So is Hindutva. So lets define it please: (For the sake of explanation, I will keep the controversial H alphabet in Hindu in parentheses!) 1) (H)indutva is the perennial state of a Sanatan Dharmi; someone who only operates on the paradigm of universal plurality and co-existence. Ergo, to all those (H)indus, who publicly cringe at the thought of being called one (Its in vogue these days!), you are (H)indutva-vadis, just by virtue of being born in the land of the Indu/Saraswati Valley Civilization! (Indu metaphorically here, represents the Indus, the Ganges and the now extinct Saraswati rivers, apart from all the southern rivers which have flown West to East!) You are a Hindu, Muslim, Christian next. You are (H)Indutva-vadi/vasi FIRST! Also, Indu-stan covers every place from the river Indus in Pakistan to the Ganga and Brahmaputra basins in Bangladesh, down to Sri Lanka, the sanctum sanctorum of Theravada Buddhism in the sub-continent! The people of the sub-continent might be persuaded by different faiths but their hallmark is Sanatan and is very visible; Go to Pakistan as an Indian and be floored by the warmth; Visit Bangladesh and be amazed by the subconsciousness of Rabindra Sangeet in their ethos; These are not HINDU ideas, these are the diffused sentinels of the Saraswati Valley! 2) Secularism is not the sole purview or jagir of the Congress or anyone else who has Muslim and Christian friends or Hindu and Christian friends or Hindu and Muslim friends (Yeah, choose your religion!). To be secular in this land is to be a (H)Indutva-vadi. This is by default, not primordially a learnt behavior! The fact that the idea of Bharat or Indu-stan is known mankinds biggest successful social experiment is testimony to it! 3) When someone says that Indias delicate (completely misplaced!) secular fabric is in danger, it has to be a boring, concocted yarn that does not even amuse anymore! Indu-stans people are not stitched together by religion or religious tenets; they are held together by the sub-consciousness of sanatan; subconscious plurality! Every religious wave that reached Indias shores rode piggyback on the idea of the conquest of the sone ki chidiya; the idea of implementing religion was to initially facilitate obedience through homogeneity for logistical reasons; it later became ideological due to a new perceived insecurity, fueled by the prospect of a sophisticated Saraswati Valley Culture (Sanatani, NOT RELIGIOUS!) dominating everything! What they forgot to realize was that the cultural paradigm and the value system of the Saraswati Valley DID NOT OPERATE through FORCED INSTRUCTION; but THROUGH DIFFUSION! Diffusion of an idea happens ONLY when and where there is the possibility of genuine love. Everything else is conquest. Ergo, the idea of (H)indutva is not one of conquest, it is about diffusion, facilitated only by the democracy of the mind to accommodate differences. Finally, Development is not a political plank that is up for debate! It is our only mandate. There are a hundred ways to economic efficacy. As a political party, you could be about championing democratic processes (which Congress says it is!) and it is all good as long as the currency of the process is Governance. Rahul Gandhis idea of decentralizing power through people-to-people empowerment still needs a thrust from an economic engine that is robust and which does not have a leaking fuel tank! The AAP might flaunt a jhaadu and represent house-keeping as a way to efficient book-keeping; which, again, is very noble; Ask a grocer though. Once the cleaning is done, its time for business. Unfortunately, India is at the cross-roads and does not have the luxury of time for a clean-up, followed by development; both will have to run concurrently! I will reserve my comments on the BJP because they have disproportionate earned media already.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 04:36:18 +0000