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Trending: Call for Papers Volume 4 | Issue 3: International Journal of Advanced Legal Research [ISSN: 2582-7340]

SECULARISM: ARE WE PRODUCING HYPER-NATIONALIST OR PSEUDO SECULARIST by -Yukti Bhardwaj

ABSTRACT

“The best retort to depraved religion is better religion, not secularism”. Indian culture is woven around religious activities. This had been appreciated and acknowledged by our forefathers. Today the trending in some sections of the society to connect cultural heritage/practices as against secularism. Critics often argue that in the name of secularism and modernity, court and government have been unnecessary interfering in the religious and cultural practices such as child marriages, animal sacrifices in name of god, Hindu daughter rights in the property, schedule caste people taking water from the pond, sati, Muslim women having photographs on voter I’d. Why in southern temples photography of the almighty is forbidden and also the dress code just for the reason of the fact that it will decline the powers of almighty? But because of various laws and judiciary verdict, one by one these regressive cultural practices and have been outlawed by modern secular Indian states.

INTRODUCTION: SECULARISM AND ITS ROUTES

Vasudhaiva kutumbakam indicates that “the entire world is a single-family”. And India too does infer this idea that entire India is a single-family but in the opinion of fact, we all know what proportion we tail the concept still there is discernment on the premise of caste, sex, race, and even on financial grade. Secularism in an exceeding layman language denotes the principle of separation of state from religious foundations. When we talk about the idiom secularism there are three idioms that we all must emphasize on are nationalist, hyper-nationalist, and pseudo secularist. Healthy, a nationalist may be alleged as a patriot and will express for the welfare of the rusticwhether being remonstrating against if the acts of the government don’t seem to be justifiable, whereas hyper-nationalist are those folks who are entirely devoted towards the country and are intolerant towards those who express against the state whereas pseudo secularist is those folks who are in contradiction to the majority fundamentally they are anti-nationalist. The constitution of India definite in the preamble that faith is an acknowledged principle and not a subject to logic if a large number of people believe in that faith then that faith desires to get acknowledged. Taking you back to historical times when Mir Bibi came on the behalf of Babar and then demolished the pre-existing temple just for the satchel of reason that Guru Nanak emanated before him. When Narasimha Rao was the prime minister of India he informed the Supreme Court that if there is any pre-existence of mandir from before the mosque then he would hand over the land to Hindus and this statement was the part of the Supreme Court judgment. History of our country states that Parsis came from Iran after Islamic crises in their country they remained in India and they on no occasion had any delinquent and when the British left they enquired them should we make quotas for your community also as we have made for Anglo Indians. They said for 1000 years the Hindu community beheld after us we don’t need you, you better go back to England. Jews were prosecuted all over the world they emanated to India and lived in cochin and Bombay and many other places and lived in comprehensive harmony with Hindu and they often played the major role for India at the time of separation of Bangladesh.

Godsey was himself a hyper-nationalist who believed that Mahatma Gandhi is a pseudo-secular and then implanted anti-Hindu, Indian politician as Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This is how India got its first prime minister and then rest is the history of how the concept of secularism has been followed in India.

SECULARISM IN INDIA

Secularism means the state to neutrality and impartiality towards all the religions. One in all the key explanations why Britishers concurred us was the divide and rule policy. Dr. B.R.Ambedkar was a real secular indeed thus was the constitution of India. Ambedkar was against the discrimination against the minority therefore he didn’t want India “Hindu Rashtra” as he was a Dalit and had faced discrimination. Secularism is a part of the “basic structure of doctrine” of the constitution of India, one of them is secular in religion. Article 26 to article 28 of the constitution of India guarantees the freedom of religion to all people. We have three types of state: – atheistic state, theocratic state, and also the secular state. The Atheistic state is that state which is anti- religion they don’t wish to follow any religion the most effective example is that the republic of china, the Soviet Union, and Mexico before 1912. The Theocratic state is additionally referred to as pro-religion which implies they follow only one religion and declare a specific religion as supreme the best example is Cambodia. Then eventually comes to the secular state where there are neutrality and impartiality of following any religion that is the secular state doesn’t have any religion and therefore all religions present within the state are respected and followed in complete harmony the best example of the secular state are India and USA.We can’t remove the notion of secularism since it would create ultimate chaos within the society. Nowadays utmost of the Indians want the notion of “Hindu Rashtra” but India can’t trail the notion as in India secularism is that a constituent of the fundamental structure that is why we won’t eradicate secularism by amendment. Therefore, the notion of secularism is enduring in Indian constitution.

THE POST-INDEPENDENCE SCENARIO

India worship secularism then why most of the riots are grounded on religion disputes is this secularism? Let us overview some of the greatest riots in Indian history of secularism:-

  • Sikh VirodhiDange/ Sikh Kattleaam,1984- after the death of the former prime minister of India Indira Gandhi around 3000 Sikhs were brutally killed within the riots.
  • Kashmir riots, 1986- a riot supported religion i.e. the Kashmiri pandits were killed and those who survived were thrown out of
  • Godrakand, 2002- again a riot based on religion where a full cubicle of a train was seared which had a majority claiming the passengers to be Hindu, later that night Hindus seared the full whole village and during this riot 1054 people died, 223 were missing, and 2500 people were
  • Ayodhya Verdict(U.P), 2005- again a Hindu-Muslim riot where Hindus were performing the Ramayana scene by chanting “JAI SHREE RAM” and later were attacked by the Muslim
  • JNU Protest against CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC(National Register Citizens)- students protested hostile to the 2 bills, the government, the police force, and came armed with rods, sticks, and acid within the campus of JNU then injured quite 40 teachers and students. Later on, the protest took an unpleasant phase as a result of which the whole of Delhi was shut
  • Bangalore riots,11 august 2020- where the people protested against a derogatory social media post about the Islamic prophet Mohammed. Here there have been 3 casualties caused and about 80-90 policemen were
  • KanganaRanaut vs. Sanjay Raut- this can be the foremost example of political propaganda. Where one side KanganaRanaut passed a derogatory statement on Shiv Sena, compared Mumbai as POK, and took a stand against the drug mafia of Bollywood by challenging the government by stating on twitter “JO UKHADNA H UKHAD LO”. Shiv Sena molded the statement as a matter of “Marathi asmiyata”, then took the revenge by demolishing the commercial office, house of Kangana however the high court gave a stay on BMC orders presently two separate cases were registered on Kangna for defaming “UKHAD LIYA” was the headline in the newspaper “saamana” on 10 august 2020.

This is how secularism and democracy add India nowadays isn’t a death of democracy there is a complete difference of dusk and dawn between the pre-independence and post-independence period.

PORTRAIT THAT DEVASTED OUR HYPOTHESIS FOR SECULARISM

 India is a secular country, according to article 25 which states the Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion. In India, we have got certain practices and laws that question India being a secular state we had a triple talaq bill which was abolished on 30 July 2019 where the husband use to mention “talaq, talaq and talaq” and therefore the divorce was done and the husband was free from giving any style of alimony to the wife but now after the abolishment of the bill the police can arrest the husband without the warrant by receiving the complaint from the wife. Across 219 women filed the FIR against their husbands within the three weeks from the enactment of the new law in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, we have a reservation system in India that has both boon and bane one side if the reservation system is providing the benefits to the underprivileged and backward communities on the opposite hand it is restricting the more eligible individuals from getting jobs. According to the reservation system, a candidate of SC caste scoring 60% of marks adequate to the candidate of general caste candidate scoring 90%. The Reservation system is devastating our principle of secularism. Let us take some examples that the government had taken initiative in our concept of secularism, Uttar Pradesh police ordered the companies in Noida to ensure that their Muslim employees don’t offer Namaz in open public places, roads, and parks. Tripura high court banned animal sacrifices in the Tripura temple. Supreme court has now allowed entry of women in Sabrimala temple and Haji Ali dargah. Restriction on the height of Ganesh, duration of firecrackers, the loudness of Navratri micks.

CONCLUSION

In India, secularism has solely sceptered the state and also the judiciary to challenge our”regressive” cultural practices. If we tend to remark the concept of secularism India ought to see France, the country has abolished the thought of wearing a hijab and burka. We tend to sleep in a rustic where one political party is referred to as the ‘Hindu Vadi party’ and the other one is termed ‘anti-nationalist’. We tend to sleep in a rustic wherever still the politics is predicated upon the vote-banks which are differentiated by the caste or religion. within the election, the politician targets the vote-banks by religion for example where one party targets the Hindu vote bank whereas the opposite parties target the Muslim, Dalits, Adivasis, and other minorities. We have some pseudo secularist in our country like owasi, mehbooba mufti, ravish Kumar, Umar Abdullah, and Kanhiyalal are some of them who keeps on questioning our nation. Is this secularism? Wherever the roots of politics are based upon religion isn’t it laying waste our values, wherever India is one among the best democracy within the world. India thus needs a uniform civil code that means one nation one law. No law based mostly upon religion only one law would be supreme for all the citizens. Which implies one country, one nation, one constitution, and one law.

1 Student of Raffles University.