A Fancy Dress Competition Called Secularism

Fancy dress competitions were a high point in our lives as children. We dressed up as washermen and gypsies, postmen and politicians. hit pare was brides and grooms of India. Mrasi couple wore opaque spectacles, Bengalis h a harmonium and Malayali couple carried placards. We spoke with silly accents and audience (our parents) clapped. When it was all over, we ate club sandwiches and cutlets with fresh French fries and drank Coca Cola while our parents played bminton and tennis, bridge and billiards.

In context of Indian elections I was editing my copy on secularism, its origins in France, legal separation of Church and State and why between law and life, living and learning, Europe, my second home, is a Christian continent. I have been overtaken by events, as burlesque as y are bilious unfurling in India. A few minutes before world’s largest democratic exercise gets going where 900 million Indians decide who will le world’s largest democracy for next five years, our politicians are chasing wardrobes and wigs for votes.

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Here’s glamour. Hema Malini, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker has serious competition from Urmila Matondkar, Congress party’s candidate seeking office for first time. former is politically vacuous, married to a bigamist (who allegedly converted to Islam because his first wife wouldn’t grant a divorce) and her breathless photo-ops in Bollywood finery in Indian vills bear her nsense out. Matondkar, a Congress quick fix has literally walked out of a Bollywood dance sequence to hit streets of Mumbai to drums et al. She’s heaped controversy on herself by calling Hinduism world’s most violent religion in her dash to win, stopping only to ask voters to send Prime Minister Narendra Modi packing after having shared a platform with him on a campaign to educate Indian girls.

And here’s lie. Secularism is t a fancy dress competition more than it is an accent or food. When stalwarts of Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) Chandrababu Naidu and Lalu Pras Yav wear a skull cap and a keffiyeh and when Mamata Banerjee bans certain rights of pass for Hindu festivals raising her hand in obeisance to Allah win votes y are t being secular – y are insulting Islam. When Mayawati who wants to be Prime Minister asks Muslims to vote for her, it is fanning fear dressed up as secularism.

In an election season when Rahul Gandhi who also wants to be Prime Minister says he has always been a janeo dhari Hindu referring to sacred thre Hindus wear he is t being secular – he is insulting Hindus and displaying his igrance. When his sister Priyanka Gandhi publicly turns to extoling her Hindu and Parsi roots on ir new year, Indians wonder why this call to our maker suddenly appears as poll bugles sound. When MK Stalin says Hindu fire ceremonies are obscene he is referring to his own. re are many more examples of this cut and paste secularism.

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By prostrating himself at alter of Hindu Gods and sharing a meal with poor people does t endear BJP’s Sambit Patra to voters more than bishops and priests extolling Christian voters to vote for Congress party. You do t become more secular by wearing religious symbols on your body or carrying it on your he and changing m as you travel from state to state in a brides and grooms of India competition. A true person of faith does t need to put on an act for cameras during an election. If you believe, you are. Period. Those who say re’s growing religious intolerance in India igre that every ticket to contest a political office in India has been given based on a religious calculation.

What most fancy dress artists igre is y are static in an evolving environment. environment is young, ambitious and all of m have a cell-phone. That makes m a away from finding out what is in front of m. India is t where langu binds as it does in United States (US). r is it London where langu and arrogance has disunited United Kingdom (UK) from Continent.

We are a young democracy, just 70 years old, trying to make our way in a dynamic world where old orders are falling and new ones are yet to emerge. We speak hundreds of tongues and thousands of dialects. re is country on earth where such vast numbers of people from different faiths and practices, persuasions and enquiry live.

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India has always been a violent country. At base of what w appears as random violence and amply exploited by politicians is a simple question few pose. How can fewer and fewer people continue to control India’s public goods and services and even spectrum, make obscene amounts of money, pretend y are voice of country, walk around with impunity and arrogance while telling over a billion Indians to wait?

How can three people sitting in gated communities in posh Delhi dictate what secularism and tolerance mean? How can quick - change artists that our politicians are tell us what we should think, do and aspire to? How can international experts and ir incredible techlogies that could neir predict Brexit r a Donald Trump victory tell us who will le India next. More people vote in our country than re are people in US and UK.

I have been around long eugh to kw how bloody Indian elections used to, beginning with booth capturing and beheings, bribes in booths and bathrooms in polling stations. Families cut off thumbs and index fingers and preserved m for when fingers voted, unchecked, on paper. w, this mammoth exercise passes without violence – that is a slap for people who say with remarkable stupidity that India is somehow newly and freshly violent from 2014.

India is asking questions as it must and it will vote for answers. I am a patriot and I have faith in my country and my country including fancy dress secularists. biggest danger to Indian democracy is t Narendra Modi. biggest danger is absence of a strong opposition that was never allowed to grow and prosper. Indians kw why. I keep faith.

Vote India vote. Your future is w.

( views and opinions expressed within this article are personal opinions of author. facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in article needn't reflect views of Republic TV/ Republic World/ ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd.)