Sustaining secular status

The most obvious casualty of life nowadays seems to be harmony among nations and their populations across the world, given the reports in the columns of dailies overflowing with details of misdemeanour by individuals and sections of society on myriad counts, including the passion to display depth of devotion to their respective faith, creeds and beliefs, even as the message is delivered during their discourses by the moderates that disharmony needs to be guarded against and the conflicts traced to religions are uncalled for. That message is what secular outlook is all about and the same is enshrined in the preamble to the nation’s highly adored and widely quoted Constitution, never mind the measure said to be an after-thought. The well-meant prescription of tolerance towards all faiths and their manifestations both in private and public spaces seems to be more debated than heeded by people at large, barring some sections of the land’s diaspora.

The quintessence of the policy behind secular principle, namely unfettered freedom to follow the faith of one’s choice without hurting anybody’s feelings can be traced to many ancient texts of the land such as Hithopadesha, Subhaashitha, Upanishad and Philosophical writings of luminaries who lived in the distant past. The line Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) traced to Maha Upanishad stands out.

The periods narrated in history texts mentioning the features of rich culture of the land’s people several centuries ago and the westerners discovering those features are far apart from one another. Maybe, the same richness as well as wealth of the land proved its nemesis as subsequent events of hordes of conquerors rushing to the territory, first as marauders and next as rulers of the different regions of the country. An important and enduring fall out of the influx of aliens, unarguably, is the sway of their respective faiths over indigenous gullible masses. The central point to the policy of a secular nation is to accept, as fait accompli, the two faiths that were followed and promoted by the regimes of alien origins.

Seven decades have witnessed the co-existence of masses following faiths, both indigenous and originating in foreign lands. Whether one tolerates other faiths or not, the bottom line is that one cannot wish them, the masses following those faiths, away. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s quote: If India is not secular it is not India provides the guideline for sustaining the country’s secular status.