Secularism – A leash or shackle in Bharat’s neck? Part 3 National Cohesion in Secular India

The founding fathers offered two key benefits to the nation from accepting secularism as a foundation of Independent India. Firstly it is said to unite Hindus and secondly it is said to assuage the minority communities. Did the independent India reap these benefits from secularism?

The Hindu majority of independent India remained as united as it was during centuries of foreign rule. It formed no vote banks based on religion, kept its caste/clan based identities. The variations in Hindu majority are further exploited by the very congress system that promised to unite Hindu majority in return for it accepting Secularism in its civil and criminal social transactions. What secularism (Christianity without church) did in reality is that it slowly took away the civilizational memory from the newer generations of Indian Hindus. Hindu culture and heritage are fast losing their relationship to the local flora-fauna and are being analyzed from non-Indic ideological structures. The very Hindu-unity that is promised is getting systematically destroyed.

In fact secularism became a bane for Indian Hindus. The Hindu majority did not get any additional security in Independent India due to their secular laws. The secular laws does not protect Hindus in Punjab, Kashmir, North East, Kerala, Bengal, Orissa etc., Their unity is remained a mirage in secular India. The root cause of this is the fact that by definition secularism is nothing but non-Hinduism, then how can it allow Hindu unity?

At the same time the religious minorities of India did not feel any additional security in a secular-India. The most interesting aspect of this is the separatist movements in the Christian majority North-Eastern India. There is the perpetual Kashmir insurgency problem. Then there are two separatist movements with Indic roots – Khalistan movement in Punjab and Tamil Eelam demands in Sri Lanka. In all these scenarios the secular constitution of India could not calm down the ever anxious religious minorities of Indian union. The response of Indian state to these separatist movements is also something to be observed.

In spite of accepting secularism as the constitutional structure of independent India, it did not achieve much cohesion between the Hindu majority and religious minorities of independent India. There have been more than 50 notable religious riots in the nation. The worst religious riot in sub-continental history happened in 1947 under the watch of the very founding fathers of this nation.