There was a time when we thought BJP knew the meaning of secularism. When it said that the Haj subsidy amounts to appeasement, we agreed. In 2012, even the Supreme Court set in place a process to dismantle the subsidy.
But BJP’s intent was different – to impose Hindutva, a collectivist political ideology derived from a distorted understanding of Hinduism. Instead of separating the state from religion, BJP has been stoking the Ram temple issue and imposing bans on cow slaughter. Even if it were true that Hindus don’t eat beef, BJP’s imposition of its beliefs through the machinery of government wouldn’t pass muster as an example of ‘genuine’ secularism.
So, while we can agree that Congress is pseudo-secular, BJP is no role model in this regard. We need to go back to the basics.
The idea of divine right of kings ended in England with the 1688 Glorious Revolution. As a corollary, in 1689, John Locke set out the principle of separation of state and religion – that God “prescribed unto His followers no new and peculiar form of government, nor put He the sword into any magistrate’s hand.”
This separation of two key jurisdictions in our life: religion and state, has thereafter been a foundational principle of Western civilisation. Without it, the Church may well have vetoed scientific progress and the West would have remained poor. Jefferson and Madison incorporated this principle into the first amendment to the American Constitution that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
And India? It is true that kings in ancient India were tolerant and hosted multiple religions (including multiple sects of Hinduism) but this can’t qualify as genuine secularism since the kings also claimed a divine lineage – and thus divine rights.
Upon gaining independence our founding fathers tried to graft the Western concept of secularism into our Constitution, but mangled it up. Thus, our directive principles include a policy that, in the weirdest guise – of scientific animal husbandry – seeks to impose a set of religious beliefs on the people; and the Constitution refers to minorities and castes. Our governments continued to enact religious laws, manage religious bodies and spend taxpayer funds on religious events.
Today, the UP government has taken a huge step backward. It wants to build a statue of Ram, a Hindu god. Some intellectuals are saying that the statue is justified as it will increase state revenues through “religious tourism”.
But we must note that at least some of the taxes used in this statue would amount to forcible extraction from those who do not believe in Ram. It is hard to work out the difference between such taxes and the much hated jizya that BJP’s founders railed against.
Genuine Hindus should be alarmed: wouldn’t the Ram statue be polluted by such plunder from non-believers? In fact, this situation is similar to what the Supreme Court said in 2012 in relation to the Haj subsidy, that “if all the facts are made known, a good many of the pilgrims would not be very comfortable in the knowledge that their Haj is funded to a substantial extent by the government.” As a result, processes are in place to abolish the Haj subsidy by 2022. The Supreme Court should now come out firmly against the use of taxes to support any religious activity.
Parliament must also clarify this matter, preferably through a constitutional amendment. Swarna Bharat Party is committed to such a clarification, including the abolition of directive principles and all religious Acts.
A government exists solely to provide us with public goods – things that we cannot produce or maintain on our own. The government is best visualised as a street sweeper, security guard and umpire – all rolled into one. Good governance focusses on these core functions. The state has no business to dabble with the multiplicity of ever-changing beliefs of the people. Citizens are competent enough to pay for their own gods.
Adityanath has full rights to his faith in his private capacity even as he serves as chief minister. All our party is saying is that he can’t use the machine of government to promote his faith. He can build a huge Ram statue if he likes, but at his own expense on his own private land.
Our party objects not just to BJP’s and Congress’s attacks on secularism. The President of India is also implicated whenever he hosts a religious event. He is welcome to host Iftar or any other event – but at his own expense. And wouldn’t it send the right signal if he chooses instead to attend, uninvited, the Iftar meal of the poorest Muslim he can find? Don’t religious leaders tell us that the way to God is through serving the poor?
One last related matter: What about the thousands of non-religious statues built by governments? We believe that statues of important historical figures can legitimately be built by the state, but only in extremely exceptional circumstances. If built, such statues should be modest and serve an educational purpose, such as in a museum or in Parliament. Building extravagant statues of Shivaji, even of Sardar Patel or Gandhi, while millions of poor remain hungry, is not consistent with the role of government.