The Ideology Secularism had taken shape during the so called European Enlightenment (18-19 centuries). Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who had never used the term in his pre-independence writings or speeches, simply picked up a prestigious word form the Western political parlance and made it mean the opposite of what it meant in the West. The outcome of this perversion proved disastrous for the newly independent nation, as became more than obvious in due course.
In pre-independent India, the Muslim minority had exercised a veto on who was to be hailed as nationalist and who was to be denounced as Hindu communalist. Now the same minority reacquired the same veto on who was to be applauded as secularist and who was to be hounded out as communalist. In short, the term secularism in the post-independence period has been and remains no more than a euphemism for Hindu-baiting. The word India's instead of Indian has been used in the title of this book because there is nothing Indian about Nahruvian Secularism. In fact, the term secularism in its original Western sense had remained unknown to Indian political parlance because Indians had never envisaged or experienced a theocratic dispensation before the advent of Islam and its state apparatus in this country.
Even today, traditional Indian scholars do not understand what theocracy means, and how Secularism in the Western sense stands opposed to it. And this secularism has not been defined as Nahruvian because it is shared in common by all political parties including the Bharatiya Janata Party. Herculean efforts have been made and are being made by the apologists of Christianity and Islam in modern times, to salvage the central figures and fundamental doctrines of these creeds from the blood-soaked histories they have enacted for many years in many parts of the world. The apologists have been trying to prove that the inhuman atrocities with which these histories are brimful, have nothing to do with their sacred scriptures and can be explained more satisfactorily in terms of the human infirmities of persons or peoples who committed the atrocities.
In post-independence India, this Christian and Islamic Apologetics has achieved remarkable success, so much so that while these creeds pass as advocates of human brotherhood, social justice, human rights, freedom, equality, peace, and progress, their doctrines and doings have been projected on to Hinduism and Hindu history by a motley crowd of secularists spawned by Socialism, Communism, Gandhism, Nahruism, Ambedkarism, etc.
Political developments in India in recent years indicate that a National Vision is emerging in the Hindu intelligentia at large. The pace of this emergence is slow because old slogans continue to dominate the media and the academia. It will take some time for these slogans to get exhausted. The world at large is realizing the danger which Islamic terrorism poses to peace and progress, and we too will have to face the truth.
Author- Satish Mylavarapu, Bengaluru, Bharat
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