Obama need not fret, India will remain secular

When I visited India last December, two things caught my attention. One, that Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s murderer was being hailed as a hero and two, that there was a programme called ghar wapsi. Like an eager NRI I thought there were fresh sops for non-resident Indians who were being beckoned back to the country. Surprise, surprise, it was about converting Christians and Muslims and welcoming them back into the benign, all-forgiving fold of Hinduism. My only reaction was to laugh.

I thought of this again because of the recent social media buzz on President Obama’s comments on India’s secular credentials, and how “India will succeed so long as it is not splintered along the lines of religious faith.”

Political commentators were quick to point out that this gained significance in the light of communal violence and ghar wapsi programmes and of RSS’s desire to campaign for a Hindu Rashtra. To add fuel to the fire, the government released advertisements in Indian newspapers that carried an image of the Preamble to the Constitution that excludes the words “socialist and secular”. The Indians in the advert did not have the standard Sikh in a turban and Muslim in an achkan and tarbush. The Indians in the advertisement are Hindus and indigenous tribes.

Naturally my Whatsapp group discussed this too. This group is representative of India’s multi-culturalism and my batchmates are from almost all states, religions and communities in India. As argumentative Indians we have vibrant discussions on everything. They are Modi haters and lovers, even AAP supporters (unfortunately no Congress supporters), and I find hope in all that the group members express. My group of 70 intelligent people hope that Modi will make a difference. Despite their disgust at RSS (and remember, the majority here are Hindus), they are optimistic that Modi has set his eyes on development and won’t be deterred from that.

I asked myself, “As a proud Indian and a Sikh, should I be worried with all this RSS drama?” If the 1984 riots carried any personal lesson for me, then my answer is NO. The 1984 riots and their aftermath sit heavy on the collective consciousness of the Sikh community — both in India and abroad. It was unfathomable that such atrocities could be committed against a community that had such close ties with the Hindu community.

Like many other Sikh families, mine went through its own personal hell, and all of us tried to process what was happening — India was our country, had been ours — since the Partition of India in 1947. Yet, 1984 makes me optimistic that all this religious posturing does not work in the long-term in India. Thirty years later, I am an Indian first and then a Sikh. I do not consider myself a minority and expect no concessions. My sister is married into a Hindu family that is a strong RSS supporter. Members of her family canvassed at the grass-roots level for Modi. Yet, they are respectful of my sister’s religion.

PM Modi knows his agenda. If he does not deliver on development, nothing will stop the fury of Indians from turning on him. And he will be booted out of power. It will not matter then if he is a Hindu and if India is predominantly Hindu. We most certainly do not need Obama to give us gyaan on the secular nature of our country. We were secular before the Constitution of India was adopted and we will continue to be so, even if Modi’s government uses the old Preamble to the Constitution and the RSS flexes its muscle.

The author is the writer of Unravel