Separate religion from politics: FIRA president

The taxpayer’s money is used for the wrong reasons. By allotting funds to religious groups, the government is wasting its financial resources.

This was pointed out by Prof Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA).

In an attempt to detach religion from politics, FIRA will appeal to the government to stop extending financial supports to religious groups. “The taxpayers’ money must not be allocated for religious groups,” said Prof Narendra Nayak, president of the FIRA.

In view of this, FIRA held a two-day general body meeting in Nagpur, which concluded on Sunday.

The theme of the meet was ‘Rising intolerance and separation of religion from politics.’

“For the last few years, we have seen that the governments in power were openly supporting religious groups for their own ends. This has weakened not just the democratic values of the country, but also the Indian politics as a whole. Due to the government’s support, the religious groups were becoming more intolerant towards other groups,” he said.

Examples of intolerance are blatant, he said.  “The Salman Rushdie issue, Taslima Nasreen issue, Bhagavadgita in schools, religious dress codes and many such developments have left the society divided. The nexus of religion and politics is to be blamed for this,” said Prof Nayak.

The FIRA had submitted a draft resolution separating religion from politics to the parliament secretariat with copies to all the MPs in 2004 but nobody took any notice.