God and governance: When the twain meet
New Delhi: Caught with its hand in the temple till Kerala's left government fends off outrage over atheists 'looting' the pious offerings to Lord Guruvayurappan. After all, the trust, like most temple trusts, is controlled by the government. The fact that the 'sacrilegious' donation was merely Rs 5 crore from a temple, which has a tidy carry home of estimated Rs 50 crore a year (a treasure trove of 600 kg gold aside) didn't stop it from being dragged to the court.
That's the secular quagmire of Indian polity. According to sociologist Ashis Nandy, a better term for 'Indian secularism' would be 'religious tolerance'. While 'secularism', especially in a complex polity like India, is hotly contested among academicians, let me restrict myself to merely being the observer from the Fourth Estate.
Politics enters religion or vice versa?As India won its independence in August 1947, it was enslaved by demons of communal hatred. A 14-year-old, on his way back from school, recalls, 'the senseless slaughter of innocent human beings is still vivid in my mind. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, I saw Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, jump out and run towards the looters brandishing his lathi and chase away rioters, who were killing and looting Muslims in Connaught Place'. This boy grew up to be Admiral L Ramdas, India's decorated Navy chief.
(The Times of India on August 15, 1947)
However, 'Nehruvian' form of secularism didn't just stop at shielding minorities, but actively shunning religious symbolism. It didn't even permit supporting the renovation of Somnath Temple. In fact, Nehru (as per some accounts) is believed to have opposed Sardar Patel saying that government interference in the construction of a big Hindu temple would contradict the image of India as a modern secular nation.
(Rahul Gandhi in Somnath temple in Dec 2017)
Seventy years later, his grandson Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that he is a 'Shiv bhakt and a janeu-dhari' brahmin. Unlike Nehru, he was staring at unprecedented Hindu consolidation in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, eventually in which an estimated 44% Hindu voters backed the BJP.
Somnath to AyodhyaIn 1990, a Rath Yatra symbolically from the same Somnath temple changed the fortunes of another party. The Bharatiya Janta Party adopted the vocabulary of the 1980s subaltern movement of 'historical victimhood', to contend that Hindus have been historically oppressed by a common oppressor.
(Advani begins Rath Yatra from Somnath Temple in 1990)
As LK Advani waved from a heavily garlanded rath, the then-Gujarat CM was seen on his left, together charting India's history. Let's get you a simple statistic to gauge its success. In 1984 Lok Sabha election, BJP won merely two seats (7.4 per cent vote share), but after the Rath Yatra in 1990, it wrested 120 seats (20.1 per cent vote share). Following the Babri Masjid's demolition and BJP vowing a Ram Mandir in its manifesto, in 1996, it emerged with 161 seats (25.6 per cent vote share). This is where Hinduism started being reconciled with nationalism, and Congress' 'secularism' projected as 'minority appeasement'.
Having meandered along with the evolving path of secularism in India, let me go back to where I started, the Left and religion. It's hard to say if politics needed religion or religion needed politics, either way, the Indian state after British rule, retained their hold over religious institutions. Over the years, as the control of Government was reinforced and the temple treasure troves swelled, the atheist Left Government ironically came to control these symbols of Hindu faith.
(CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury during Bonalu festival in 2015)
Repeatedly scorned by devotees, from auctioning temple lamps to allowing women into Sabarimala after SC ruling (but before review plea was filed), the Left has also cautiously flirted with faith. In 2016, the Communist Party in Bengal proclaimed that 'Durga Puja will no longer be off-limits for comrades', while in 2018, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was photographed with a ritual earthen pot on his head during the Bonalu festival. Both are small but symbolic examples of the Left trying to reconcile itself with its Hindu cadres and voters.
The mingling of religion and politics is not completely unchaperoned. The Apex Court by banning triple talaq allowed the State to interfere in faith when it impinged on fundamental rights. Of course, the naysayers maintain it was a case of judicial overreach, but others hailed it as restoration of gender equality.
There are, however, cases where the courts have scorned at the zealous participation of the state in religious activities. After the kings in Tripura, the state dutifully took over the pious task of sacrificing a goat at important festivals, which was later cooked and distributed as 'prasad'. In 2018, the Tripura High court banned the 518-year-old tradition of bali ruling that 'a sacrificial goat by state lacks the essence of economic, political or secular character'. However, adding to the ambiguity of 'secularism', the court went on to observe that the state may participate in religious activities, 'which are secular in nature'. The sanctity of this order is currently pending with the Supreme Court.
The above examples are a mere glimpse of history through a keyhole. The larger complexities of context, intent, retractions and later transgressions followed these experiments with religion. Given the pluralistic nature of secularism, can it inherently embrace religion? In recent history, the BJP has fought Congress not by relinquishing ideals of secularism, but by owning it. It has discredited the grand old party's claim on it as 'minority appeasement', simultaneously projecting itself as the 'true' version of it. Saving the 'historically oppressed majority' is projected as the new paradigm of secularism. In a polity dictated by the age-old schism of religion, is politicising religion ideal? perhaps not, but the question is, isn't it inevitable to fuel the cycle of power?
Remember, many have staked claim to power by pandering to religion... most of them have also watched power slip away from their hands.
READ ON APP