Death of secular India

On the otherwise a soulful soil of the sub-continent, where peace and tranquillity prevailed, Evil was born on September 17th, 1950. This date is celebrated by bigots as the birthday of the “Butcher of Gujarat”, Narendra Modi.

Co-incidentally as a twist of misfortune and a deep sense of chagrin for the multitude of minorities in India, only seven months earlier to this date, the Indian Constitution, adopted on Nov 26th, 1949, was implemented on 26th January, 1950, declaring India as a ‘Secular State’.

Little did the stars in the sky know that seven months later, evil will find its presence in the shape of a human, though wicked, villainous, wrong-doer and malefactor.

As an insult to humanity, he stands today crowned as the first prime minister to undo the Constitution of India.

The Indian Constitution in its preamble and various Articles guarantees religious freedom and prohibits discrimination based on religion, thereby establishing its secular state structure. It wasn’t a hogwash. Jawaharlal Nehru was sincere towards making a secular state.

The word ‘secular’ was incorporated in the preamble through the 42nd amendment in 1976 strengthening its secular status. In a historic judgment of the Supreme Court of India it was stated clearly, “In matters of state, religion has no place…..Any state government which pursues un-secular policies or unsecure course of action acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under article 356”. Is the Supreme Court of India sleeping? Why there is no action? Complicit.

Modi’s accomplice, the current home minister, Amit Shah, was another curse to descend upon the sub-continent, exactly 14 years later than the arrival of the first evil.

He started off as a slimy worker of RSS. The Baniya from Gujarat (Modi is also from Gujarat as an embarrassment to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, for he too hailed from Gujarat) in his audacious address recently to saffron colour-clad young Hindus remarked, “leave Islam for me to handle, I know what to do – you just concentrate on producing more children, while you must simultaneously build up armaments for personal use”.

Amit Shah’s mother was an avid Ghandhian, says his official profile, but everything he has done since entering into politics in 1982, having befriended, Modi earlier, has been the massive violation of the secular principles of MK Gandhi.

Nehru’s and Gandhi’s souls must be in perpetual tight embrace seeking to console each other over the systematic dismantling of secular India by the “Butcher of Gujarat and his cohorts”.

Of the total population of India, minorities comprise 19.3%; of which the strongest and largest are Muslims – 14.2% – and the remaining are Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Zorastrians. All these communities are under the threat of being marginalised by Modi’s Hindu India, with a staggering Hindu composition of 79.8%.

Muslims in India are the third largest population, after those of Indonesia and Pakistan. These minorities have no advantages of any job allocations, preference for education, etc. Muslims have been rendered to being the poorest in the society.

Modi and Shah represent or are in fact a continuum to the views of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who died at the age of 83 years in 1966 and is credited with creating the concept of “Hindutva”, which means “Hinduism or Hinduness”. This concept was carried further by the then head of RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, for three decades; he was a strong proponent of “Hindustan is the land of Hindus”.

The RSS, the precursor to BJP, has since independence of India clamoured, alongside Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, to amend the Constitution to declare India as a “Hindu Nation “.

Hindu Nationalism has been on the increase since the razing down of the Babri Masjid 1992-93. In a research report by PEW, a claim is made that 64% of Indian Hindus believe that it is extremely important to be a Hindu to be called as “truly Indians”.

The combined venom of Modi and Shah puts to shame the pathological hatred Vallabhai Patel had for Muslims. Shashi Tharoor, one rare enlightened soul in today’s Hindu India, in an interview to Indian Express said, “secularism as principle and practice in India is in danger and the ruling BJP (hatred drunk junta – this insertion is mine) may even try to remove the word ‘secular’ from the Constitution”.

He, however, falsely hoped that ‘forces of hatred’ cannot alter the country’s secular character. This was said in 2022. Regrettably, the country’s character has changed – and only for worse.

Modi’s India has been ruthlessly killing Muslims. The cow-related attacks alone put to death 44 Muslims. Of the 2000 killed in Ayodhya mosque riots the majority were Muslims. The violence against them continues unabatedly particularly in Kashmir. Modi’s government has clinically indulged into keeping Muslims subjugated in Kashmir.

He is guilty of massacre of innocent Muslims – genocidal killings. Modi revoked the special status of Kashmir that was enshrined and accepted as part of the status quo in the Indian Constitution.

Young Muslim men were clubbed to death or had their throats slit, following their refusal to chant slogans of “bharat mata ki jai” and “Sri Ram ki jai”. The law enforcers participated wholesomely in the crime against human conscience. Violent Hindutva is Hindu terrorism. Modi’s soul is terrorist.

Modi-inspired carnage in Gujarat fits the description of the word ‘genocide’, which is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing bodily harm; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part; or imposing measures extended to prevent births with the group”.

The ethnic cleansing done meets the description. Modi is guilty of genocide; in fact he is seeking to rank above the likes of Slobodan Milosevic and Benjamin Netanyahu. His government has facilitated the release of all 11 convicted rapists of a young pregnant Muslim woman.

The recent legislation to bring Wakfs under government control is aimed at land grabbing from the Muslims. The Dargahs of saints are in danger of demolition on the false pretext that these have been built upon Hindu temples.

Shashi Tharoor in a TV interview said that Hinduism is all about mutual respect. Hinduvata as a political doctrine is that it is profoundly “UnHindu”. Hindus do not have the British football hooliganism attitude. In his book, “The Struggle for India’s Soul”, he brings to attention that the most distinctive feature of Nehruvian legacy was its visionary rejection of India’s assorted bigotries and particularisms.

All the four generations of Nehrus whether in public or private lives have been secular in their outlook. This appeal transcends caste, religion, language, etc.; and in the same breath he ominously predicts, “But whether through elections or quotas, political mobilisation in contemporary India has asserted the power of old identities, habits, faiths and prejudices.

Transcending them will be a major challenge for the Indian polity in the twenty-first century“. Indeed so true – Modi has already buried the secular India he had inherited. Modi prevails over Gandhi and Nehru’s principles.

For Nehru, the architect of modern India, secularism was not a cliché term or a fashionable concept, it was real for him .He dreamt of a nation where all religions are treated equally.

He abhorred communal discrimination. His definition of secularism embodied the following principles or contours (a) religion has to be separate from political, social, economic and cultural aspect of life – religion a matter of personal choice. (b) neutrality by the state towards religion. (c) full and complete freedom to all religion with underlying anchors of tolerance, and (d) equal opportunities for all without religious discrimination.

If India does not have a Pope or the Vatican, it has Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and the holy cities of Ayodhya, Varanasi and Tirupati, etc., where instead of the purity they once represented of true Hinduism, the colour of Ganges and Jumna runs red with the blood of innocent Muslim men, women and children. India is a Hindu country, today.

The government is Hindu. The people, by and large, are secularists. In 1947, India was secular. It isn’t so now. Modi through his fascist tendencies has altered the centuries old DNA of Bharat, which constituted peace, harmony and love with menacing hatred and blood seeking RSS goons, who today are calling themselves “Hindustan”.

Religious bigotry is a dull pie – Modi and Shah are fanning it presently against Muslims alone but sooner than expected this fire will consume India.

History will place the yoke of responsibility upon Modi for killing of Muslims, all innocent.

The orgy of rape, plunder and loot enacted in Gujarat was pre-planned. Modi’s dirty hands are covered with the blood of the innocent. It is no wonder that the US refused to give him a visa to visit as Chief Minister of Gujarat. An article in The Guardian (2014) the writer mentions, “In 2007, the investigative magazine, “Thelke” recorded boasts from some of the ring leaders. One, Babu Bajrangli boasted how he slit open the womb of a pregnant woman”. Modi compared the massacre to a pain similar as he would have if a car were to run away over a puppy (dog). Despicable. The evil gushes in delight.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025