This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed ‘Cremation of tolerant India—I’ carried by the newspaper last week.

The writer, Sirajuddin Aziz, began his argument in a fascinating manner by stating, among other things, that “The diversity in religion, creed, caste, colour and language that India had and continues to have was submerged in the active narrative of its being a secular country, where all of its citizens, despite diversity, had equal rights.

The population inclusivity principle remained its strongest selling point; however, distorted in reality it was, at least it was, till the departure of Jawaharlal Nehru to the yonder.”

The writer, in my view, seems to have fully ignored the fact that almost all of them who succeeded Nehru until the rise of Narendra Modi following his victory in 2014 elections were no less secular in their outlook than Nehru.

His daughter prime minister Indira Gandhi, for example, had challenged the Hindu fundamentalists by famously stating that “I cannot be cowed down by the cow worshippers.”

Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded Nehru as prime minister, was known as a staunch secularist who refused to mix politics with religion. Chandra Shekhar, the 8th prime minister of India, was widely known as “truly secular”.

Inder Kumar Gujral, who too served as prime minister quite briefly, is celebrated for identifying the key aspects of his core ideology as secularism and socialism.

Even BJP’s Atal Behari Vajpayee was always seen as secular and moderate prime minister. He had clearly distanced himself from L K Advani’s yatra that ultimately led to the demolition of Babri mosque. Be that as it may, the word “objectivity” is the fact of being based on facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feeling.

However, the learned writer, in my view, seems to have lost his objectivity. Surely true objectivity in a critic is always impossible.

Zafarullah Kasuri (Lahore)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023