Why are India’s secular leaders not speaking up clearly about minority rights?

 

 Unless they are bold, not only in their belief but also in their words, it is difficult to expect people to even listen to their lament

August 24, 2021 

I was pleasantly surprised to see an article by Sonia Gandhi in The Indian Express (‘In need of repair’, August 18). I read it with great expectation, but was left disappointed. Not because the piece says anything wrong, but because it is only a cold indexing of what has gone wrong with Indian democracy in the last few years. It talks about the damage to the economy, the demolition of federalism, the hollowing out of institutions that hold democracy together, the disastrous handling of the pandemic and the targeting of critics of the government using laws meant to deal with “terrorism”. It also laments the loss of the inclusive ethos that defines India. All wrongs listed, the piece ends with a wish, “India must show that it is possible to translate idealistic visions into lived realities.”

Everything has been said. Why am I cribbing then? Because the piece fails to register and articulate the trauma that Indian Muslims are suffering from. Nowhere too did I find the word secularism mentioned. The central idea that defines India has been effectively pushed out of all political discourse. After the 2019 election results, PM Narendra Modi had listed as his major victory that he had ensured that “secularism” would no longer be used by any political party. Now we see that even the chief of a party, which conceived of and practised this principle, not only of statecraft but also of the country’s social life, does not think it important to remind the people that diversity and pluralism cannot exist without secularism.

Secondly, the lament for the loss of diversity becomes formalistic if you do not say that what matters is the protection of and respect for equal rights of all minorities, especially Muslims and Christians. That was the promise of India under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru. Gandhi died for it and Nehru defended Muslims with his body.

Apoorvanand writes: Why are India’s secular leaders not speaking up clearly about minority rights? (indianexpress.com)