The killing of Graham Staines marks a new low in the communal degradation in Indian politics. It is impossible to separate it from the anti-Christian campaign launched by the Sangh Parivar or from the discourse of "forced conversions", itself sought to be legitimised by the BJP's top leaders. The relationship between the killing and the discourse is causal and integral, just as the passion involved in burning alive a man dedicated to eradicating leprosy is inseparable from brutalisation of the mind. By giving a clean chit to the Bajrang Dal - against whose activists there exist numerous criminal cases, including some involving the Babari mosque's razing – and declaring it free of criminal elements, Home Minister Advani has further assaulted our sensibilities.
Inexorable Logic
The charge of "forced conversion" involves paternalism coming as it does not from those who have converted, but from their self-appointed guardians. Unless those who were "forced" feel aggrieved and say so, society would not know that coercion was indeed practised. In the absence of such knowledge, it must treat conversion as a personal matter. The objection to this comes from the privileged who "know better", and feel compelled to "rescue" tribals and Dalits from the missionaries' designs.
The right to convert others to one's faith is an integral part of the right to practice and propagate religion, itself part of the "basic structure" of the Constitution. This structure is not open to change or amendment. The Sangh Parivar is trying to shift the goalposts by politicising the issue, and fanning the flames of anti-minorityism ...
Appeasement has an inexorable logic. You cede a little ground to the enemy and he'll come back for more. You give in on the shilanyas issue in 1989 and he'll tear down the Babari mosque in 1992. You yield a little to the culture police who vandalise Husain's paintings, and they will want to ban Fire, burn Ambedkar's Riddles of Hinduism, proscribe Sahmat's exhibition.
Many political parties, including the BJP's own friends, understand this logic. However ... instead of launching a counter-mobilisation against Hindutva, the Congress is busy discovering secular virtues in Hinduism and trying to win upper-caste support through a version of a "go-soft-on-Hindutva" line. There can be no other interpretation of its Working Committee's resolution declaring Hinduism as "the most effective guarantor of secularism" ... Even as she attacks "the merchants of poison and hatred", she sings the praises of Hindu tradition, and quotes liberally from Hindu scriptures.
There is nothing wrong with holding such views, or claiming that tolerance lies at the "authentic" core, if not lived reality, of a particular religion. What causes problems ... is the proposition that Hinduism by virtue of its tolerance is secularism's "guarantor".
First, claims about "core" tolerance can be made in respect of most religions. But it can be equally plausibly claimed that all religions have elements of intolerance too. What is special about Hinduism is not tolerance, but polytheism, multiple sects and forms of worship, and eclecticism. Hinduism is fuzzy and open to many interpretations - religion, way of life, state of mind. Once the Congress says Hinduism is uniquely tolerant, with that argument can it oppose Hindu Rashtra? The party seems to be retreating even from the diluted sarva dharma samabhava version of secularism.
Second, Hinduism may be pluralistic, but is it really all that tolerant? The claim is unconvincing for a religion that in reality is inseparable from casteism and a hierarchical social order. So long as people are lynched for defying religious prohibitions on caste inter-marriage, and the Dalits are oppressed and women subordinated in religion's name, the claim to tolerance will fail. Indeed, it appears unacceptable after a decade of injection of religious hatred into the interstices of state and society.
Third, it- is illegitimate to equate tolerance with secularism, or derive the basis of secularism from religion. Secularism means the basic separation of religion from politics. Secularism is uncompromising on tolerance. Religions may be ambivalent. After all, faith usually enjoins upon the believer an unflinching adherence to some notion of the divine, of salvation, of the other world. This could make for incompatibility with other faiths ...
Critical Choices
The modern conception of tolerance involves an active relationship; it has to do with respect, empathy and understanding for others and with universal values. You are tolerant because you are secular and believe that religion and politics should not be mixed so that each can retain its integrity. Modern tolerance, deriving from secularism, is completely opposed to those who want to base politics on the foundations of religion (as) by the pre-Partition Muslim League ... and today's Hindutva.
The Congress faces a critical choice. If it wants to resecularise itself after its long flirtation with soft-Hindutva, it must forcefully reject the communalist project. The Congress has to go beyond mere verbal assertion. It must actively mobilise politically against the Hindutva onslaugnt and defend the minorities. Second, it must fight Hindutva's retrograde social function, namely legitimising social hierarchies that guard the privileges of the powerful ... (Source: The Times of India, 6 February, 1999)
