Kalyanaraman
Not ‘Secularism’ again
Tavleen Singh
Posted online: Sun Jun 24 2012
Now that the Chief Minister of Bihar has dragged ‘succularism’ into the political discourse, it is time to deconstruct it so that we can end this pointless debate once and for all. I have deliberately misspelt the word because when said in Hindi that is how it is usually pronounced. It is a hard word to write in devnagri and the Hindi and Urdu equivalents do not quite mean what secularism has come to mean in the Indian political context. It is a foreign word that evolved in a European context when the powers of the church and the state were separated. In India, since none of our religions were led by pontiffs who controlled armies, or had vast temporal powers, we had no need to make this separation.
But, the word secularism is used in India more than almost any other country. Why?
Well, because when we entered our current era of coalition governments, political parties of leftist disposition found it convenient to keep the BJP out of power by saying they would only ally with ‘succular phorces’. The BJP became a pariah after the Babri Masjid came down and so whenever someone like Nitish Kumar wants to hurl abuse at the party he is in alliance with in Bihar, or one of its leaders, the ‘secularism’ debate gets revived.
Currently, he appears to be positioning himself for prime minister in 2014 and seems to believe that he will only be in the running for this job if he can eliminate Narendra Modi before the race begins. He is not alone in this endeavour. On my wanderings in Delhi’s corridors of power last week, I ran into journalists and politicians who went on and on about how Modi could never be prime minister because of the violence in Gujarat in 2002.
They said pretty much what the Chief Minister of Bihar, and his cohorts, have said which is that the prime minister must be a man who is ‘clean and secular’. So how do we explain Rajiv Gandhi? How should we understand why he was given the biggest mandate in Indian parliamentary history after justifying the pogroms that killed thousands more Sikhs in 1984 than Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002? Were Indian voters un-secular when they gave him more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha?
If there were still a chance of major communal riots in the future, there may have been some point to reviving this talk of secularism. But, there has not been a single major Hindu-Muslim riot since 2002 despite Muslims from next door having been responsible for the worst terrorist attack on Indian soil in 2008. Before 26/11, there were other attacks by Islamists on Hindu temples, commuter trains in Mumbai, stadiums in Hyderabad and bazaars in Delhi. None of these ugly acts of violence caused riots. Our 24-hour news channels have made communal riots impossible and the average Muslim has begun to understand this. I noticed this while travelling in Uttar Pradesh during the recent elections.
So let us stop this silly talk of secularism and communalism and start demanding from those who want to become India’s next prime minister that they tell us what they can do for this country.
Here is my own list of questions.
What will the next Prime Minister do to end the licence raj that prevents the education system from achieving its full potential? What will he do to fix our broken public healthcare system? What will he do to make sure that every Indian has enough electricity to at least light a few bulbs and run a ceiling fan in his home? What will he do to create new jobs for the estimated 13 million young Indians who enter the job market every year? What will he do to revive the Indian economy? What steps will he take to ensure that India becomes a fully developed country by the middle of this century?
When I heard Aung San Suu Kyi’s address to both houses of Britian’s Parliament in Westminster hall last week, what impressed me was the clarity with which she spelt out her vision for her country. But, throughout her speech, something kept bothering me and by the time she finished, I discovered what it was. What bothered me was that I could not think of a single Indian leader who could make such a speech.
The Indian political landscape today has become a desert in which only the stunted progeny of stunted political leaders bloom. We need our political parties to throw up real leaders and we need a political discourse in which real political problems are discussed.
So can we stop fishing ‘secularism’ out of the dustbin of history and holding it up as a shining ideal? Its relevance faded a long time ago.
Follow Tavleen on : Twitter @ tavleen_singh
http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/965967/
Aung San Suu Kyi on her acceptance of Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on June 16, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUPfkNXpZvQ
Published on Jun 21, 2012 by ditcher41a2
Aung San Suu Kyi's address (in full) to both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. With an introductory speech from the Speaker of the House of Commons and a speech of thanks from the Speaker of the House of Lords. Given in Westminster Hall, which dates from 1097 AD. BBC Parliament, 21st June, 2012. Aung San Suu Kyi is the Leader of Burma's National League for Democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo1MHK1FBic
Myanmar's Suu Kyi makes history with UK parliament address
Fri, Jun 22 2012
By Mohammed Abbas and Matt Falloon
LONDON (Reuters) - Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi became the first non-head of state to address both houses of Britain's parliament on Thursday in a rare honour she used to ask for help in bringing democracy to the former British colony.
Cutting a tiny figure in parliament's cavernous and historic Westminster Hall, the 67-year-old Nobel Peace laureate and opposition leader received a standing ovation on arrival, introduced as "the conscience of a country and a heroine for humanity".
"We have an opportunity to reestablish true democracy in Burma. It is an opportunity for which we have waited decades," she told a forum previously reserved for world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
"If we do not get things right this time right round, it may be several decades more before a similar opportunity arises again. I would ask Britain, as one of the oldest parliamentary democracies, to consider what it can do to help build the sound institutions needed to build a nascent parliamentary democracy."
Suu Kyi, only the second woman to address both houses of parliament after Queen Elizabeth, is in Britain as part of a 17-day tour of Europe that has at times been emotional and physically demanding.
On Wednesday, she returned to Oxford, where she once lived with her late husband and two sons before returning to Myanmar, also known as Burma, in 1988. The visit, to care for her mother, was supposed to be brief, but Suu Kyi, daughter of assassinated Myanmar independence hero Aung San, was swept into her country's political turmoil as the military crushed protests.
The Oxford graduate spent 15 of the next 24 years under house arrest, becoming an icon of non-violent political resistance.
During army rule, Suu Kyi refused offers allowing her to leave the country for fear she would not be allowed to return, costing her the chance to see her children grow up and also the opportunity to be with her husband, Michael Aris, before he died of cancer in 1999.
After nearly half a century of direct military rule, in 2011 the junta gave way to a quasi-civilian government stuffed with former generals, and since then current President Thein Sein has startled the world with his appetite for reforms.
MOST DANGEROUS PERIOD
Thein Sein, a former general, has eased media censorship, released political prisoners and signed peace agreements with ethnic rebels, moves unthinkable just a year earlier.
Suu Kyi was released from house arrest in November 2010 and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party dominated April by-elections, threatening the military-backed ruling party ahead of a general election in 2015.
British Prime Minister David Cameron earlier on Thursday said Thein Sein would travel to London in the coming months for talks on reform, a move Suu Kyi said she supported despite the president's background in Myanmar's former junta.
"I think it's right to invite him. Because we don't want to be shackled by the past. We want to use the past to build a happier future," she said.
The reforms have earned Myanmar the suspension of some U.S. and European sanctions, but Suu Kyi has urged scepticism and on Thursday called on the West to act as "watchdogs" to guard against government reversals on the path to democracy.
"VERY BRITISH"
Suu Kyi was sworn into Myanmar's parliament last month, but she told the audience at Westminster she wished it was less formal and more like Britain's raucous parliamentary system.
"Men are required to wear formal headgear. There is certainly no heckling. I would wish that over time, perhaps, we will reflect the liveliness and relative informality of Westminster," she said, sparking laughter from her audience.
Thoughts of Suu Kyi's father, who was killed when she was two years old, loomed large in her address. At Downing Street, she said she had had a photo taken of her on the spot that her father had been photographed.
"The best known photograph of my father Aung San taken shortly before his assassination in 1947 was of him standing in Downing Street with (former prime minister) Clement Attlee and others with whom he had been discussing Burma's transition to independence," she said.
"A couple of hours ago I was photographed in the same place where my father was photographed together with Prime Minister David Cameron and it is raining. Very British." (Editing by Louise Ireland and Nick Macfie)
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/britain-myanmar-suu-kyi-idINDEE85L05120120622
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