By M D Nalapat
The
fact that a Dalit youth has been appointed as Head Priest of the
Manappuram Shiva Temple in Kerala has been entirely ignored by the
phoney liberals.
A dictionary
would show that secularism mandates equal treatment for people of all
faiths. Ancient India welcomed people of faiths entirely different from
what was then practised within the subcontinent. Conversely, it would be
difficult to argue that all faiths were treated the same during the six
centuries when the Mughals ruled much of India, or during the three
centuries when it was the turn of the British to be the masters. While
there was probably discrimination against Dalits and some “backward
castes” during what may be called the Vedic (i.e. pre-Mughal) period, it
was the Hindus who were at the receiving end of discrimination during
Mughal rule. The mistreatment continued into the British period. The new
colonial masters ensured that much of the Hindu temples and their lands
and properties that were left after the Mughal period were taken over
by the state, while prime plots of land in the cities were gifted for
the construction of churches. Hence, while there existed historical
grounds for post-1947 affirmative action in support of the Dalits, as
also some “backward castes”, the continuation by Jawaharlal Nehru and
his successors of Mughal and British-era policies that discriminated
against the Hindu community was uncalled for. Nehru seems to have been
taken aback during 1935-46 by the growing support of Muslims in the
subcontinent to the concept of Pakistan. He apparently came to the
conclusion that the best way of preventing a re-igniting of separatist
sentiments among the Muslims who remained in India after Partition was
to give them additional privileges. The post-1947 provisions relating to
minorities in the laws and practices of the country have instead had
the predictable effect of increasing rather than reducing feelings of
separation between “minority” and “majority”.
Unexpectedly for a BJP Prime Minister,
Atal Behari Vajpayee retained in full the practices initiated by Nehru,
rather than ensure a transition to genuine secularism through doing away
with differential treatment by the Central, state and local governments
to people of different faiths. Narendra Modi appears to have decided to
put off to his second term such a rectification of colonial practice
through phasing out the Nehruvian distortions of the secular ideal. The
PM has instead been focusing his efforts on creating a cashless economy
and a zero-tax evasion society during his first term. It speaks for the
self-confidence of Modi that such feats are being attempted through the
same colonial model of administration and law that the country has been
choking under throughout its seven decades of “Independence”. Thus far,
the Prime Minister has not accepted the counsel of those who have called
for a complete break from the past in matters of both personnel as well
as policy, and has decided instead on a policy of a more gradual
incremental change.
Moving in lockstep with fake secularists
are India’s phoney liberals. These look to cues from CNN and BBC while
fashioning responses to events. Which is probably why they have almost
entirely ignored such events as a Dalit youth being appointed as the
Head Priest of the Manappuram Shiva Temple in Kerala. The concept of
caste as a consequence of birth belongs in the same lunatic asylum as
Adolf Hitler’s racial theories, and yet to the “liberals”, the temple
appointment is not even a hundredth as important as demanding that the
Rohingyas get resettled from Myanmar to India. The 22-year-old
Yadukrishna represents the spirit of his faith before its calcification
began through the adoption of “caste by birth”. The “liberal” media
seems to be almost ignoring the new Manappuram Shiva Temple Head Priest
and his guru, Aniruddhan Tantri, who is quoted as having correctly
pointed out that the Vedic concept is that “one becomes a Brahmin by his
or her deeds and not by birth”. If India had more genuine and less fake
liberals, by now there would have been hundreds of Yadukrishnas
conducting rituals in traditional style at Hindu temples across the
land.
Another sign of the distance our country
needs to traverse before it can earn the tag of being “liberal” is the
shoddy example of the Indian Navy. Another of the numerous institutions
in India still loyal to the hypocrisies and misperceptions of the
Victorian era (at a time when the UK itself has moved far beyond such
tommyrot), the Navy has dismissed simply for having undergone a sex
change operation at her own cost, and that too while on leave. Both the
Army as well as the Air Force have shown the absurd prejudice against
the induction of women in combat wings to be wrong, and so should the
Navy. Prime Minister Modi has often spoken about the need to ensure
justice for women, and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman should
therefore step in to ensure justice for Sabi.
India is ranked even below North Korea in
health and nutrition. The primary reason for this is a hypocritical and
self-obsessed ruling class. “Liberals” in India such as Palaniappan
Chidambaram oversaw the passing of laws that would have raised eyebrows
even in North Korea or Saudi Arabia. 21st century India has become the
easiest country in the world to get arrested in. Genuine secularism and
liberalism is needed to cleanse the nation of the havoc caused by toxic
policies. India has millions of truly liberal heroes and heroines such
as Sabi. We have millions of genuinely secular citizens such as
Yadukrishna. They need to be celebrated and empowered so that India
evolves into the genuinely secular and liberal state that it needs to
be, in order to thrive and even to survive.
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