Many Shades of Secularism

The Rushdie affair dating from the Jaipur Lit fest to India Today conclave is revealing myriad hues of secularism practiced in the country. The Indian society has torn apart secularism's insipid definition of keeping state and religion apart and added surfeit amounts of masala and put it through the blender.

Type A: He feels outraged that Rushdie is not allowed to come to India, but it is okay that M F Hussain was banished abroad.

Type B: He feels outraged by Rushdie's works and sees him as ultimate Satan, but is unmindful of the hurt M F Hussain's nude paintings caused to others. For him Hussain is a great artiste, though he, however, cannot explain why he got worked up over his film Meenaxi. I guess few movies met such a fate - got canned a day after it was released.

Type C: For him only votes count, so he only weighs whether pandering to which religious segment would bring more votes. Does not even mind double dealing.

Type D: He is the India International Centre type. Found mainly in metros and takes the trouble of visiting places like Jaipur, only during literature festival. Religion? what is that? Pass the grass please.

Type E: They played hookey at India Today summit and touted reasons, which sounded more knave than what school kids put forth to explain failure to do homework. For them the better part of valour was to stay away and tend their constituencies back home.

The controversy also brought to the fore the dirty picture of India's electoral arithmetic. It was said the Jaipur Lit fest controversy was whipped up keeping UP elections in mind.

Though it was part of the Congress strategy, along with many other communal sops, keeping elections in mind, the party could not make much electoral capital out of it. This prompted many pundits to say that religious sops no longer appeal to Muslims in UP. This, I feel, is too simplistic an assessment. If this was so, then Akhilesh Yadav would not have stayed away from the India Today summit.

In the UP elections, both Congress and SP had rained sops for the Muslims and since Mulayam Singh carries more credibility among the community, they opted for his party. It was a case of competitive populism.