It is widely held, and not without reason, that politicians from time to time say what they do not mean. The same is the fate of much talked about secularism which despite privately held beliefs of individuals, due to public postures has come to stay as the worst form of hypocrisy in public life. It is because of the cynical manoeuvres to attract Muslim votes over the years that there is widespread clamouring for jettisoning this word from our public life. Ironically even developed countries rarely use this word in the sense in which we use in this country. No doubt the substitution is made by reference to human rights, individual liberties, civil and democratic rights. We have woken up too late to discover that the word secularism could invite disastrous consequences for society pushing in fact majority community to the brink by rubbing it at every available opportunity.

The politicians of various hues have surrendered their strength under cover of this word because of the directions which country took despite vivisection of the country in 1947. It was Indian Muslims who wanted a separate homeland. They got one in 1947 and with that the Muslim problem should have ceased to exist. That it does not is due to pseudo-secularism-cum-minorityism practised by the Congress and the Leftists. There is no doubt that today there is a growing aversion amongst Hindus due to the distortions of Indian Secularism.

There are certain truths in politics. Political nature abhors a vacuum and power that if left lying idle gets taken and used. The process of appeasement is a case in point. It is a common situation that in human societies power is never left unclaimed and unused. It does not blow about like waste paper on the streets, ownerless and inert. Men cannot help themselves from exerting power where they can have it. It is particularly so, when they capture a shield of ideology or plank like minority rights. The growing Muslim population, in fact the second largest majority in the country, simply by reason of standing aloof, its segragation and differentiation and reluctance to join mainstream has become a power which can merrily dictate. Our politicians, as if scared, have allowed it to happen. Without taking lesson from pre-partition days they enabled them to taste blood, insatiable and ever demanding in the name of preservation of their religious identity.

And the consequence of all this today is that the nation lies under the shadow of a tragedy, a tragedy of the Greek type where the victim blindly brings disaster upon himself. The victim is the government itself, helpless and enslaved to the whims of the minority.

This disaster brought by continued wrong policies cannot be measured in terms of statistics. It is of a different character and unless it is soon averted, it will engulf the nation. The disaster which threatens us today is a conflict in which one part of the nation learns to look upon another part as suspect. It is a totally needless psychological conflict in the country and it can be averted without much cost by greater understanding of the realities on the part of minority community.

Those fed on minority syndrome must disabuse figments of their fevered imagination which politicians have created in them. The supposed issue in the conflict which bids fair to divide the nation today is a non issue created by secularist politicians. Most of the supposed systems of deep-rooted malaise are traceable to the effects of poison slowly spread by the gross irresponsibility of the secularists in this country. They were wrong; evidently they made very costly errors. First grievances then their repetition and then as we see blowing them out of proportion, then making everybody vie with each other for votes by promising remedy of the grievances which are uncovered and exploited in the context of actual or threatened violence. Even the parliament finds itself in effect manipulated by minorities. After exploiting it to the hilt, begins the manipulative policies called “search for a political solution”.

We have seen re-run of this scenario in our country so many times. Those who do not believe in constitutional norms and indulge in acts of violence in fact precipitate a frenzied search on the part of society as if with good intentions. The state apparatus fed and fuelled turmoil in Kashmir with massive subsidies and only to find human rights activists marshalled against it in defence of those who never had any faith and trust in democratic norms.

The wheels of secularism have ground down today even the last remnants of self-respect and pride which goes only with a strident nationalism. There is a rude awakening for those caught between an image-trap.