When American crowds chanted 'Evangelists for Reagan' or 'Jesus Loves Reagan' or banners and placards have legends like 'For Jesus, Vote Reagan', no ridicule or laugh was poured forth even in the slightest trickle by the intellectuals in this country. Reagan's open support by so many Christian groups possibly did not make Americans obscurantists. Obviously, it is the power which decides who is forward or backward. If a country is strong, even whipping or hand-chopping of guilty will get instant stamp of approval - at least from a section of our own intellectuals.

There is a section of political analysts and journalists in India who are perpetually worried as to what would happen to our image if we ceased to be secular in approach. The definition of our brand of secularism is a shade different from what is prevalent in either models - capitalists and communist systems. In India secularism certainly means projection and highlighting of minority religious views at the cost of majority viewpoint. It seems by not rubbing majority community at all available opportunities would preclude us from walking on the road with our heads high.

Such intellectuals certainly feel guilty and are always apologetic in acknowledging their Hindu identity. They constantly try to throw away all signs which would fit in a Hindu stereotype. They feel it is their duty to carry everybody with them. Others, though hardly feel it necessary to carry all with them including those who are in minority and would choose to live in their ghettos.

But do big nations look at various nations measuring their image with their yardstick? Never. The United States is closer to theocracies, dictatorships and even most obscurantist rulers and monarchs - the deciding factor being strategy and geopolitics in the region. Trumpeting democracies like ours are rated high in the eyes of the major powers more because of our being a vast continent, alive and vibrant for centuries. Our pretensions of secularism certainly do not pay that big a role which we have been imagining.

It is power-play and power structure of groups which gives image. It accords good or bad relationship also on that basis. The prestige of a country in the world has hardly any relation to moral qualities. The drumbeats of power drown all whimpers of a moralist. This reality in itself, continues an adequate condemnation of the vague ideals of which our country's secularism is one instance.

If a country like India, always running to appease smaller groups - regional, linguistic and religious and swears by trite, pedestrian and high-flown moral codes, its prestige would continue to be debatable. Prestige, in fact, depends upon what a writer has called 'the strength to command respect and attention'. In other words, if you do not have oil to secure approval from the superpowers for your obscurantist ways, or if you cannot talk tall and act spectacularly, visibly and with firework, the country's image is likely to take a nosedive.

Seeing things around, one can safely conclude that the prestige for which a nation is admired today stands for exactly the reverse of the qualities for which an individual is admired.

Irrespective of changes in social mores, fads and passing fancies any time, changes which do not wait for any ideological debate to conclude, Hinduism negates rigidity, it is sworn enemy of fanaticism. It has love for anybody in its fold.

The term Hindu, for a very long time has been used to denote non-Muslim Indians. Though the criterion of distinction was religious, yet the term 'Hindu' still bore the old secular connotation encompassing a wide range of beliefs - including loosely the whole spectrum of Jainism, Buddhists and Sikhs. J.S.Grewal, in one of his articles reviewing a book, wrote, "If someone had asked Guru Nanak whether or not he was a Hindu, he would have answered that he was, in the sense that he was a non-Muslim Indian". Hinduism thus came to be transformed into a monolith and represented as wide a spectrum as Brahmanical systems of religious belief and practice and on the other ever agnostic thoughts. Since then it came to stay as a great geopolitic reality bringing about unprecedented fusion amongst people by common consent. While answering a foreigner's comment, 'Hinduism has no history', Babu Rao Patel had retorted that 'Hinduism is the history of all foreign and Indian races. India was the cradle of civilisation when Europeans were mere barbarians'.

It was the fever of secularism which gripped the country for five decades and allowed Hinduism to be assailed from all quarters. It was the politicians and liberals whose interests were opposed to those of the community at large and who, therefore, did their best to retain their influence by promoting various kinds of hysteria. Anti-Hindu feeling was generated and used in a way to preclude intelligent consideration of real issues. Until the conflicts sought to be made in various segments of races, regions, castes and languages which infect our society are resolved by respecting the majority beliefs unreason, unreason and strife will prevail.

We have looked too often to the existing options for national salvation. We have paraded for too long our secularist professions hitting at the roots of the majority community. Pampering minorities' will in one way would be collective admission of the fact that minority can rule as well and it will pave way, and very justifiably as a logical conclusion, for a dictatorship of any minority of any type.

The greatest weakness of secularists in India is their lack of understanding of history of this sub-continent. Being without clear convictions to their creed of appeasement of minorities, they hop from one end of assailing Hinduism to almost inspired and decisive efforts to stoke fires of hatred against them. Their hypocrisy and pedantry besides lack of historical realism could sow seeds of discord in society. These secularists and liberal scribes, in their search of political power would disintegrate themselves. We strongly believe that time will prove them wrong.