Hinduism's role in India's politics

By G.S. Edwin

JAKARTA (JP): Secularism is a value standard. It upholds equality of all religions in a state. However, it uses a negative device: it keeps religion and state separate. It tends to ignore that the hold of religion made the kingship and reigns of Ashoka and Akbar great. But every state action is that of its people; and religion is a big part of the people. So, like it or not, religion does influence the quality of secularism. In short, secularism is a product of environment; it must emanate; it cannot be imposed.

Recently, the BJP government in India quit because other parties branded it as nonsecular and refused to join or extend cooperation without joining its government. This has raised the question, not for the first time, whether religion, a precious treasure, should not rule politics, a mere device.

India has many religions. Hinduism -- the oldest of all -- is its anchor: solid, steady and sustaining. Other religions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, are, mainly, derivations from Hinduism. As of today, Hindus have a preponderance of more than 75 percent. So, it is they who hold the key to secularism. As India's quality, indeed its fate, is entirely in their hands, secularism revolves around the question whether Hinduism values and cherishes secularism and its hold on Hindus.

Hindus' confidence, that Hinduism has a rock-like durability, is unassailable: India is predominantly Hindu, despite the assaults of its late Moslem rulers and the blandishments of its late British colonials over six centuries. So, Hindus have no reasons to fear other religions.

Equally, other religions have no reasons to fear Hinduism. It does not believe in or practice proselytization. It is all- encompassing: Air and rain are direct gifts from God. Mountains and rivers sacred. The sun, an object of worship. Fire, a divine witness.

It has never waged anything like the Crusade or Holy wars. Its Gods demand high personal conduct: Godly devotion and performance of good deeds through denial and abnegations. Its tolerance threshold is very high. Paradoxically, others will have reasons to fear for secularism only if Hinduism were to lose its reach, power and grip over Hindus, to keep them within its time-honored and time-tested value confines.

It has not. The BJP acted a zealot: it led a charge on Babri mosque. This misfired and its rating slipped. The vast majority of Hindus resented it as an event that marred the sedate, venerable, transcendent image of Hinduism. Indeed, the BJP emerged purified.

From this, however, it is wrong to conclude that Hindus do not want Hinduism to control and influence India. It is significant that despite the Babri mosque incident and its aftermath -- a sort of censure -- India gave the BJP, a Hindu party, 185 seats and accorded it the honor of the single largest party in Parliament. This means that many Hindus, and probably a few others also, simply concluded that help from religion is needed to improve the low and lowering standards of political conduct.

From this angle, voting for the BJP can be viewed as a direct order that it should muster and use political power to enforce Hindu percepts on Duty, Dignity and Discipline, ideologically as powerful as that of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Indeed, to reverberate the worth and value of Hinduism and use its power, hitherto checkmated in the name of secularism.

Hindu Commonwealth, reverentially knows as Ram Raj, is Hindu pride. It will never be tarnished by ill will or discrimination against other religions.

Anyway, ritual lip service to secularism is either a con or hardly reassuring. Many Congress and non-Congress state governments have excluded Christians from affirmative entitlements. Many poor Christians find it hard to stick to Christianity, which means, foregoing state benefits. There are many lessons to be drawn from this episode: Secularism, besides the benign tolerance of Hinduism, needs other allies as well.

First and foremost, it needs economic regeneration. This requirement makes religion, particularly a vitalized Hinduism, not an option, but a must.

India's economic needs are huge. It has to feed, clothe and house its 930 million people, still growing nonstop, and create nine million jobs a year. But its fuse is very short. Socialism was tried. Despite its egalitarian ideology and pushed by no less a person than Nehru, it failed because it has no religious underpinnings to reward and enthuse altruism.

India is now egged-on to tryout wild market-forces. These, devoid of values, make appetites king-size and insatiable. Where ape-man is resurrected, secularism, like other values, is a casualty.

Economic regeneration is not something haphazard. It is the product of a national synergy upheaval, which needs the driving force of a vital ideology.

Hinduism, where duty to oneself automatically results in fulfilling one's duty to others, can, perhaps, supply this ideology, if it can be vitalized.

It can make market-forces work for humanity because in Hinduism, the individual is the key, who can't be reckless. He is responsible, in control, and answerable: Hinduism insists that he has to do good deeds as a duty.

Thus, under the aegis of Hinduism, individual initiatives and enterprises and the godly injunction to do good, unite to produce an economic regeneration that can fructify in a healthy, caring society.

Next, the minorities should realize that not rights, but tolerance and forbearance of Hinduism are their best protection. They should not test or push the tolerance level. They should not even unwittingly give an impression of extraterritorial loyalty.

They should trust that all religions are equal and good, adopt a low profile and should not believe in the grandstanding of political parties and strive for the tail to wag the head or seek special niches. In short, they have an obligation to earn the goodwill of the majority.

Next, comes the people. Leaders like Nehru and Indira Gandhi took upon themselves the power to lead the people.

It is different now. Leaders have to represent the people; a feature of democracy. If they have to learn about secularism from a tutor as a political lesson, no way will it work.

So, if secularism is to succeed, more than the leaders, the people need to be vitalized and persuaded that it is morally obligatory to be a good neighbor. It is a pervasive job. Only religion has the strength and reach to do this. A Hindu renaissance embracing 700 million people will have the steamrolling energy and the tidal sweep to carry secular India to new heights.

Lastly, India shall be forever Hindu. This means that if at all, only Hinduism, so preponderant, can make a big difference to India, including to its secular aspirations. The challenge is to avoid the temptation to play politics with religion but honor Hinduism with a national code of honor, conduct and behavior that will bind, guide and propel all. Real secularism demands nothing less.

It is simply unwise to believe, that men -- straw without religion -- with an overpowering temptation to revel in power- play turmoil and muck, would uphold secularism.

Religion is vital for that. It was not sadism that made Stalin destroy religion. It was not a coincidence that the "first stone" thrown by the Pope brought down ungodly communism. Without religion and its values ruling the affairs of a nation, there is no betrayed conscience, painful inner turmoils, a common platform and a firm mooring.