India as a Hindu nation: What would it actually gain?

By Osman Sher* 

The vast land of India contains a variety of communities, both in terms of race and religion. Its inter-communal relations through the ages have shown it to be a tolerant nation, and this feature has made its society a prominently pluralistic one. Keeping up with this tradition, the Constitution declared India a secular country to be governed through the instrument of democracy. This meant that equality would prevail amid the ocean of diversity, and that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds would co-exist peacefully as one "Indian Nation."

Throwing this traditionally and lawfully established secularism and democracy to the dust, the present government is clamouring to declare India a Hindu Nation. This would mean changing the established social order from secularism and democracy to Hindu majoritarianism, in which the majority community alone would have the right to make the laws and rules governing the entire society. Its political and social ramifications would be the demise of democracy on the one hand, and the onset of the tyranny of the majority on the other. In the absence of democracy, such a system would depend for its survival on fascism, under a dictator or a person of cult-following who would govern the country with an ultra-nationalist ideology. Individual freedom and interest would be sacrificed at the altar of the perceived good of "the nation" — or, in this case, of the Hindus. Other communities, such as Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Zoroastrians, and, in far greater numbers, Muslims, who together constitute close to twenty percent of the population, would have to live their lives under far-right, ultra-nationalist policies.

The policies of the present government, and the voice given to its supporters, leave no doubt that the real purpose of such a system is not to glorify the religion of Hinduism but to use it against the interests and well-being of other communities. Sadly, it will not stop there; it will also turn against its own co-religionists, the Shudras, through the political stratagem of Jativad — a tool once used by the ancient Aryan invaders to keep the local population under perpetual subjugation. E. J. Rapson, in The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, observes that the broad distinction between conquerors and conquered is natural and universal everywhere, but that while such man-made social barriers have weakened or disappeared in other societies over time, they have remained firmly entrenched in India — so entrenched that these human institutions have received the sanction of a religion more concerned with preserving social order than with advancing mankind.

Declaring India a Hindu Nation would not glorify the Hindu religion. On the contrary, the policies that would follow would bring the country a bad name, and India would lose the prestige of being called the world's largest democracy. What, then, would be the gain? Only the Hindu community's supremacy over the various other groups within India's borders — and even this egocentric trophy would come at a great price. It would inevitably mean the oppression of minorities whose views differ from the majority's, and it would be naïve to think that they would take this lying down. In today's world, such a course would be an invitation to perpetual turmoil and agitation, and an end to peace in society.

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*Former diplomat based in USA