– Our Correspondent
After 75 years of Independence and in an Amrit Kaal that lays the blueprint of the country’s bright prosperous future, ironically also witnesses secularism losing its spirit in the New India where the BJP views secularism as synonymous to minority, particularly the Muslims, appeasement.
And what remains more evident is the replacement of secularism with religious nationalism under the BJP’s regime. Even the Congress didn’t lag to lure the Hindu voters through its soft Hindutva approach which often got crushed by the BJP’s unique selling point – hardcore Hindutva. Sadly, all these led to inculcating majoritarianism in the form of growing communalism inculcated as a political philosophy. And the country watched the outcome of its impact in the results of the recently held Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. BJP trounced Congress in all these three states.
Having faced discrimination for decades and apparently continues even today, the Muslims as a community are evidently losing their voice in Indian politics and perhaps getting marginalised.
The below are images on how recently for the first time in the Chhattisgarh state secretariat, the chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, his two deputies Arun Sao and Vijay Sharma besides other ministers in the BJP government performed puja rituals before taking charge in their respective offices.
The pertinent question is that if the BJP leaders/ministers take the liberty to openly practice their religion in places like the Secretariat and in an independent secular India, why can’t the followers of other faiths be given the same freedom? In reality, if the minorities get any such dispensation to practice their religious belief in public places like the state secretariat, it could be then anyone’s guess on how loud the reactions would be from the hostile brigade or the political fuss created to yet again assert the so-called ‘minority appeasement’.
