Secularism in India

The legislative assembly of the State of Rajasthan recently passed the religious freedom bill, which would enable the judicial system to prosecute, fine and jail people for attempting to convert people to a religion against their will. However, bowing to pressure from Christian missionaries and Muslim interest groups, the state Governor, Pratibha Patil has refused to sign the bill.

The Christian and Muslim groups claim that this legislation would be discriminating against them and impinge on their rights (to forcibly convert people). This protest is understandable, since these groups have enjoyed these rights for centuries. Converting people through brute force, money, extravagant promises and intimidation is nothing new to India. But what this incident highlights as far as I am concerned is the deep-seated negationism that pervades mainstream India. Everyone knows what happens in rural India, yet people choose to ignore it in the name of secularism. This immaturity arising from the desire to be a secular state has led to this particular incident in Rajasthan. The insipid mainstream-Hindu BJP party has attempted to raise the issue of forced conversion (which effects only the Hindu population- no one would dare try to convert a Christian or a Muslim, thats a violation of the rights of minorities) through the legislative assembly, but has once again failed to achieve anything but negative publicity both in India and internationally. In the world media, this incident has been portrayed as a Hindu fundamentalist (drawing comparison to Islamic fundamentalists in the middle east and neo-nazis/christian fundamentalists in europe and america) government abusing the rights of religious minorities (that the bill was designed to discourage forced conversions is soon forgotten).

The official view is that forced conversion does not occur, and has never occurred. Of course, support for this view from influential institutions like the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) and the Congress party helps. What helps even more is the ineptitude of those not under the spell of negationism in not being able to properly present the issue on a national or international stage. As such, books like Romila Thapar's Penguin History of India, are what is presented to the international community as "Indian History" with their denial of all unpalatable aspects of the Islamic and Christian invasions of India. Conversion is only one of the things amongst mass slaughter, pillaging, sex slavery and grossly discriminatory laws that is denied in this book and others (Communalism and the Writing of indian History by Thapar, Harbans Mukhia and Bipin Chandra). This latter book actually claims that these accusations were made by "Hindu fundamentalists" in the 20th century to create communal disharmony. For the Congress party's contribution, we need look no further than this statement by the National Council of Educational Research and Training: "Characterization of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Muslims is forbidden." This was the committee that had the responsibility to guide the schools of India in setting their curriculums. Negation of history was given its official seal of approval.