Hindutva vs Hinduism: Why I am proud to be pseudo-secular

I am ‘pseudo-secular’. I am proud to be one. It’s better than being ‘communal’ or a religious fanatic. I find it demeaning to be a religious hate-monger and I find it below my dignity to extend any moral support to people who would kill innocent people for religion. I would like to call myself ‘secular’ but since all shades of the Hindutva crowd also love to define themselves by that term I would be happy with my hyphenated existence. Why are we on the topic of secularism? Because it has been and will continue to be a constant in the country’s political narrative, always a ready instrument for opportunistic manipulation by people on both sides of the secular-non-secular divide. It will remain the pivot around which political alliances and dalliances will evolve and revolve. Since the term ‘pseudo-secular’ is a legitimate presence in the Indian political discourse by now, it deserves to be treated with seriousness.[caption id=“attachment_552415” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Hinduism-Hindutva debate. AFP[/caption] The debate on secularism has been a subterranean presence in politics even before the days of the Constituent Assembly. The presence has become more pronounced through the years of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the Gujarat riots of 2002, the period that coincides with the rise and plateauing of the BJP as a strong political player. As the Narendra Modi debate gets shriller, expect secularism to be the topic of animated discussions more often. His emergence as a political force is rooted in hardline Hindutva and no talk of development will erase that from collective political memory. Coming back to pseudo-seculars, a whopping big section of the Indian population comes under this category but, curiously enough, they are not even aware of it. Pseudo-seculars, according to Right wingers, are those whose blood does not boil at the mention of Muslims and Christians, who don’t believe in Hindu victimhood, who are not macho enough to suggest that attacking Pakistan is the best way to handling the pesky country and those who don’t dance to every music on the streets thinking it’s an attack on the Hindu identity. Pseudo-seculars are also people who fail to make any sense of rabid, chest-thumping nationalism and who don’t automatically extend unconditional support to the belief system held inviolable by the Sangh Parivar affiliates. They are regular people who get carried away by religious emotions occasionally but generally keep their religion and politics apart. They dislike living in hate and anger but fall prey to temporary madness at times. They are the people who have been keeping the communal forces off taking control of the country and their immediate society. They represent the great syncretic tradition of the country and the grand idea of India, which is a product of many adjustments and compromises between people of different faiths, beliefs and quirks. They are Hindus in the true sense of the word, not Hindutvavadis - people bent on forcing Hinduism into a narrow meaning. Hinduism, to begin with, was never an organised religion in the sense Islam and Christianity are, it has always been a way of life, rich with a variety of influences accumulated through centuries of historical and social processes. Hinduism is inherently constructive and inclusive while Hindutva is destructive and exclusive. Hinduism is liberal, assimilative and democratic while Hindutva is illiberal and undemocratic. There’s a certain inferiority complex among the followers of the latter which shows in their tendency to be provocative, aggressive and assertive. There’s is a state of existence that breeds hate and survives on hate. Fortunately for the country, pseudo-seculars outnumber them in all spaces. That the country has not gone the Pakistan way is the strongest proof that they exist, silent yet powerful. Take the Muslims and other religious communities out of the whole secularism debate—these are sections that have foolishly allowed themselves to be used by political parties of all shades for electoral ends—the Hindutvavadis would emerge the biggest threats to the idea of Hinduism, by extension the grand construct that is India. They might call themselves truly secular, whatever that means, but it does not bring down the threat perception to the rich socio-cultural mosaic of the country. The pseudo-seculars, the true upholders of Hinduism and the idea of India, for some curious reason, are too unassertive, too defensive and too self-effacing. Maybe humility is part of their culture. But this approach won’t help any more. Indian politics may throw up bigger conflicts, latent and overt, between Hinduism and Hindutva. They should brace for that. It is about time they flaunted being ‘pseudos’ as a badge of honour. It’s time more people said, “I am pseudo-secular and proud to be one.”