“Has Secularism helped India evolve as a stronger country or has it made it hollow and highly vulnerable from inside?”

India is the largest democratic country in the world and is one of the most liberal countries in the sense it bestows its people with a lot of freedom to express itself in all forms of communication. India is a land which espouses seven major religions namely Hinduism, Islamic, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastianism and Christianity. While Hinduism is exemplified as a religion which enjoys majority, other religions claim to be a minority who needs special privileges and rights in order to co-exist peacefully in a secular country.

This personifies the irony of secularism. Firstly we call our self secular which primarily means all religions are of equal status and must enjoy equal rights and authority on the country’s resources, on the other hand these same people require special civil liberties on the basis that they are neglected and unnoticed in this country. And in the due process every religious entity in this country needs their own space, own ideology, own ways of education, their share of religious sentiments in very constitutional decision and so and so forth. In spite of our constitution paying due regards to everyone’s needs and aspirations and providing them with as much as possible, these people live with an attitude of grievances and dissatisfaction as if they are tortured in this country and they are deprived of many rights and privileges.

Now the question which comes in my mind is “Is Hinduism the religion of India?” If the answer is no then why is there such differentiation of majority and minority? Let us compare a similar situation in another country which also claims to be secular, which is ‘USA’. What is the religion of USA? Some people say it’s Christianity but if USA claims to be secular as well then they don’t have a specific religion either. I know people will argue it is not a good idea to compare India with USA in terms of secularism because we are miles above USA and the WEST, as far as SECULARISM is concerned. But I just want to highlight a few basic differences as to how secularism is interpreted in both countries .USA lets every citizen practice any religion freely, raise to any level in corporation, own any amount of wealth etc. irrespective of religion, the laws will protect one irrespective of religion. They don’t group people based on religion as majority or minority instead they have characterized people based on citizens and immigrants. People from different religious background don’t barge on road and destroy public properties or engage in communal riots just because they are not heard or their religious sentiments are hurt with some government decisions. USA’s government doesn’t pay heed to such gibberish perspectives and make decisions which benefits majority of its citizens.

Now let’s switch back to India. What is that we do wrong? Why is secularism a weakness instead of strength in our country? We all know our country could have progressed at a much higher rate had people of this country had set aside their religious and personal sentiments and would have stood together for the progress of this country. Why are the same people who object to every small thing which hurts their religion in India, after going to USA accept everything without a word and co-exist peacefully irrespective of what the rule is? Why is there so much hypocrisy? Do we have too much freedom given to everyone or rather is the freedom of expression exploited to serve individuals rather the country?

After 9/11 attack in USA, FBI and other investigating agencies randomly suspected and tortured Muslims and made their life impossible to stay in the country. They went on a war with Afghanistan and killed so many innocent people in the hunt of OSAMA BIN LADEN. We have suffered millions of attacks till now, millions of innocent people have died in our country but we are still rational and respect the fact that the entire community of a religion cannot take the burden of the acts of few people. And everyone still live with pride and civil rights in our country. We didn’t even go on a war or bombard their terror camps yet. But still we are criticized in the world and we still have people within our country who don’t respect this gesture and engage in more and more communal and aggressive reactions.

We have become a fragile and an intolerant country that gets so offended by small incidents or dialogues in a fictional bollywood movie. How can we move together and progress like this? And this religious dispute has entered the country like a parasite and is leading to another major threat called regionalism. People of a specific regions or caste or languages are becoming intolerant to others. People are having internal conflicts in every single matter. No one wants to live in a community which is enriched with people of various cultures, religions or language. So we all should ask this simple question “What is INDIA and who are the people who make INDIA? Do we want to be called as Indians or as Hindu’s, Muslims, Delhiites, Maharashtrians and so forth? If we prefer the latter then we should split today and divide the country into various pieces; maybe individually we will progress much faster. But if we prefer the former then we should stop serving and fighting for our individual benefits and hating each other on the name of religion. Religion was formed not to divide people but to create uniformity among different set of people so that they get the message of love and peace in their own way. No religion is different or special from others. Let us comply with the definition of secularism which is: every individual citizen of the country has its first loyalty towards his country rather than his religion, region or language. Let us remember a simple pledge which we used to take when we were in school i.e. “India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters….” Our country is more powerful if we stick together and help it grow much stronger, tolerant and accepting.