Harsh, insensitive and undemocratic sounding words sometimes reveal the bitter, naked truth. Late Balasaheb Thakre had once said if Muslims are deprived of franchise, the so- called secular leaders would be left unmasked.
What Balasaheb meant to say was that these self proclaimed secular leaders have nothing to do with the welfare of the Muslims or any other minority community. Muslims and all other minority communities are just a vote bank for them .
The fact is that the very concept of secularism is irrelevent in our country. It's a European concept. In Europe there was a time when the Church and the State were at daggers drawn against each other. Both of them were trying to be the center of power. Secularism is a system in which religion is not allowed to play a role in state and social affairs. In the history of India there had never been a period when religion tried to interfere in state and social affairs. Here it would be relevent to underline the fact that ' Dharma' and ' Religion ' are not synonyms. 'Dharma', in simple words , is an ethical and moral code of conduct that is relevent for all human beings no matter what their faith is or which religion they follow. You may say, if ' Religion ' is a pond , then ' Dharma ' is an ocean.
The introduction of the word ' Secular ' in our constitution has polluted our whole political system . Secularism has become the synonym of vote bank politics coupled with petty, unabashed opportunism. It has become a word used by the so-called secular parties to camouflage their hunger for power. They use the word to garner Muslim votes. Yes, Muslim votes for whenever they utter the word 'Minority', they actually mean Muslims, because the population of Muslims in India is much larger than that of any other minority community.
That's why JD [U] breaks up its 17 year old allience with the BJP when the latter declares Narendra Modi as the chief of election campeign committee. That's why Lalu Prasad Yadav tries to defend the indefensible by 'proving' that the ill-fated Sabarmati Express was not torched by the Muslim fanatics at Godhra in 2002. That's why the Ishrat Jahan encounter case is dubbed as a fake encounter even after a Pakistan based terrorist organization had admitted that Ishrat was one of its members. And that's why Ramvilas Paswan feels that he should take a look alike of Osama Bin Laden with him to entice Muslims to cast their votes in his favor.
For these so called secular politicians the Muslim League is a secular party whereas the BJP is untouchable. And ironically the Congress is also a secular party despite the fact that congressmen under the leadership of veteran Congress leaders had massacred thousands of Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh guards. I often wonder what they would have done had the assassins of Indira Gandhi been Muslims.
Hindu-Muslim riots had been taking place even in the states ruled by the Congress. Still the Congress is secular. On the other hand, there has been not a single riot between the two communities, but the riot that had erupted after the gruesome incident at Godhra is still shown as a blot on Modi's face.
Secularism in India is the other name of vote hungry politics, petty mindset, opportunism and all kinds of evils Indian politics is suffering from.