MARCH 12 Defining Secularism

closure, Hindus were at the same time seeking admission to it. Muslims in fact could not separate the English from their sciences. Since they were launching movements against British rule, they thought that even their sciences had also to be discarded. It was for reasons such as these that Muslims have suffered in the past and are still suffering the consequences. However, they were quick to lay all the blame at the door of the government, even in places where the government had no hand. No system can work efficiently without the cooperation of the public. The government can undertake only 50 percent of the task. The other 50 percent has to be undertaken by the people. But instead of pulling their weight, which would have meant correcting their own attitude, they ranged themselves against secularism, of which they felt profoundly suspicious. Their failure to improve their own condition in terms of education only made them more rigid in this stance. Now this state of affairs was exploited by the fundamentalist Hindus. They may not have been the creators of this state of affairs, but I would stress that they have exploited the situation. Since secularism was upheld by the Congress, and favoured by educated classes everywhere, fundamentalist groups found themselves relegated to the background. The theocratic state was in the process everywhere of being rejected by the enlightened minds. But Muslims did not play their role. This is what is largely responsible for the erosion of secularism. There are certainly other factors, but Muslims’ failure to realize the actual meaning of secularism is the most decisive one. Muslims failed to play their 50 percent part, thus encouraging the rise of Hindu fundamentalism. If the BJP seats in Parliament rose from 2 to 119 the direct responsibility for this must be attributed to the ill-advised leadership of Muslims. Pandit Nehru had an excellent team of individuals, imbued with the spirit of secularism, in the best sense of the word, but Muslims failed to support them. There were certain Muslims both inside and outside the party who favoured secularism but since our leaders had implanted the wrong idea in people’s minds that secularism was anti-Islam, these individuals were never respected in the community, hence they failed to gain the credibility among Muslims, which was necessary for them to play an effective role.