JANUARY 26 Religion and Politics

JANUARY 26 Religion and Politics With the independence of India in 1947, two countries — India and Pakistan — came into existence on the subcontinent. In both these countries there was a secular group and a religious group. The secular group held that the system of the country’s governance should be run along purely secular lines, independently of religion, whereas the thinking of the religious group was quite the contrary. They insisted that the political system of the country should be governed in accordance with the dictates of religion. This religion-based system was called Nizam-e-Mustafa in Pakistan, and Ram Rajya in India. Although in both of these countries political power fell into the hands of the secular group, in neither country did the religious group remain silent. Rather, they pursued the path of confrontation in order to attain their goal of establishing the system of government on the basis of religion. To put it in another way, they opted for the path of force in order to replace the secular system with the system of government of their choice. This struggle culminated in Pakistan in April 1979 with Bhutto’s execution, which was termed judicial murder by Bhutto himself. Pakistan’s religious class felt that Bhutto’s existence presented the greatest obstacle to introducing Nizam-eMustafa. He had, therefore, to be eliminated. But the experiment revealed that Nizam-e-Mustafa could not find a place in the life of the nation even after the removal of Bhutto. The hold of the secular group persisted. The Ram Rajya movement in India culminated in December 1992 with the demolition of the Babari Masjid at Ayodhya. Even after a period of two years, subsequent to the demolition, the Ram Rajya movement has not been able to move even one step ahead. The secular group continues to dominate the political arena. Whether it be right or wrong, from the ideological point of view, to subordinate politics to religion, the experiment of the last fifty years tells us that our present course is certainly not the right one. It would be more true to say that the present course, in terms of non-achievement of goals, has been counter-productive. What has come into being, and what is going to be achieved in the effort to consolidate the position of religion is in no way a religious system, but is rather a course of destruction. This destructive element has only added to the general ruination of the country.