Retributions  

Are secularists damaging secularism?

Writes R Jagganathn in DNA,

India’s humbug secularists have personalised the definition of secularism for narrow political ends. It corresponds to no dictionary meaning of the word. Secularism is defined as the opposite of what the Sangh parivar stands for. Like Pakistan defining itself as “not India,” secularists define themselves as “not the Sangh parivar”. The Sangh is the unspeakable “other”, the demon they are trying to exorcise in themselves. And in Modi they have found the perfect personification of all that they hate in themselves.

Modi has often been accused — and legitimately — of equating his state’s interests with his own. But his detractors are playing into his hands. When Amitabh Bachchan is asked to be the state’s brand ambassador for tourism, he is pilloried for his impertinence. Modi may have had his own agenda in inviting him to promote Gujarat’s cause, but isn’t that what politicians do anyway? Why is anyone who promotes Gujarat an instant target for secularists? This is ideological tyranny.

If Modi is wrapping himself in the state’s colours, the secularists are helping him do so through sheer stupidity. By blasting anyone who is hired by the state, they are effectively saying that working for Gujarat is the same as working for Modi. So when Modi says the secularists are trampling on Gujarati asmita, it is entirely believable. [link]

Jagganathan’s argument brings us back to what Retributions has always argued: Both the “secularists” and Modi need each other.