The discontent over the new five-rupee coins with the Vaishno Devi image, turns ‘secularism’ debate on its head
Strident opposition by Muslim fundamentalists to the Reserve Bank of India's release of five-rupee coins, inscribed with Mata Vaishno Devi images, to mark the silver jubilee of Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, revives the debate on the understanding of secularism here. The controversy last month was eclipsed by the Uttarakhand disaster, as the magnitude of suffering, loss of life and damage to revered pilgrimages blanked out other news. However, with the rubble and dust having settled somewhat, and the spillover from the tragedy having been quantified, it is necessary to place the secular ideal in perspective. This is especially required because those who threatened to agitate against the deployment of these coins on the grounds that it was ‘unsecular' as it portrayed a great Hindu goddess, seem to be dictating State responses.
Movement for Human Welfare's Mr Azimuddin proffered the specious logic that since coins were given to beggars and tossed by saints during holy processions, it was wrong to inscribe the deity's image. Islam forbids depiction of the Prophet Mohammed or personification of the Supreme, Allah, or his angels. This bias clearly is projected against the goddess image on coins. But Hindu worship of Sakaar Brahma, manifest God, thrives on depictions of deities and supernal beings as their intercession is sought by supplicants, while worship of Nirakaar Brahma, preoccupied with the idea of the One pervading all, equally considers everything a manifestation of divinity.
These approaches are united in the Hindu weltanschauung, where the fact of such coins being tossed about would be an aspect of leela, divine play, or cosmic illusion, Maya, that holds beings in thrall. Herein lies the essential difference between the two religious ethos: The one is exclusive, tending to deny the validity of opposing postulates; and the other is inclusive, reconciling differences in a cohesive whole. The expansive Sufi vision of unity approximates to the latter view. There should be no cause for protest at all, to quote Sanatan Sanstha spokesman Abhay Vartak, given that coins bearing the image of Christian icon Mother Teresa were released earlier.
There was no outcry against negation of the secular ideal then. Protesters need to answer the question whether following Muslim or other religious personal law is secular. That is the most glaring anomaly of the understanding of secularism in India. While Hindus, by and large, accepted codification of laws applicable to them with regard to marriage, age of marriage, divorce, widow remarriage, enforcement of monogamy, inheritance, adoption, abolition of sati and child marriage, ban on untouchability, other measures on the basis of modern secular jurisprudence — a process that began during the British Raj and was crystallised under the Constitution-makers and especially free India's first Union law Minister BR Ambedkar — Muslims grabbed the privilege of following their personal law, Sharia’h. Mercifully, laws allowing stoning to death of an adulteress, or cutting off a thief's hands, as in strictly Islamic Saudi Arabia, were withheld. These would have clashed directly with more humane provisos under civil laws, the Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code
Even so, secularism has been reduced to the policy of sustained Muslim appeasement by the Congress and other political parties that bend backwards to ensure the community's access to medieval religious laws, originating in far-off West Asia. This has turned the secular ideal on its head. The Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, socialist factions in Bihar, communists and now their bête noire Trinamool Congress in West Bengal have also been obsessively kow-towing to regressive Muslim concerns.
This explains Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's boycotting of the proposed lecture at Harvard University on organising the Allahabad Kumbh Mela, in protest against State Minister Azam Khan's detention by American airport authorities at Boston; and the BSP's, SP's, communists' and Bihar socialists' relentless opposition to building the Ram Janmabhumi temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. It needs to be mentioned that Mr Khan was appointed Chairman of the Maha Kumbh Mela committee by the Chief Minister in a calculated move. Would any non-Muslim ever head the Haj committee or be vested with the grave responsibility of organising the periodic Urs, attended by thousands of Muslims from India and other countriesIJ
The Congress-led UPA Government's promotion of beef export to Islamic countries — apparently sourced from buffaloes through illicit cow trading and slaughter — owes directly to its Muslim appeasement policy. The BSP’s and SP’s support for Uttar Pradesh's proliferating abattoirs and meat trade is reported to be spurred by Muslim dietary and business concerns. And, of course, Kerala and West Bengal, whether governed by the communists or their adversaries, continue to flout the constitutional directive to ban cow slaughter. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, also Trinamool Congress supremo, has gone one better than her left predecessor by sanctioning salaries for imams and projecting herself as a daughter of Islam by performing namaaz in railway advertisements, released on the occasion of Eid.