Self Expression Magazine

How We Began to Believe That Secularism is Not Possible!

Posted on the 22 July 2013 by Yamini
Yet again I was pushed forcibly into the debate of Secular Vs non-Secular and the common sentiment seems to be that "There is nothing called Secularism in practice. It is not possible to be secular and secularism is not conducive to human nature". It doesn't take too much thinking to understand where all this is coming from. Mr. All time great Modi. It is quite sad how we are at this juncture where we are forced to believe Secularism is impossible. The very fact that people are ready to express such an opinion shows something about the times we are in.
Secularism in general context means state and the church are separate. In Indian context it means, all religions are equal in the eyes of law.
For a moment let us consider what would happen if we are not Secular:
I would get special privileges because of being from a certain religion. But it seems to be agreed that we can't be tolerant to other religions, we would end up killing the "others" to begin with. Again following the same "human nature" there would emerge different sects of the same religion, some of which would be antagonized. No points for guessing what these differences would lead to.
Speak against the religion and you can find yourself in jail. Yes then there would be development because anyone who dares talk against religion would never be seen again. Less number of people to govern, more development.
Particularly in case of India, if it doesn't remain Secular, it would inevitably end up being a manu wadi Hinduism. So we can make merry and rape more women and show them their true place. I wouldn't be surprised if people say it would lead to more jobs and half of the population would then be confined to the true place "home".
We can also change our tricolor which essentially stood for different religions and replace with a saffron flag.
Well all the points seem to lead to a perfect world as defined by the RSS manifesto. So we can replace our constitution with the RSS manifesto. Following the same manifesto we would become a state like the Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy.
A militant nation with one religion and perfect"brotherhood" as they say. But as directed by history the extermination wouldn't stop at other religions but would continue with the impure "other castes (Manu's Shudras)" which essentially is the majority of the country. So we would also have a state sponsored killing machine to purify the Aryan race (from the RSS book again).
Well for all this to happen, the most important thing would be control so forget about posting things like a headless chicken on facebook, it would lead to one's disappearance. And there would be more films like "Hum aapke hai kaun" showing the perfect Indian way of life in allegiance to God.
I would want to stop this line of thought here, by all means stop being secular but please kick me out of the country/or the world before that. I'd rather not see the day.
Probably you are right when you say tolerance to other religions is not conducive to human nature, but so is humanity not conducive to our innate animal nature. But we are trying to be human, in a similar way I think it is better to try to be secular and fail at it rather than say it can't happen. 

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