Secularism in India .

GM HASAN TAREQ (BIPLOP) SM HALL DHAKA UNIVERSITY Hasan.tareq96@gmail.com

Depart ment of Political science. Introduction: The Preamble to the Constitution of India declares that India is a secular state . The original preamble did not mention the word "secular". It was added later b y 42nd amendment in 1976.[1] The term secularism in politics refers to the gover nmental practice of indifference towards religion. Though such bifurcation is no t totally possible, still, secular politics attempt to prevent religious philoso phies or bodies from influencing governmental policies. The philosophy that the Indian constitution upholds is a kind of secular humanism made relevant through a historical development of the ideology within the context of religious plurali sm in India. Indian concept of secularism takes is colour from Article 15 (Prohibition of dis crimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth), Article 25 (Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of reli gion), and Article 26 (Freedom to manage religious affairs). These are among the list of Fundamental Rights of citizens. It is interesting to note that Indian C onstitution merely states the behaviour of the State in terms of what it will no t do (i.e. not discriminate based on religion). It does not say that the State h as or has not a religion. It does not say whether State can or cannot participat e in religion. It does not say whether State can or cannot spend public money on religious activities. Even so, India recognizes laws based on religion. Hindus, Muslims, and Christian s are governed by their own religious laws. Thus, India does not really fit into any text book definition of Secularism. It has, in fact, created its own brand of Secularism. Indeed, Supreme Court of India observed the same thing in the cas e of Aruna Roy vs. Union of India (SC AIR 2002), when it said Indian Secularism means sarva dhrama samabhav and not sarva dharma abhav ( meaning, equal feeling for all religions" and not "no feeling for any religion"). Definition of Secularism: According to Cambridge dictionary-the belief that religion should not involved w ith ordinary social and political activities of a country. According Encarta dictionary 1. exclusion of religion from public affairs: the belief that religion and religious bodies should have no part in political or civic affairs or in running public institutions, especially schools 2. rejection of religion: the rejection of religion or its exclusion from a philosophical or moral system History Of Secularism in India: Secularism in India has very different meaning and implications. The word secula rism has never been used in Indian context in the sense in which it has been use d in Western countries i.e. in the sense of atheism or purely this worldly appro ach, rejecting the other-worldly beliefs. India is a country where religion is very central to the life of people. Indias a ge-old philosophy as expounded in Hindu scriptures called Upanishad is sarva dha rma samabhava, which means equal respect for all religions. The reason behind th is approach is the fact that India has never been a mono-religious country. India is one country where caste rigidity and concept of untouchability evolved and still plays a major role in religious, social and cultural matters. Caste dy namics in Indian life, even in Christian and Islamic societies, plays larger tha n life role. Since most of the conversions to Christianity and Islam took place from lower caste Hindus, these two world religions also developed caste structur e. There are lower caste churches and mosques in several places. Under feudal system there was no competition between different religious traditi ons as authority resided in sword and generally there were no inter-religious te

nsions among the people of different religions. They co-existed in peace and har mony though at times inter-religious controversies did arise. However, there nev er took place bloodshed in the name of religion. There was also tradition of tolerance between religions due to state policies of various kings since time immemorial from Gupta Kings to Ashoka and Akbar. Many religious sects and practices kept away from rigid intolerant forms. The Indian National Congress at the time of independence from British Raj adopte d secularism, not as this worldly philosophy but more as a political arrangement . As power-sharing arrangement could not be satisfactorily worked out between th e Hindu and Muslim elite the country was divided into two independent states of India and Pakistan, Muslim majority areas of North-West going to Pakistan. After independence and partition a large body of Muslims were left in India and hence the leaders like Gandhi and Nehru preferred to keep India secular in the s ense that Indian state will have no religion though people of India will be free both in individual and corporate sense to follow any religion of their birth or adoption. Thus India remained politically secular but otherwise its people cont inued to be deeply religious. In India right from the British period main contradiction was not between religi ous and secular but it was between secular and communal. In the western world ma in struggle was between church and state and church and civil society but in Ind ia neither Hinduism nor Islam had any church-like structure and hence there neve r was any such struggle between secular and religious power structure. The main struggle was between secularism and communalism. The communal forces fr om among Hindus and Muslims mainly fought for share in power though they used th eir respective religions for their struggle for power. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India was great champion of secul arism and secular politics. Theoretically speaking the Congress Party was also c ommitted to secularism. However, the Congress Party consisted of several members and leaders whose secularism was in doubt. But it was due to Mahatma Gandhi, Ne hru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and B.R.Ambedkar that India committed itself to sec ularism and its Constitution was drafted on secular lines. Secularism in India, as pointed out before, meant equal respect for all religion s and cultures and non-interference of religion in the government affairs. Also, according to the Indian Constitution no discrimination will be made on the basi s of caste, creed, gender and class. Similarly all citizens of India irrespectiv e of ones religion, caste or gender have right to vote. According to articles 14 to 21 all will enjoy same rights without any discrimination on any ground. According to Article 25 all those who reside in India are free to confess, pract ice and propagate religion of ones choice subject of course to social health and law and order. Thus even conversion to any religion of ones choice is a fundamen tal right. SECULAR AND UNSECULAR PEOPLE Now question arises how many Indian people are secu lar and how many unsecular? Since secularism does not mean being this worldly in India, one cannot say how many are believers and how many unbelievers? On the c ontrary in Indian context what it means how many people are against people of mi nority religions like Islam and Christianity and how many people respect them. In fact in India an overwhelming majority of people are religious but tolerant a nd respect other religions and are thus secular in Indian context. Even Sufis and Bhakti Saints are considered quite secular in that sense. There are some rationalists and secularists who reject religion in its entirety but such rationalists or secularists are extremely few. Though there are no cens us figures available but one can safely say they are less than 0.1% in India. Al so, there are extremely orthodox people who exhibit rigidity and intolerance tow ards other faiths though of course not on communal grounds but on the grounds of religious orthodoxy but they too are in minuscule minority. Tolerance in India among people of all religions is widely prevalent. It is perhaps due to influenc e of ancient Indian doctrine that truth is one but is manifested in different fo rms, as also described in various other reigions like Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, B udhism, Christianity, Jew ism, etc. Thus the real spirit of secularism in India is all inclusiveness, religious plur

alism and peaceful co-existence. However, it is politics, which proved to be div isive and not religion. It is not religious leaders by and large (with few excep tions) who divide but politicians who seek to mobilise votes on grounds of primo rdial identities like religion, caste and ethnicity. In a multi-religious society, if politics is not based on issues but on identiti es, it can prove highly divisive. Politicians are tempted to appeal to primordia l identities rather than to solve problems. The former case proves much easier. The medieval society in India was thus more religiously tolerant as it was non-c ompetitive. The modern Indian society, on the other hand, has proved to be more divisive as it is based on competition. Thus in case of India one can say by and large it is secular in as much as it is religiously plural and tolerant but there are politically divisive forces quite active and create communal pressure and widen the gap between religious communi ty thus bringing Indian secularism under threat. (Secular Perspective) The history of Indian secularism begin with the protest movements in the 5th cen tury B.C. The three main protest movements were by the Charvakas (a secularistic and materialistic philosophical movement), Buddhism, and Jainism. All three of them rejected the authority of the Vedas and any importance of belief in a deity .[2] However, it was in the 18th century, when the British East India Company began t o gain total control over India that ideas of secularism began to have impact on the Indian mind. Until then, religion was considered to be inseparable from pol itical and social life. On the other hand, the British codified laws pertaining to practices within religions on the sub-continents. To this effect they institu ted separate laws for Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and others as p art of their divide-and-rule policy[citation needed]. In doing so they laid the foundation for a nonuniform civil code which remains largely unchanged to date. This is a major grouse for Hindu politicians who insist that there should be a u niform civil code for all citizens[citation needed]. For example, believers of a ll faiths other than Islam are legally bound to be monogamous while those who pr actice or convert to Islam are permitted up to four marriages, which is therefor e not uniform behavior. RELIGIOUS INDIA DEFEATS SECULAR INDIA A friend recently reminded me that India is a secular state, prompting me to bur st out laughing. It was the funniest thing I had heard since someone used the wo rds "honest" and politician" in the same sentence. If India can accurately be de scribed as "secular," then Mike Tyson is well within his rights to call himself "stable." To be sure, a young India groomed itself as a secular state, one that would not favor a particular religion over another. But the India of 1950 is not the same as the India of 2002, Dev Anand s hairstyle notwithstanding the religi ous hatred that the political leaders of "secular have wrought. If he were to me et Narendra Modi, the IndiaGujarat chief minister who did little to prevent the recent massacre of Muslims, Gandhi would be tempted to set aside nonviolence for a few minutes to give Modi a good beating. Western reporter: "Mr. Gandhi, you b elieve in nonviolence, don t you? Then why did you strike Mr. Modi?" Gandhi: "Mr . Modi turned a blind eye on the slaughter of Muslims. I merely spent a few minutes turning his blind eye into a black eye. Perhaps he can see better now." Reporter: "But Mr. Gandhi, did n t you once say that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind?" Gandh i: "Yes, but I was speaking in general terms. Man cannot live without exceptions ." My dictionary defines secular as "not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body." But even this definition is open to interpretation. It can b e argued, for example, that the BCCI, India s cricket board, is "secular despite the fact that millions of people follow cricket religiously. Not to mention that so many of t hem worship Sachin Tendulkar. But it s harder to argue that the nation is secula r, not when politics and religion are so intertwined, when the ruling BJP is described as a "Hindu nationalist" party, when the government supports militant religious

groups that turn one Indian against another. Under these circumstances, expectin g India to be secular is like expecting Bill Clinton to be celibate. It s virtua lly impossible. We Indians are fond of describing our motherland as the"world s largest democracy," a title that has been earned partly through the efforts of o rdinary people, who routinelyace two major challenges: (1) deciding which politi cal candidate to vote for: the corrupt one or the crazy one; and2. figuring out how to avoid the social worker from the family planning office. We are also fond of describing India as "secular," going so far as to compare it to America, a c ountry where the killer of a Hindu is prosecuted as aggressively as the killer o f a Christian, where the police are required to give equal protection to ordinar y citizens, whether they worship Jesus, Allah, Shiva or Tendulkar. If that remin ds you of India, perhaps you need a few more visits to your psychiatrist. When w estern reporters use the term "Hindu India" or"Hindu-dominated India," some Indi ans are quick to criticize them: "India is a secular country, you morons. It is not like Saudi Arabia, Iran, or, god-forbid, Pakistan." Call me crazy, but I d r ather have a "Hindu India" that values EVERY life than a "secular India" that tu rns its back on religious minorities.

Is India Really A Secular State?

In reading Dr Khalidis article, Why is India not a Secular State, I find that he ha s presented irrefutable points to back his basic premise. My difficulty is large ly with the wording of the title and the conclusive paragraph of his meaningful essay. Yes, in many ways the Muslim and Christian minorities have suffered unequal trea tment at the hands of the state in India. Sikhs suffered only in one phase for a few years mostly in reaction to their own militancy. After that the state moved to ensure that Sikhs do not get away from the Hindu fold. As to Jains and Buddhists, with many commonalities with the Hindu ethos, Indians at large consider them of fshoots of Hinduism, rather than as religious minorities. That leaves only two m inority communities, Muslims and Christians. The unequal treatment of Christians is of recent origin and is limited to a handful of states. Due to their much be tter socioeconomic and educational status and the fear of reaction from Western countries (that have heavy Christian populations), the Indian state has been car eful in handling Christians. That leaves Muslims as the only religious minority that has suffered unequal tre atment since 1947. Why are Muslims the victims? 1. The creation of Pakistan as a homeland for the subcontinents Muslims in 1947 a nd then the aggressive/militant actions of Pakistan against India. In the last 2 5 years the random terrorist attacks on civilians in India. All this has kept th e pot boiling against Indian Muslims and the reaction against Muslims continuing . In the decade preceding 1947 the Muslim League campaign of th Two Nation ideo o damage Hindu-Muslim relations for a long time to come among the Hindus. 2. Total silence from 53 Muslim countries (other than Pakistan) to say even one word against any of the worst oppression and harassment of masses of Muslims and their institutions in 60 years. Many of the energy rich Muslim countries have c ontinued to supply oil/gas at preferential terms to India and have continued to give lucrative contracts to Indian companies. Thus Indian Hindus are quite sure that Indian Muslims have no international sympathizers 3. The resurgence of religion based politics initiated by BJP in the early 1980s ; other groups picked up on it and a sort of competition began among them to bec ome more aggressive against Muslims. 4. The Congress partys Vote Bank politics directed at Muslims where the party mad e all sorts of cosmetic gestures just before every national election without giv ing any real help to improve the communitys security or socioeconomic situation. In the last decade other regional parties and even Communists have picked up thi

s strategy and are benefitting from it. 5. The international Islamophobic environment following 9/11/2001 and the irrati onal terrorist acts of a handful of Muslims. This has given an opportunity to th e anti-Muslim elements in the Indian Government to develop discriminatory polici es against Muslims. 6. The continued poor socioeconomic and educational status of the Muslim communi ties that prevents integration at equal level of Muslims with others in the coun try at large. The Western Secular Countries In the US the state has tried to be inclusive towards Muslims and Hindus; beginn ing the sessions of Congress with prayers of religions other than Christianity. Allowing religious symbols of religions other than Christianity, adequate public display in the holiday season in November/December each year; Calling the religio us observances as holidays. The power structure in US constantly tries not to let religion seep into the political or state apparatus and there are plenty of watc hdogs to ensure that. We must remember that the people of India continue to be seriously attached to r eligion and the role of God in their daily lives per se, as opposed to the Weste rn countries where the majority of people today have very little attachment to r eligion or the role of God in their daily lives. Religion plays a very important role in the daily lives of even the well to do intelligentsia and others in Ind ia. That is our national ethos. In contrast most people in the West have given u p attachment to religion at least since World War II. The basic ethos of the Wes tern society has changed over to material pursuits, science & technology, belief in their own prowess, as opposed to the role of God in their lives. Natural cal amities in the West are hardly ever described as Acts of God. Today the faith of t he common people in God or prayer is at very low level. Irreligiosity is common place. The same is true about most countries in Europe. The state after all reflects th e public opinion at large and those who operate the organs and agencies of the s tate come from the common populace. Thus with ireeligiosity common place it is e asier to separate the state from the church in real practice in the Western coun tries. On the contrary in India most people who operate the state being Hindus, reflecting the 85% majority population in the country, bring in their ethos of p utting their religion in the state apparatus. The picture of the secular and religiously tolerant Western countries though has developed some cracks since the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in US of 2001 and th e terrorist attacks in London and Madrid. In their pursuit to make their countri es safe from terrorist attacks many centers of power including the state apparat us in the Western countries are falling prey to the Islamophobic attitudes of th e small number of zealots. Thus Muslims are being painted in the media in the We stern countries as sympathetic to reactionary and violent elements. Yet in symbo lic and public policy matters the state apparatus in Western countries does allo w Muslims a role. And there is optimism for the improvement of the civic situati on of Muslims in the West in the years to come. Is India Secular? In India 60 years of experience shows that attitudes against equal space for all religions has hardened in an India which started out in 1947 with a tryst with destin ld a secular state as Jawaharlal Nehru so eloquently promised. After 60 years of numerous failures to give equal space to the Muslim and Christian minorities in the state apparatus, and the policies of successive governments to look the oth er way as these failures become standard operating procedure, one can only say t hat while the Indian state believes in being secular and holds on to that theore tical premise, it does not make much effort to prevent its failure and constantl y looks the other way when transgressions occur. Of the three organs of the stat e, executive, legislative, judiciary and the media the fourth, while the record of t first two, namely executive and legislative is pretty sullied with repeated tran sgressions of secularism, the record of the other two in upholding secularism, n amely the judiciary and the media, is quite bright. Also in public pronouncement s most political and civic parties and the power structure do constantly refer t

o the importance of secularism as a national creed. Thus while I may not conclude that India is not a secular state, I may prefer to say that I have doubts about the extent to which the Indian state tries to be s ecular.

Why India is not a Secular State The world community has rightly regarded Pakistan and Bangladesh as examples of theocratic states practicing policies of harsh discrimination against Hindus and other minorities. Sri Lankas Singhala-centric policies have generated gross disc rimination against its Tamil citizens. Beyond Indias South Asian neighbourhood, n umerous Islamic states such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia follow unjust polici es toward minorities of all kinds that are an affront to civilized values everyw here and at all times. India in contrast is seen as a shining example of a secul ar state. With the Republic Day just gone by, it is time to ask: But is India really a sec ular state? I do not think so. Political secularism may be defined as the separation of religious activities fr om those of the state, customarily referred to as "the separation of church and state" in the west. Secularism in theory then would mean that religion and state cannot occupy the same space. The state in its governmental capacity does not p romote any religion or religious group, nor does it intervene in religious affai rs. It cannot even be involved in interpretation or "reform" of any religion muc h less favour one over any other. This model of secularism may be characterized as maximum separation between state and religion except on manifest grounds of m orality, health, and public order. Theoretical formulation, interpretation, and implementation of secularism have varied in several countries. In Indian context , the votaries of Hindutva equate it with appeasement of minorities, thus "pseud o-secularism." Apologists of Indian secularism call it "religious equi-distance, not non-involvement," meaning that Indian state is neutral between religions an d religious communities. I demonstrate that in practice, Indian state actually privileges Hinduism over o ther religions and religious communities. The Indian state is in fact the defend er of the dharma for the following five reasons. 1: Constitutional Discrimination Article 25 (2) of the constitution calls for providing "social welfare and refor m and throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of public character to all c lasses and sections of Hindus." Indias constitution does not define who or what i s a Hindu, but it defines followers of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism as Hindus f or purposes of Hindu temple entry. Article 25 (2) (b) (Explanation II) states: " the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons p rofessing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion" Isnt this the concern of Brahmin establishment to allow or disallow whoever they deem fit to enter a temple? Why should a secular state be concerned with the soc ial welfare of only one religion? The motive of the constitution writers was obv ious: to prevent the conversion of Dalits to Christianity or Islam, to "reform" Hinduism to make it palatable to the former untouchables. The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 applies to (a) any person who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developmen ts, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or A rya Samaj; (b) to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion, and (c) to any person domiciled in the territories who is not a Muslim, Christia n, Parsi or Jew by religion. In other words, legally there is no such thing as a Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh marr iage, which is another attempt to deny other religions a distinctive identity an

d absorb them in the Hindu fold. The Office of the Registrar General that conducts the decennial census enumerate s anyone who is not a Christian, Muslim or Parsi as Hindu, most particularly in tribal areas, in pursuance of a policy of Hindu by default to inflate the religi ous majority. Article 290A of the Constitution, which was added in 1956, provides for Kerala s tate funds to be paid for the upkeep of Hindu temples and shrines in the territo ries of former princely state of Tranvancore. What state but a denominational on e would spend government funds to promote a particular religion? [As an aside, a forest has been destroyed in arguing for a uniform civil code as opposed to Muslim Personal Law and the issue of Haj subsidy. But perhaps I can save those issues for a full discussion at a different time] 2: Legislative Discrimination Although freedom of religion is granted under the constitutions Article 25 (1), a Congress government of Madhya Pradesh pioneered anti-conversion legislation dur ing the heyday of Nehru in 1954. Since then as many as 7 state legislatures (Aru nachal, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tripura) have pas sed laws severely restricting conversion from Hinduism to other religions while facilitating conversion to Hinduism. In 1982, when a few hundred Dalits embraced Islam in Meenakshipuram, the central government took measures to curb conversions. No less than Indira Gandhi charac terized conversions as a threat to national security. Christian missions and churches have been under attack since decades, often with state complicity as demonstrated in August-September 2008 in Orissa and Karnata ka. Hundreds of mosques are in illegal possession nationwide including in New Delhi, where scores are occupied by the central government. It was a Congress government that first locked up the Babari Mosque in 1949 by c ourt order effectively converting it into a Hindu temple. What began under Nehru was successfully completed by Narasimha Rao in 1992 through the Mosques destruct ion under the very nose of army, paramilitary and police. It is ironic that the Indian state is ready to deploy army to flush out Sikh insurgents from Golden Te mple and Muslim rebels from Charar-i Sharif, but not protect Babari Mosque from the Hindu mobs jack hammers. The states of Gujarat and UP spent government funds to rebuild the Somanatha Tem ple around the same time when Babari Mosque was locked up. It was President Raje ndra Prasad who inaugurated the rebuilt temple in 1951 amidst official fanfare. 3: Employment Discrimination Article 16 (2) of the constitution prohibits discrimination in public employment on religious grounds. Yet there are numerous examples of outright discriminatio n. Per Presidential orders of 1950 and 1956 the beneficiaries of Scheduled Caste s reservation can only be Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists but not Christians and Musl ims. If an SC changes religion after obtaining employment or admission to school , he or she must forfeit job and withdraw from school as has happened in numerou s instances. But if the SC reverts to Hinduism, he or she can resume his/her sta tus as an SC as courts have ruled. Discrimination in Army Right after 1947, Kashmirs predominantly Hindu army was absorbed in the national army; whereas Hyderabads largely Muslim army was disbanded, rendering nearly 20,0 00 jobless. The Indian armys infantry regiments are still based on religion (Sikh regiments), or ethnicity (Gorkha) or caste (Rajput) or region (Garhwal) in whic h members of other faiths, ethnicities, and regions are barred. While a bearded Sikh may become chief of the army staff as did Gen. J.J. Singh, a Muslim may not sport beard in any of the armed forces. Only Jhatka is served in army messes and langers forcing Muslims to become vegetarian. A Hanuman templ e greets visitors upon entering virtually every cantonment in the nation, hintin g non-Hindus that they dont belong there. In their public addresses to the soldie rs and officers, at least two army chiefsGenerals B.C. Joshi and Shankar Roy Chow dhuryhave used references to Hindu scriptures to the exclusion of the Quran and t he Bible.

4: Cultural Discrimination There are numerous examples where Hindu culture is conflated with Indian culture . The ban on cow slaughter deprived thousands of butchers their livelihood even as it stole millions of poor their only source of inexpensive protein. Cow may b e sacred to the upper castes, but not so to the Christians, Dalits, and Muslims. Food taboos of some higher castes do not end at beef. Beyond beef, eggs may not be sold publicly by court order as it offends some caste sensibilities. Nor can school children bring food of their choice if it offends Hindus. Official functions of the government whether at the central or state levels ofte n commence with Hindu ceremonies of lighting lamps, breaking coconuts, and recit ation of slokas. There is no disapproval to the fact that functions of central a nd state ministries of education begin with Sarasvati vandana . In September 1993, Air India took delivery of a Boeing 747 in Seattle, Washingto n where the Ramakrishna Mission performed a puja invoking Lord Ganesha. Minister s lay foundation stones of government buildings preceded by bhoomi puja ceremony as if the state belongs only to Hindus. In Vishakhapatnam, I witnessed a ship l aunch amid saffron-robed, ashen faced sadhus singing bhajans, a function nearly mistaken as a Hindu festival. In a trip to the United States in 1984, AP Chief Minister N.T. Ramarao found not hing objectionable in spending government funds for distributing medallions with Sri Venkateshwaras image among potential investors in his state. A large stone image of a reclining Vishnu located at the entrance to the IGPs hea dquarters in Bangalore is more fitting for a temple than a secular states police building. Almost every police thana in West Bengal has a Kali temple, none has a mosque in a state with nearly 30 percent Muslim population. Muslim police train ees in Andhra Pradesh, School children in Gujarat, Maharashtra and numerous other states have been forc ed to perform Surya namaskar against their will. Government school texts in Hind i and regional languages assume all pupils to be Hindu as the contents are soake d with idioms, phrases, signs, symbols, and icons of Hinduism to the exclusion o f material from other religions and cultures. Textbooks of history and social st udies are replete with gross distortions of Indian history of all eras, ancient, medieval and modern, in which Muslims and Christians are invariably the villain s, traitors and foreigners. Until the advent of television in the 1980s, All India Radio was the main source of information and entertainment to middle classes. The government-controlled A IR began its programs with Vande Mataram, Mangala dhwani, Vandana, and Hindu lyr ics. Rarely did AIR broadcast anything pertaining to Christian or Muslim culture s. Like the AIR, during its heyday, seldom does Door Darshan show any serials of Muslim or Christian character.When it broadcasted serials of historical or lite rary figuresTipu Sultan, Ghalibthey were caricatured into modern stock characters stripped of their distinctive cultural identity. 5: Religious Pogroms Finally no modern, secular democracy other than India experienced multiple, stat e-sponsored pogromsthat of Sikhs in 1984 and of Muslims in 2002. In both instance s, the highest in the Executive branch of the government justified the pogroms: Rajiv Gandhi when his mother was murdered; and Narendra Modi when the train burn ed in Godhra. For all these five reasons, India is not a secular state. It is in fact the defe nder of Hindu dharma.