Boastful Secularism

India. A country with mind boggling diversity with 18 official languages spoken. ' The Indian subcontinent ' as it is geographically mentioned, has a culture that changes along the landscape from the high mountains of the north to the beautiful beaches in south, from the deserts in the west to the rainy tea plantations in the east.

The 21st century, dominated by western influence in terms of economic and military might, pervading media and lifestyle, is a time marked by violence, religious extremism, and radicalism. So how does a country of 1.1 billion religiously diverse people living in multi-ethnic society evolve around the seeds of polarisation, demanding religious unification as opposed to Nationalism ?

President Bush had asked the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington, just how it was that in a country with 130 million Muslims, not one could be linked to the Al Qaida. What did India have, he wanted to know, that other countries didn't? How did India manage to save its people from the seeds of radicalism spreading in the rest of the world ?

India is a secular country. The word secular was inserted into the Preamble by the 42nd amendment act of 1976. It implies equality of all religions and religious tolerance. India, therefore does not have an official state religion.

Curiously enough, India does not have Common Civil Code. Constitution of India lays down the administration of a uniform civil code for its citizens as a Directive Principle, but has not been implemented till now. In India, there exists a peculiar situation where the opponents of the secular law are called "Secularists" while those in favour of a secular law are termed "communalists" or even "fascists".

Somehow, the diversity in the country became a way of life and acceptance became rooted in the values of society. Polarisation however, showed its ugly head in numerous incidences where ' vote bank politics ' took over and a dangerous precedent was set where in a diverse democracy, one simply makes himself leader of a majority of people by dividing them on communal lines.

No country can distance itself from what happens in the rest of the word. The tensions that spark go beyond the physical boundaries and no society in any part of the world can be nonchalant to it. In a emerging economy like India, it is extremely important to not be boastful about its secularism without being progressive in its democratic structure.

Otherwise, it will just get swept away in a wild storm that grew right under its nose. A monster eating away fruits of the struggle the country had to endure, to reach where it is today, on the brink of greatness in the coming century.