We will understand our secularists’ mindset better if we acknowledge the fact that Islam is very much involved here, either as Islamophobia or as Islamophilia. Egypt-born Islamic-scholar Bat Ye’or, who has studied Christian and Jewish societies, called this meek mindset as dhimmitude that never questions its inferior status vis-à-vis Muslims.
According to her: “Dhimmitude derives from the surrender of the Christian clergy and political leaders to the Muslim jihad armies, and their submission to Islamic domination of both their lands and peoples. In exchange, they received a pledge of protection ('dhimma') from the Muslim sovereign - and the cessation of the jihad war. This "protection" was conditioned on a ransom payment (jizya) that was extorted from the vanquished Christian and Jewish populations (dhimmis). Sometimes, Christian submission to Islam was rooted in personal ambition. Dhimmitude often induced self-hatred, and hatred against Jews and Christians who resisted the jihad and Muslim domination. Christian dhimmitude has been a world force for Islamization throughout history.”
Hindus too have a similar history. And a section of the Hindu society was also subjected to the force of Dhimmah. “I realize that my study of dhimmitude remains incomplete,” says Bat Ye’or, “ because it is limited to Jews and Christians. It should be supplemented by the dhimmitude of the Zoroastrians, located in an inferior category, and that of Buddhists and Hindus, considered as idolaters. A few books on this subject have recently been published in India. The picture they paint is similar to that of regions to the west of the Indian subcontinent.”
In the Indian context, I called our secularism, which is nothing but the manifestation of Hindu-dhimmitude mindset, as dhimmitva in my writings.
There are many attempts to equate Indian secular mindset with the vote-bank politics. But they cuold not prove its reliability because the pro-Islam secularists do not abandon their brand of “secularism” even if they do not get the votes of Muslims. This is a very curious-mindset, which has nothing to do with the original concept of secularism.
Originally secularism was a political concept that took shape in nineteenth century Europe as a revolt against the Church’s dominance over the affairs of the State. Secularism secured independence to the State from the control of the Church. So, essentially it is a power of the State that intends to give equal rights to all citizens without bothering about their religious faiths.
But unlike Christians and Muslims, Hindus never had a theocratic state of their own. They had never known theocracy till the advent of Islamic rule in this country. Hindu secularism was not born, with the new Constitution of India, in 1950, nor in 1976 when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inserted the word “secularism” in the preamble of the Constitution after putting the whole nation in the state of emergency.
In fact, Sanathana Dharma, the original name of Hinduism, has always supported pluralistic society anf traditions. It is absolutely not possible for it to proclaim a state religion and impose it by force. Dharma is not a concept that can be imposed through fraudulent means or through the power of the sword.
Contrast Sanatana Dharma with Islam. Islam has a fully developed theory and the apparatus of a theocratic state. In fact, it is not possible to spread Islam without any theocratic means. Except Turkey, no Islamic state has encountered a revolt from within, in such a scale, which can separate Islam from the affairs of the state. Because Islam accepts or knows no political system other than theocracy. It is very difficult to retain Islamic beliefs for a long time in pure secular environments where natural human instincts and reason have credence over unverifiable faiths. So, in order to sustain its original militant nature, Islam needs artificial support systems within a secular set-up.
And Gandhi’s secularism was one of such artificial support systems. In India, the Gandhian-secularism was the first major perversion of the original concept. Since religion was not a private matter to him, Gandhi’s secularism was not a separation of State and religion. In fact, his brand of secularism was a blind-worship of all religions and it believed that it was the primary duty of all to extend equal respect to all religions, no matter what their claims were.
In the name of communal amity, Gandhi created an illusion of Hindu-Muslim unity and developed and introduced a method to achieve it. Under his method, Hindus had to sacrifice everything and tolerate all sorts of demands and actions of Muslims. This illusion dragged him to support even the Khilafat movement, which was nothing but an Islamist revivalism that took thousands of Hindu lives.
From his flawed theory of equal-respect-to-all-religions-is-secularism, Gandhi quickly marched towards the-essence-of-all-religions-are-actually-one-and-the-same theory and powerfully propagated it. And that was a great myth, which still haunts Hindus.
But it was Marxists who gave the grand theory of Minorityism to the whole world. Indian Marxists gave it to the British-rulers and to the Congress Party. Even today, the Congress Party, which has no ideology of its own, draws heavily from the far left.
Marxists, whose global support to the cause of Jihad is well known now, successfully created an impression that in India, the minorities, especially Muslims, are living under the mercy of a Hindu majority. That gave rise to the two-nation theory and culminated in the partition of the country in 1947.
Now, the secularism means protection of minorities against the majority. Secularism has become a system that gives more and more special rights to the “minorities”. It even fodders the fire of separatism. So, Indian secularism is no more than an anti-Hindu doctrine. All those who want to destroy Hindu culture and society support it.
The motive of dhimmitva forces is to serve the religious line of Islam. Like Islam, this dhimmi-secularism also has a deep thread of intolerance toward unbelievers of this kind of dhimmi ideology, especially if those unbelievers are believed to be a threat to the religious ambitions of Islam.
The fact that these dhimmis are working tirelessly in support of the most intolerant, aggressive and fundamentalist part of Islam cannot be ignored. Take Jihad for example. This war is responsible for the creation of dhimmis throughout the world.
As Bat Ye’or rightly says, non-Muslims have to criticize the prejudices and laws, which, over the centuries, reduced them to a humiliating subhuman conditions. But strangely, if you start asking questions on the doctrine of Jihad, the very next moment they will brand you as a “communal” fanatic, and even a terrorist who is trying to malign and swallow a peace loving minority religion!
Of course, this is a standard response of a Jihadi activist. So, the voice of a fanatic Islamist finds itself replicated in “secular” mouths! But no secularist will mind if you make any number of statements against Hinduism. They can tolerate any number of unfair criticisms against Hinduism, but no fair criticism on Islam is tolerated. In their eagerness to serve their Islamic masters’ aspirations and ambitions they needlessly denigrate their own religion, Hinduism.
This is so, because dhimmitva agrees with the Muslim notion of Islam’s infallibility. So, dhimmis-secularists never question Muhammad’s code. They do not allow anyone to discuss about Islam frankly and openly like one discusses Hinduism. Of course, you can praise it! But there is no room for dissent and no room for doubt.
Even Muslims who criticize militant Islam are not spared. Note that how Salman Rushdie was vehemently opposed for his novel The Satanic Verses.
There is no room in secular psyche for different perspectives, even from Muslims themselves! In his book, Muslim Politics in India, Hamid Dalwai, a Muslim writer, sums up his experience thus: “A Hindu is used to playing several roles and he is an expert in assuming different forms on different occasions. I have already referred to Hindu intellectuals and given the due praise. But I must frankly state that there is a kind of Hindu who is always terrified when he thinks of Muslims. This is no doubt a shameful state of affairs. At every critical moment this particular type of Hindu pretends to be more of a Muslim than a Muslim himself, and thwarts the attempts of those who are trying to make the average Muslim less of a fanatic”.
Suhail Ahmad Banglori, another Muslim scholar, adds: “The model behaviour expected from the dhimmis is one of submission, and acceptance of all the disabilities imposed upon them. As a reaction to the terror, Hindus, as dhimmis, feel with respect to Islam, they have practiced being inoffensive to Muslims over the centuries, and seek the Umma’s approval or avoid the Umma’s displeasure. If they organise themselves at all, it is on platforms, which the Umma certifies as permissible. Hindus thus cannot formparties on a Hindu platform, whereas the Muslim League lives on in India, after partition, without even a cosmetic change of name.”
Because their mind was subjected to severe suppression under Islamic rule. They not only submitted to Muslim power, but also, in due course deeply internalized the perfect dhimmi mind-set. They lost their reason, self-respect and even self-identity. They never consider Hindus as equal to Muslims. They never care if Hindus would be left with lesser rights than Muslims, which is the actual position imposed by the Indian Constitution of 1950, which also saw several pro-Islamic amendments. Even if it is lesser dignity, they don’t mind. Like true believers, they never put Islam under critical examination as it is “blasphemous”. And they have no courage to refuse the decision of ijma, which is the consensus of the Islamic community, ummah.
The subjugation of reason and judgment and even conscience to the dictates of Islamic dogma has led Indian secularists to perform crazy acts, all in the name of secularism.¨
(c) G. Anil Kumar 2003.
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