PM ATTACKS SECULARISTS, SECOND TIME ABROAD

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has for the second time during his foreign travels attacked ‘secularists’ at home overturning convention that restrained political leaders representing the government of India from speaking on domestic issues abroad.

In Berlin,Germany, the Prime Minister attacked the ‘secularists’ for coming in the way of the promotion of Sanskrit in India, in a statement that was not entirely based on historical fact. "I must applaud the Germans, they had Sanskrit news bulletins...our country didn't... because of secularism...," the PM said. And added, "India's secularism is not so weak that it will be shaken just because of a language. One should have self-confidence. That should not be shaken."

The context was probably the controversy raised by his own Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani by replacing German with Sanskrit in schools, a move that was revoked amidst controversy and had the Prime Minister telephoning German Chancellor Angela Merkel to mend fences. However PM Modi did not elaborate on this, and instead used the issue to needlessly state a popular perception in the Indian right that secularists at home had and were stopping the promotion of Sanskrit. Incidentally the Sanskrit Commission to promote the language was set up by late PM Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi during her tenure, directed All India Radio to start broadcasts in Sanskrit.

This is the second attack by PM Modi on secularists while travelling abroad. In Japan while presenting a copy of the Gita to the Emperor he said,"Our secular friends will create a 'toofan' (storm) that what does Modi think of himself? He has taken a Gita with him that means he has made this one also communal." Again comments that did not behove the Prime Minister of India who pitted himself against the ‘secularists’ at home without reason.

PM Modi’s attack on secularists comes even as political leaders whose governments are in power in the states or at the centre join issue with the minorities in recent days.

“If Muslims are only being used.. to play politics, they can never develop. Muslims will have no future till they are used for vote bank politics… Balasaheb (Thackeray) had once said voting rights of Muslims should be withdrawn. What he said is right.” : editorial in Shiv Sena journal Saamana.

“There’s a threat to the country’s Hindus due to the rising population of Muslims and Christians in India”: Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut.

“Bharat Ratna had been awarded to someone like Mother Teresa ten years before B R Ambedkar. Its cause for worry”: RSS general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi.

Abuse, hate, vitriol now forms an orchestrated campaign against “sickularists”, the minorities, and the dissenters who dare question the government on any issue with thousands of trolls swamping the social media with odious comments and personal attacks. Comments by political leaders such as the above feed into a certain legitimisation of such campaigns that question those who are on the side of democracy and secularism instead of pillorying those seeking to divide Indian communities by pitting one icon against another to polarise sentiment.

Joshi’s remarks also make a needless comparison between two icons Ambedkar and Mother Teresa, the one a political leader and the second a religious missionary who transcended religion through her social service. In making this comparison Joshi has basically sought to propagate the Dalit versus the Christian argument, of the first being discriminated against by the second.