Definitions and deviations

With Babri Masjid leaders believing that Vajpayee's latest statement on the Ayodhya temple shattered his liberal image even as MDMK's Vaik...

With Babri Masjid leaders believing that Vajpayee8217;s latest statement on the Ayodhya temple shattered his liberal image even as MDMK8217;s Vaiko vouched for the PM8217;s quot;secularismquot; IE, Dec. 11 time has again come to define quot;secularquot; 8212; the word that8217;s been mouthed a million times and more since Indira Gandhi put it in our Constitution8217;s Preamble in 1976, without bothering to define it.

It still remains undefined though Supreme Court Justice H.R.Khanna did do so in his pronouncement in the Kesavananda case, 1973. He wrote that the quot;secular character of the Statequot; meant quot;the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on the ground of religion onlyquot;. In 1977 a widely talked definition of quot;secularismquot; was quot;equal respect to all religionsquot; 8212; sarva dharma samabhava. The Morarji Desai government included it in its Constitutional Amendment Bill of 1978 that defined quot;secular republicquot; to mean a quot;republic in which there is equal respect for all religionsquot;. What ever happened to that definition in that Bill? The Lok Sabha passed it but the Rajya Sabha did not 8212; the Congress Party had the numbers there and voted it down. Clearly, the Congress wanted quot;secularquot; and quot;secularismquot; to be vague in meaning for its vote banks. All non-BJP parties have followed that pattern. The quot;secularquot; media have, alas, acquiesced.

This imprecision has had peculiar consequences. Thus, the Civil Aviation ministry8217;s subsidy of Rs 112 crores for Haj charters in 2000-2001 is quot;secularism quot;, not appeasement of minorities. So are those Rs 11.50 crores provided for modernisation of madarsa education in the ongoing Budget. But even asking for a temple at Ramjanmabhoomi is quot;communalquot;. Indeed, after citing a host of judicial decisions on Article 30, the noted legal author M.P. Jain wrote, quot;The position as it has developed is that institutions of general education established and administered by religious or linguistic minorities enjoy a much more privileged position than those run by the majority 8230; It stands to reason whether such a result was envisaged by the framers of the Constitutionquot; Indian Constitutional Law, 1994, Wadhwa amp; Co. Publishers.

So what in fact was envisaged in our Constituent Assembly? At least two efforts were made to seek a specific mention of the principles of quot;secularismquot; in the Constitution. One wanted to ensure that no law could be made which discriminates between man and man on the basis of religion, or applies to adherents of any one religion and leaves others untouched. Ambedkar summarily rejected all such amendments. Speaking later on the Hindu Code Bill in Parliament, he made it amply clear that our Constitution was not secular considering that it allowed different treatment to various communities and the legislatures could frame separate laws for different communities. Ambedkar was, after all, an honest man.

Six years ago, an equally honest and honourable man defined quot;secularismquot;. In an interview to PTI on October 31, 1994, he said, quot;Secularism cannot mean anti-majority.quot; That man is former Chief Justice of India, N.Venkatachaliah. Much obliged, your honour, much obliged.