Hypocrisy and Secularism

Hypocrisy: 

According to Cambridge Dictionary Hypocrisy refers to “a situation in which someone pretends to believe something that they do not really believe, or that is the opposite of what they do or say at another time”

To all those people who will be reading this, I would like to clarify that I don’t mean to hurt any sentiments or any religion or caste or a specific person. 

Now you must be thinking that why are we even talking about hypocrisy. Well we are a nation full of hypocrites. The Indian state is intensely hypocritical. In the modern world, medievalism still exists. The very best example of medievalism is the use of hypocrisy by the state, the “promises” made to keep alive the hope that one day things will change for better. There are many state hypocrisies but the major one and perhaps the most hypocritical thing is about the concept secularism. 

Secularism: 

According to Cambridge dictionary Secularism refers to “the belief that religion should not be involved with the ordinary social and political activities of a country”. The word itself suggests that India has no official religion and it respects all the religions. 

India has always been an epicenter for religions. Moreover India was also one of the few countries where religion did not face any anti-semitism. In addition, the country has the world's largest Muslim population. It wouldn't be wrong to call India one of the most religiously diverse countries with the world's largest democracy but the political parties have always tried their best to create an environment of discrimination and class-based system in the society. One of the biggest hypocrisy is the Constitutional provision that religion does not matter for State policy formulation and execution. Everything points to a different truth. There have been infinite scenarios where hypocrisy could be sensed. For example, Renaming of Allahabad to Prayagraj and Renaming of Mughalsarai railway station to Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Junction. 

The “visibility” of low pan- Indian representation of Muslims in government and the decreasing levels of communication between the two major communities since 1947. Sad but this is the reality. This religious dichotomies in a form of hatred is increasing and the only way to solve this is to accept the facts and work on how to narrow this. These political groups have made nothing but  a mockery of the whole concept of secularism by showing their love and support to the people on the basis of the religion they follow. All this support of discrimination and fake promises lead to increase in Violence and political riots For example, In the year 2018, the Jat riots, the rioters removed the statue of Goddess Saraswati (The Hindu religion refers to Saraswati as the Goddess of wisdom and knowledge, a deity accorded great respect)  before they set a school on fire.  Isn’t it ironic. 

 People refer to religion as ‘a way of life’, a peaceful life at that. If the same religions are not turned into ego clouds, then the situation might appear less grim. The country needs to wake up from this and to all the liberals out there, instead of trying to prove others wrong should actually start acting like a real secularist.Otherwise, our country from being united by diversity will stand divided.