How secular is India?

I read an interesting article in Outlook magazine,questioning the very fact whether India is a secular country of not. IndianMuslims blog also had a post on the same topic.These article raise many questions. Not all of them are correct. But still, they are worth reading. It is advisable that the readers first go through the original article, before reading this post. I would like to raise some counter points:

1. These articles compare India with the West. What about comparing India with other Islamic states none of whom have any credible record of protecting their minorities.
   
2. India does have well functioning media and Judiciary, which are largely impartial. These provide ample opportunities to Muslims to raise their grievances. The same cannot be said about the police force though.
   
3. Conversion to Christianity by Tribals in India: During the British rule, there was an aggressive proselytizing by Christian missionaries. This is a natural cause of resentment who feel that their cultures were being attacked. This was one of the several causes of the revolt of 1857. In many cases, it has been alleged that the tribal have been offered emoluments for their conversion. The efforts of Christian Missionaries to build hospitals and schools is laudable, but they could do this without indulging in conversion drives. Just to fair, let me also add that another major reason for conversion is avoid discrimination in the rigid Hindu caste system. BR Ambedkar is a classic example who himself converted to Buddhisim after he was frustrated with the caste system. A large number of Dalits have similarly converted to Christianity. Never the less, this should not always be seen as non- secular behavior.
4. Muslims atleast partly are to be blamed for their present conditions. A large section of Muslims still send their kids to Madarassas for eduction, thus denying them of modern education. This is one of the major reasons why they are so under-represented in Govt. service and police force. For ex: In Jammu & Kashmir, Kashmiri Pandits occupy most of the positions in the State Govt. service despite being a muslim-dominated state. Hindus are the more properous community of the state. It is extremely important for the Muslim to do an introspection and find out the reasons as to why the community is lagging. Other minorities like the Christians have been doing much better than the Hindu-majority.
5. Several individuals like Azim Premji, APJ Abdul Kalam, Irfan Pathan, the Khans of Bollywood have won several accolades in their fields.
   
6. Arjun Singh, the man who brought reservations in higher education has recently brought Madrassa education at par with CBSE thus enabling Muslims of Govt service. The rationality of this step is still a question because Madarassa education is based on Islamic teachings and is devoid of modern rational sciences. The curriculum of madarassas need to be revised to make a real impact.
7. The Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education (UPBME) has recently banned co-education. This is a step in the backward direction. Though only about 2000 of the total of 16000 madarassas in Up are attached to UPBME, it does not sends the right signals. It is up to the liberal muslims to raise this issue and to make sure that the 150 million strong Muslim community catches up with the rest of the population.
8. Secularism in its presence sense is a much more recent phenomenon and should be looked in relative terms. For example: US President Obama who has Hussain as his middle name and whose father practices Islam, himself is a Christian. Similarly, Bobby Jindal (Indian American origin) converted to Christianity. He was elected as the Governor of Louisiana, the first Indian American to do so.
   

Nevertheless, its disappointing to hear such voices from the Indian Muslims. If even after 60 years, we haven't been able to fully meet the aspirations of all our people, surely we have gone wrong somewhere. Something ought to be done to check this disillusionment among the Indian Muslims. Incidents like Babri-Masjid and Godhra riots continue to remain a blot on our democracy. But hardly anything substantial has been done to make sure that such incidents are not repeated.

Muslims have been a part of the Indian society for centuries and their contribution to the society will always remain invaluable. Can you imagine an India without the Taj Mahal?

Will Elections 2009 be any different

The countdown to the General Elections has begun after a meeting of the Election Commission with all the major political parties, even as the controversy regarding Navin Chawla, who is slated to takeover as the next CEC, refuses to die down.

So, will these elections be any different?

The one aspect that will make a difference is the increase in the representation of the urban voter with respect to rural voter because of delimitation of the constituencies. Delimitation of constituencies is the process of redefining the boundaries of the constituencies to reflect changes in the population pattern. The present constituencies were carved out in 1976. Since then, our demographic pattern has changed and population of the cities has grown from 13% to 28% (2001 census). However, till now only 13% if the Lok Sabha seats were representing 28% if the population. For instance, the Chandni Chowk seat had 3.5 lakh voters while Outer Delhi has 35 lakh voter, clearly defeating the principle of one vote one value. With such a scenario, its no wonder that the politician never bothered about the middle class. Vice-versa the middle class never bothered either because his vote would have hardly make a difference.

But delimitation will change that and would ensure that there isn't vast difference between the number of people every seat would represent. It would also increase the number of seats representing urban voter to more than double(28% from 13%). However there is still a catch here. The population of some of the states like Tamil Nadu hasn't grown that much while that of Bimaru states like UP have grown tremendously. So a uniform delimitation would have actually decreased the relative representation of states such as Tamil Nadu. It would have meant penalizing such states for the progress they have made on the population front and HDI index. Therefore, the number of seats of every state remains unchanged. What will change is the boundaries of the constituencies and number of urban constituencies.

For instance, sitting Congress MP Sachin Pilot will now have to look for another seat as his Dausa constituency in Rajasthan has been reserved for Scheduled Castes. Union minister Kapil Sibal, whose Chandni Chowk constituency has expanded to approximately four times of its present strength, will now have to factor in the aspirations of the new population that has been added. There are many such cases. Somnath Chatterjee will have to forget his Bolpur seat in West Bengal and Mayawati her Akbarpur stronghold (Akbarpur has been put into the general category). (Source)

Delimitation was originally supposed to happen every 10 years as per the constitution, but it was banned in 1976 till the first census of 2000.

In the last elections, the Congress got only 145 seats while BJP got just 138 seats. The delimitation would benefit the two national parties because unlike the rest of the country where general elections are fought on local issues, the cities are more likely to vote on national issues. The delimitation may also alter the power structure among alliances in various states. For example, the BJP in Orissa wants to fight more seats.

Surely, the political power structure has changed. But will it actually translate to any gain, only time will tell. The rural voter still dominates with 72% of the vote.

Swaminathan Aiyar seems to agree with me

By no means, I would dare to call myself as a political analyst. Yet my predictions seem to be extremely close to what Swaminathan S Ankleshwar Aiyar has written says in today's Sunday Times. Almost three months ago, I had predicted Mayawati as the next Prime Minister. Here is the link to my original post. The points in both articles are different and complementary, and point towards the same conclusion.

However, I don't expect the Mayawati led Govt. to more than two years in office. Probably, by Rahul would the Prime-Ministerial candidate while for BJP, Modi could be in fray. Given the recession, probably I should seriously consider Psephology as a career option.