State & Church

Disclaimer : Just my opinion ; this is not history, atleast not yet !

Rewind:
Ever since humans set foot on the face of the earth, faith and religion has been an integral part of one's life.

Once politics became a profession, workers felt the need to make decisions on their own and be independent of religious forces. The simplest thing they came up with was 'Secularism'- which simply meant everyone had the freedom to practise their own faith - and an indirect way of telling religious forces to 'back-off'. Politicians now had the freedom to do what they want :-) they could 'divide and rule' or even simply just 'divide' and NOT rule :-))

Current:
Indian politics can also be called 'politics of religion', where, as in most democracies, many people don't exercise their duty of voting towards the betterment of the democratic process in the country.

Politicians are as shrewd as they can get. They could get most people to vote, but would still not be sure whether their party would garner a specific percentage of the vote.

They decided to appeal to the psychology of peole, who when glorified as victims would tend to support the sympathizers. India has minority population of various religions to the extent of 15-20%. Hence all the minority promises, secular talk and majority ridicule. This way, they have consistently managed to get the rough 10-15% of DEFINITE voters !. Amazing business strategy.

However, they could have stopped at that. They went to the next step of accusing and blaming majorities for every single occurence in the country - which is bordering on insanity. They speak of intolerance, planned violence, killing of minorities.

Agreed that there may be pockets/groups of people in any religion that nurtures a hatred for other religions a.k.a. fanatics, but calling it a 'majority' thingie does not convey the true picture.

Look at any country except India - people are proud to say that they belong to the religion that they practise...

USA - Both president Bush & runner-up Kerry trumpetted that they had faith in God, and proud to be devout catholics. Government inauguration ceremonies were marked by President attending the church, having a priest at the gathering etc. Bush did not go to Buddhist temple or Mosque - he went to a place of 'his own belief', which is how it should be! Individuals decide what governs their faith or the absence of it. No one can act setting aside their beliefs and faith, for everyone believes in something - be it even the presence or absence of God :-)

Think of the hue&cry that would be raised when say ex-PM A.B.Vajpayee would have said, am proud to be a Hindu and going to a temple to mark his election!. That would be the end of the world for the so-called Secular Politicos of the country. It would simply trigger self-proclaimed secular media to blast him en-masse.

*WHY*, may i ask that when a majority person in India being proud of his belief is called a communal, hate-mongering fanatic ; When the same remark from a majoritarian in other countries is called God-fearing and principled

When the same remark comes from a minority person would it be called communal as well ?

Pray remove my blindness to such double-standards ?

http://www.debates.org/pages/trans2004d.html