Editorial
On his maiden visit to US as prime minister of India in September, Narendra Modi gifted the revered Bhagavad Gita to President Barack Obama during a dinner hosted at the White House, weeks after he had said in Japan, “I came bearing the Bhagavad Gita as a gift…I always present the Gita to eminent people I meet all over the world. When I met the (Japanese) Emperor I gave him the Gita because I have nothing more valuable to give and the world has nothing more valuable to get”. The PM also took a jibe on his “secular” friends – apparently the Congress and the Left – and even predicted a TV debate on the issue.
The move of the prime minister led to hue and cry back home and sparked a debate in the country as he himself had expected. His act was criticized because he was not only Mr Narendra Modi, a Hindu, but also prime minister of India, a multi-religious country with 1.2 billion people – about one-fifth of them minorities having deep religious sensitivities, and being at receiving end of the state machinery as was seen during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and the 2008 anti-Christian riots in Kandhamal of Odisha.
If the debate in the social media is analysed one post questioned PM’s act and asked: “I have no qualm in accepting the fact that he believes in it but why is he promoting the book of Hindus as head of the Govt.?…Why is it that Modi is promoting the book of Hindus as the Book of India?” He further asked: “How would Hindus feel if a Muslim president gifted Holy Quran as a head of Govt. on behalf of India?” The individual owns a reply from the BJP and the prime minister.
One can also ask: What would be the situation if a Sikh President of India starts offering the Holy Guru Granth Sahib or a Christian vice president the Holy Bible to heads of nations on their foreign trips?
But, a writer Balaji Viswanathan associated with Niti Central, a portal with right of centre views, quipped: “We need to drop the stupid demand that our leaders need to be agnostic/atheist. Such a demand goes against the spirit of our Constitution and the enshrined freedom of religion therein. As an individual, Modi has every right to practice his religion and his faith. If Americans have no issue seeing Obama pray in the Church, Modi can practice Hinduism. Things become an issue only if Indian government mandates Bhagavad Gita as an official text in all its offices.”
Mr. Viswanathan’s point, though correct, is misplaced. No one can object Modi offering prayers in temple everyday as a practicing Hindu. The objection is that when he was meeting heads of Japan and United States, he was not a Hindu, but prime minister of a country which has no religion of its own as it is a secular state.
The word secular was inserted in the Preamble of the Constitution of India in 1976 but the Supreme Court had observed in 1973 that secularism was a basic feature of the Constitution provided in Article 25 to 30.
In Kesavananda V State of Kerala (AIR 1973 S.C. 1461) and in Indira V Rajnarain (AIR 1975 S.C. 2299) the Supreme Court has observed that by secularism it is meant that the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on the ground of religion only and that the State shall have no religion of its own.
So should prime minister of India being head of the government of the state be allowed to officially display his religion and offer religious scripture of one particular religion as an official gift to others? There should be a national debate on the issue, and it would not be wrong to once again knock the doors of the apex court for an answer to this question.
The minorities expect the new prime minister of secular republic of India to show magnanimity and equal respect, weightage and value to all religions and communities and not compartmentalise himself in his own religious outlook.
