I think that should be the title of a poem, but since I can’t write poetry, I want to bring to your attention in pithy prose the Congress party’s time-worn ‘soft Hindutva’ election strategy is back in Assam. Which means that while the Congress, BJP and others in Assam want to welcome Hindus from Bangladesh, the Muslims from there are as ever the “illegal” immigrants, the terrorists, the jehadis, the infiltrators.
They want citizenship for Bangladeshi Hindus and the Bangladeshi Muslims kicked out.
As per India’s non-existent refugee policy, Hindus from Pakistan and Sikhs from Afghanistan have been getting citizenship, but so many other persecuted peoples from all over the world come to India and find it very difficult to get by and soon seek resettlement in a developed country.
This, then, is how I want to introduce Indian secularism to you.
Thanks.
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
I seriously would have liked a lyric poem on it!
And as far as Assam’s congress is concerned, they are just amazing players of spin who can teach the high command how to play on a changing track. Earlier the Assam congress was known to do the famous or infamous “Ali-Kooli” politics which invariably refers to their vote bank’s safest accounts namely the muslim Bangladeshis (Ali) and the tea garden workers (Kooli in Assamese)! But with the changing patterns of the Assamese poltical dynamics they have slightly become aversive towards the Muslim immigrants because they are anyway losing their support with the arrival of Maulana Badaruddin Ajmal’s AUDF in Assam’s politics.
However I don’t think Congress would go to the polls without some support from the migrant Muslims. But I think it is the BJP which has been nonsensically speaking about the eviction of only the Muslim illegal migrants and shelter towards the Hindu Bangladeshis.
But journeying back a while, during the Assam movement in the eaarly 1980’s the AASU leadership was firm on their stand on the deportation of all illegal immigrants both Hindu and Muslims. The Nellie massacres should not be seen as an AASU propaganda. So not debating on the issue of correctness of pulling out the illegal foreigners, the AASU and AGP have appreciably maintained their secular stand on it.That is precisely the reason the RSS didn’t lend a helping hand to the movement.
The above news is a recent interesting development. What I wrote is some sort of a contextual history!
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India is the largest democracy in the world and we all have to learn and follow how democracy is being practiced there. India owes admiration of the world for this.
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One day we may have 100’s and 1000’s of refugees from Pakistan, what will India do then? These front faces of India MEA are nothing but smarmy English speaking class, who refuse to look u in the eye and speak! (at best shifty people!) -without an ounce of honest good will in them. How on earth does such a large country operate without a spine?!?
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Hindus from Bangladesh & Pakistan, Sikhs from Afghanistan are accepted in India because they are a persecuted minority in an Islamic country. Had they been living in a secular country, it was a different matter. Muslim refugees from Bangladesh are unwelcome intruders who are fleeing their country and crowding our country. It is the duty of Bangladesh to look after their Muslim countrymen even if they cannot give security to Non-Muslim minorities in their country.
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You have a good point. But its not the question of entertaining people coming over. At times, it seems the word “Secularism” is more for the Constitution than anything else. India is a great democratic country with a long tradition and history. Hope the spirit of Secularism will fly high all the time.
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Well then clearly you do not believe that “Hindu apologists” would have welcomed Muslim immigrants if muslims were a persecuted minority in Bangladesh. Since in this case only Hindu minority is the one which is being persecuted, to raise the question of secularism becomes obscure.
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Raghav,
It is not the duty of Bangladesh to look after it’s Hindu countrymen?
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of course it is, but what Bangladesh ought to do, is not what that’s being discussed here.
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The minorities here too have been subjected to state sponsored massacres periodically. The discrimination with immigrants on basis of religion reflects the communal biases of the governments.
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Out of curiosity, when the partition of the country was announced on religious lines, was there a cut-off date set after which no members of the Hindu community would be allowed into India from either East or West Pakistan?
If it was, could someone here please point me to it?
and if there wasn’t a cut-off date, isn’t the welcoming of Hindus from Pak/Bang akin to a belated fulfillment of the Partition scheme?
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Shivam,
Religion of a refugee used as a criteria to determine persecution faced by her at her home doesn’t have anything do with being a secular state with equal rights enjoyed by its citizens.
Else Canada also isn’t secular as well I guess.
Many countries use this criteria. I would like to see the list expanded to artists/scientists and other persecuted ‘wajib-ul-katl’ peoples from Pakistan/Bangladesh as well.
-Tarun
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Your brief introduction to secularism seems to have been taken in exactly the spirit which you are critiquing in the comments that follow. part of the problem lies with the very limitations of the various concepts of secularism. what you are really wanting to talk about is a lack of humanity and fairness. this lack in our own approach is justified by pointing out the lack in others as being more severe and then references to the myth of the great heritage of the nation. both are clearly inadequate ways of thinking in what are inadvertently justifications of human rights violations.
as far as the question of migration is concerned – i think national boundaries are essentially evil, that people should be allowed to freely go anywhere on the planet. in the case of bangladesh – are people here expecting that when global warming and sea-level rise make it impossible to live there in just a few decades, all the people there should just drown?
in the meantime, i’ll go out for a spin in my SUV.
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Sheesh!!! As though we don’t have enough people in India! Do good things, get them to like you and vote for you. Creating Indians might be a bit extreme, no?
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As rightly pointed out ,there is no need to be secular.It is enough to be humane and understand the feelings of refugees.Irrespect of religion,suffering of all refugees,be it is bangladesi,or pakistani,srilankan tamil,Serbians,Bosnians,or any africans all are same.we need not investcate their sufferings-rather help them
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There is nothing un-secular about offering humanitarian refuge to the religiously persecuted. The real test of the Indian government’s good faith would be whether they offer refugee status to Ahmadis and Shias from Pakistan or not.
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