MUTINY

Secularism/noun/: Secularism is a system where religion is not allowed to play a part in civic matters. The preamble of the constitution states: “India is a sovereign, democratic, Secular, Socialistic, Republic.”
The people of the Republic of India(at least some of them) have yet again defied the very definition of a “Secular democracy”, a term you very often hear being used by the media, politicians, bureaucrats and others to describe India, by protesting against allowing Sir Salman Rushdie, winner of the “Booker of Bookers” to be issued with an Indian Visa. Though it has been a while since ‘The Satanic Verses’, his very controversial book in which he has been accused of blasphemy against Islam was published and subsequently banned in many countries including India, it has been a cause for controversy whenever the name ‘Salman Rushdie’ and ‘India’ have been used together. In this case, Sir Salman Rushdie has been invited to speak at the prestigious Jaipur literary fest and certain fundamentalist groups are protesting against his visit though they had nothing to say when the same person visited the same festival 4 years ago. Probably it is the UP elections round the corner driving these people to lash out at anybody they find or they just haven’t lashed out at anyone in a long time. Whatever their reasons are, they simply cannot justify their actions in the country which calls itself ‘The world’s largest democracy’. Any other government in the world, in its right mind, would have protected intellectuals like Rushdie from such goons but apparently, our politicians are just as intent to kick him out. The man who rightfully deserves to have an Indian passport cannot be given an Indian visa? What has happened to the so-called freedom of thought that the founding fathers of our constitution guaranteed us. If a person can denounce atheism in front of an atheist like me and I can’t do anything, why should Hinduism or Islam or any religion for that matter be protected by our laws? Isn’t it ironic that the same constitution that provides for secularism and right to speech also lays out laws that prevents the previous two things to be implemented?
I support Salman Rushdie, his books and his right to speech!