ASHLEY DO ROSARIO
PANAJI
The term secularism is in itself a misnomer and the two mainstream political parties - Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress - have to share the blame for the reigning wave of intolerance in Hindu-Muslim relations, according to India expert and celebrated former correspondent of BBC Mark Tully.
“I think a new element of intolerance has been introduced into India certainly, and has been introduced in Hindu-Muslim relations,” Tully said at an event conducted by the International Centre Goa, late Thursday evening.
Having spent over four decades as the British Broadcasting Corporation’s correspondent in New Delhi,
Tully is revered in the media world for his expertise on contemporary politics and current affairs in India. He was among the band of foreign journalists who were ejected by the Indira Gandhi regime during the country’s solitary Emergency period of 1975-76.
At the fairly attended event in Dona Paula on Tuesday, a jovial Tully did not shy from calling a spade a spade. “When people in the country talk that the situation in the country being like well, that’s not true. I can tell you,” Tully said.
He said ‘securalism’ by itself is a misnomer in the Indian context as it has a connotation of hostility and indifference to all religions. “I always thought that what mistake the Congress party did was to continue with this word secularism which I think, as I said, carries this anti-religious message. It left the BJP free to say we are the party of Hindus and this is the Hinduism which is India’s,” he said.
“Indians are neither hostile nor indifferent to religion,” Tully said and implied that both the country’s mainstream parties - BJP and Congress - share the blame for the current situation.
The Congress, he observed should have found in its politics some place for Hindus just as it did for Muslims and felt the Congress should say India is a country where 80% call themselves Hindus from a Hinduism natural to India and which is pluralistic, proud to be tolerant of India’s history and believes in openness. “That’s what I think the taste of Hinduism in this country should be and for years Congress was playing up that secularism and completely ignoring the fact that 80% are Hindus,” Tully said.
‘Modi a publicist’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an ‘extraordinarily successful publicist’ said the former BBC correspondent.
Tully also mocked the ‘Congress mukt’ political refrain led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
“Amit Shah moved around the country saying he wants this to be Congress mukt. What he succeeded in doing is building a BJP mukt India, because all politics has become about Prime Minister Modi,” Tully said, lamenting the enormous personality cult surrounding Modi.
He however was a tag generous in praise for Modi likening him to the late Indira Gandhi, where he said there are both, good and bad things. “He keeps launching Pradhan Mandri yojna ye, pradhan mantri yojana vo. But he should make sure they are implemented,” Tully said, adding that he manages to get people to forget by adding some new tamasha. The 2019 elections was a classic example,” he added.
