Read Editorial with D2G – Ep CXI

In Read Editorial With D2G
March 26, 2016

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EPISODE – CXI
TOPIC: Imitating Pakistan
BLOG: The TOI Blogs
WRITER: Editorial
GENRE: Indian Affairs

editorial

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D2G wears no responsibility of the views published here by the respective Author. This Editorial is used here for Study Purpose. Students are advised to learn the word-meaning, The Art of Writing Skills and understand the crux of this Editorial.

MEANINGS are given in BOLD and ITALIC

By bringing into law the Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2016 that seeks life imprisonment for sacrilege (Sacrilege is behaviour that shows great disrespect for a holy place or object) of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Punjab assembly has embarked on a slippery slope. The legislation comes in the wake of incidents of desecration (If someone desecrates something which is considered to be holy or very special, they deliberately damage or insult it) of the Sikh holy book last year. But little progress has been made in the investigation into those cases, exposing infirmities (weak or ill) in Punjab’s law and order mechanism. Yet, perhaps to cover up its administrative failures, the Punjab government deemed it necessary to enact a draconian (Draconian laws or measures are extremely harsh and severe) new law. Given that the ruling Akali Dal-BJP dispensation faces a tough assembly election next year, the move is a populist (If you describe a politician or an artist as populist, you mean that they claim to care about the interests and opinions of ordinary people rather than those of a small group) ploy (A ploy is a way of behaving that someone plans carefully and secretly in order to gain an advantage for themselves) to play the religion card and divert attention from the government’s shortcomings.

This is a dangerous game. Enacting a sacrilege law only with respect to the Guru Granth Sahib is bound to create demands for similar legislation with regard to other religions. In fact, Congress only objected to the bill because it did not provide for similar punishment for disrespect to other religions – which according to it went against the principle of secularism. If anything, Congress’s logic represents the worst form of pseudo-secularism as it tries to outdo (If you outdo someone, you are a lot more successful than they are at a particular activity) the Akali-BJP combine in playing the religion card under the garb of upholding secular values.

We witnessed something similar recently in the Maharashtra assembly when Congress and BJP MLAs demanded the expulsion of their AIMIM colleague Waris Pathan for refusing to say ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’. Such competitive pandering (If you pander to someone or to their wishes, you do everything that they want, often to get some advantage for yourself) to religious and hyper- nationalist sentiment creates rigid definitions of who is a ‘good’ Indian, leading to witch-hunts and mobocracy. In a country as diverse as ours, this militates against the very idea of India.

Punjab’s sacrilege legislation is akin to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which have led to the ascendance of theocracy and religious violence in Pakistan. That, in turn, has fatally weakened Pakistan’s democratic institutions. India lives or dies by whether it can be a democracy or not, as it is too diverse to be anything else. The rescinding (If a government or a group of people in power rescind a law or agreement, they officially withdraw it and state that it is no longer valid.) of blasphemy laws marked the Enlightenment, whose values also power India’s Constitution. Going in the reverse direction will mean a reversion to medievalism and clashing fundamentalisms. Posing as it does the gravest possible threat to India’s unity and integrity, that is the most anti-national act of all. India’s political class must end this race to the bottom now.

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