How the Sangh speaks in a forked tongue and divides India

The Sangh giroh attack has come out in the open. 

They have said since there is no Church in India, the separation of the Church and state does not arise, thereby making secularism a foreign concept. 

But this was discussed threadbare in the Constituent Assembly. 

Religion was not only made a Fundamental Right, but this right included the right to propagate religion i.e., convert. Other Fundamental Rights, such as Articles 19 and 20, encouraged the state to fund minority institutions, and allowed privately funded minority institutions.  

So the Sangh claim that Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia should not be funded by the state, is unconstitutional, and a distortion of the Constitutional definition of secularism. 

Moreover, unlike France secularism in India is not rigid. As Professor Rajeev Bhargava has pointed out, secularism in India is a "principled distance" between the state and institutions, apart from religion. There are several judicial findings on this, not to speak of the pre and post independence historical experience. 

Led by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS has also questioned the tricolour. They claim that the Congress Working Committee in 1931 suggested that the national flag be changed. Even the Congress is unaware of such an event. Such a non-existent proposal would never have got past the likes of Gandhi, Subhas Bose, Nehru or Ambedkar, to mention just a few Congress stalwarts.

It is ironic that when the RSS is proposing a new Indian flag, which is to be saffron with a round blue-coloured circle in the middle, the government of India wants the national flag to be flying even in the universities. 

So the Sangh giroh speaks in two voices, if not more. The target is not only the post-Rohith Vemula Dalit assertion, or JNU, but a systematic onslaught on secular democracy and its institutions. 

Take the ban on beef, for instance. Contrary to the Hindutva claim that the beef ban is religious, Article 48 of the Directive Principles clearly lay down that the slaughter of cows is banned in order to improve and increase the breeds; and apart from cows, also milch and draught cattle, like buffalos, mithun, yaks, etc., which also should not be killed. So not only cows are protected, contrary to the Sangh propaganda.

But even this is violated. 

In Goa, beef has been sold and eaten widely even when Manohar Parrikar, now the defence minister in the BJP-led NDA Union cabinet, was the state chief minister, and continues under his successor, the current BJP CM of Goa. 

So in Bishara, Dadri, UP, Mohammed Akhlaq was murdered on the mere suspicion of eating beef, which was not proved, but in Goa, the BJP benignly allows beef sale and consumption.  

"Veer" Savarkar, the Hindutva hero of the freedom struggle, propagated the sale and consumption of beef as a cheap source of protein for the poor. The NDA government has brought out a stamp in his honour, but hides this fact.

To strengthen secular democracy in India, the Sangh myth-making machine must be exposed and countered. The assault on JNU has been weakened, and will be stopped. But other attacks will follow. If secular parties, movements and individuals are complacent, the cost to our country may be very high.