Season for "Secularism"
India is at the cusp of spring – summer. But I believe this year because of the Lok Sabha elections in April/May, we will have a prolonged 2 month of a “season” that is Secularism. The interesting thing about this season is that it comes only when there are State or National Elections. And it has a proven track record of last 62 years of Independence. You don’t need Supercomputer and its advanced algorithms and Artificial Intelligence application to predict this Season. It just coincides with the electoral process.
I’ve risked watching a few debates on National TV past 2 weeks to double check if the 2009 season had anything new to offer. But as they say in management parlance, why fix something that is not broken and delivers. So the 2009 debates that seem to have hogged a lot of our media bandwidth, continues with its proven past record. Throw in a spokesperson from all the leading National parties, bring in one or two suave media/advertising person, ensure the anchor is the loudest and rave and rant over secularism for 30 minutes.
Do we expect anyone to say anything diplomatically wrong or accept any wrong doing by the parties? You guess.
And the definition of Secularism veers from minority appeasement for Votes ( not withstanding any real understanding or caring) to bashing anyone who does not tow this line. It’s the most fashionable thing currently and you’ve got to be seen wearing it.
And while all this goes on, the young Indian feels more lost, more dejected and more unsure of what’s going on and if ever anyone will ask them their opinion.
As I said, this is the season for “Secularism”.
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