India Uncut
This blog has moved to its own domain. Please visit IndiaUncut.com for the all-new India
Uncut and bookmark it. The new site has much more content and some new sections, and you can read about them here and here. You can subscribe to full RSS feeds of all the sections from here.
This blogspot site will no longer be updated, except in case of emergencies, if the main site suffers a prolonged outage. Thanks - Amit.
Monday, June 06, 2005
A failed secularism
Sagarika Ghose writes in the Indian Express:
Official Indian secularism is a tragic story. Token appointments are made to high office, symbolic caricatures during elections are trotted out, iftaar parties are held with guests in appropriate headgear and wars are launched on “saffron” textbooks. Yet underlying this fancy dress party is the sad truth that the Indian state has resoundingly failed to integrate Muslims into the mainstream. After five years of brutal Hindutva, the UPA government is failing to come up with any imaginative new policies on minorities. Instead, it is imprisoned in the old definition of official secularism which hinges on quotas and forever consigns Indians to hostile ghettos. Zakir Hussain’s words that, “it is easier for a Muslim to be president of India than it is to be a clerk in Rashtrapati Bhavan,” still hold true.Read the full thing.
