India's biggest challenge

The Supreme Court made certain serious observations during the course of hearing the PIL filed by Ashwini Upadhyay, who wanted the Ministry of Home Affairs to set up a committee to restore the names of cities named after Muslim invaders who are known in history to have indulged in mass killings and conversions of Hindus to the names based on Puranic texts and history. Some of the important observations made by the court are:

"Historical aberrations can’t haunt present and future generations of the nation to the point that succeeding generations become prisoners of the past."

"Look at the problems you will be creating by going back to the past selectively. Do you want to keep the country on the boil by pointing at a particular community?"

"What is of the greatest importance for the country is the Preamble of the Constitution, which professes secularism and the maintenance of harmony and fraternity among different sections?"

The court dismissed the PIL.

These observations are serious and timely and deserve due consideration by all citizens. I think that the SC was reflecting on the increasing disharmony between Hindus and Muslims.

However, I would like to disagree with the observation of the court that "what is the point in digging up the past?" Communities that suffer traumas do not forget them, as these get transmitted from generation to generation, both genetically and through history. See how Shia Muslims around the world every year commemorate the deaths of Husayn ibn Ali, his family, and his followers in the month of Muharram. In fact, we should keep remembering those traumas, not to avenge them but to ensure that we do not allow such injustices to be inflicted on any community in the future.

Coming to the current context of changing the names of the cities, it has been happening in India, and the world, for hundreds of years. The names of many cities were changed during the Mughal period and later by many governments. According to a report in a national daily, 704 places in India are named after six Mughal rulers. As long as the Union government has the authority to change the names of the cities, it will always be willing to do so if it suits them politically, and observations of the SC will not change that.

I entirely agree with the observation of the SC that the country should not be kept on the boil by pointing at a particular community, but to say that it is due to one particular community (Hindu) pointing fingers at the other community (Muslim) needs to be contested. We know that a very large percentage of both of these communities would like to live in harmony with each other. We also know that there are certain forces in both communities that benefit politically from keeping the pot boiling. It is also no secret that there are some forces outside our borders that would not like India to become a major force in the world, and they will continue to play one community against the other. Under such circumstances, it is unfair to lay the blame on one particular community.

The Court has also observed that "what is of the greatest importance for the country is the Preamble of the Constitution, which professes secularism." Here, allow me to mention that India was a secular society even before the word 'secular' was inserted in the Preamble in 1976 through the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution.

During the Constituent Assembly debate, K T Shah proposed an amendment seeking to declare India a "Secular, Federal, Socialist nation". The Constituent Assembly deliberated on it and decided not to after Ambedkar opined that "What should be the policy of the State, how the society should be organised on its social and economic sides are matters which must be decided by the people themselves according to time and circumstances. It cannot be laid down in the Constitution itself, because that is destroying democracy altogether.…..I do not see therefore why the Constitution should tie down the people to live in a particular form and not leave it to the people themselves to decide it for themselves." I am not sure whether the Preamble will undergo any further amendments in the future, but I am fairly certain that India will remain a secular state irrespective of the word secular in its Preamble, as it was from 1950 to 1975.

It is always better when differences or grievances between groups of people or communities are discussed without any preconditions or biases, for then only a lasting solution can be found.

Is it possible for the two communities to live in harmony in India? Based on my own experience, yes we can--we lived in a Muslim-dominated village in West Punjab, now in Pakistan, before partition in 1947, and after migration to India, we again lived as the only Hindu family, for over 30 years in a Muslim locality in a Muslim majority town in western UP. We not only lived in complete harmony with each other, but also participated in each other’s social and religious events. We should live in harmony, as only then can there be peace in society, which is the most essential condition for development.

Our Constitution has given equal rights to all our citizens, and we also have an independent judiciary. Any aggrieved person can approach the courts to get relief as per the law.

Simultaneously, it is equally important to ensure that forces that have been spreading discord among different religions are silenced, including through appropriate legislative measures.

In my view, the role of the government should be limited to enacting the required laws and enforcing them strictly. Political parties and other elements that are responsible for creating disharmony should also have no role in bringing about harmony. Well-meaning people from all the religions must be encouraged to come forward and actively work for interfaith harmony. A nation can only develop if all its citizens put in their best efforts.

India is now on the cusp of becoming a developed nation, and the fruits of that development should be shared by all its citizens.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)