(Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 14 books, including, most recently, Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.)There are four problems with Sushma Swaraj's advocacy of the Bhagavad Gita as a "
Rashtriya Granth", or "National Holy Book", as I have had occasion to tell her myself.
The first is that to cite no less a source than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, we already have a National Holy Book: it's called the Constitution of India.
The second is that we are a land of multiple faiths, each of which has its own holy books; on what basis would we pick any one of them in the capacity of a National Holy Book? Which Sikh would put the Gita ahead of the Guru Granth Sahib, for instance?
And if the answer to that question is, as Sushma
ji suggests, that it is the holiest book of the overwhelming Hindu majority of our population, the proposition is contestable, like most things in Hindu philosophy. As a practising (and reasonably widely-read) Hindu myself, I find a lot of ideas in the Upanishads that are not in the Gita. I see Hinduism as a pluralistic faith of many holy books and many ways of worshiping the divine.
You don't have to agree with those Hindu scholars who argue that the Gita, being
Smriti (that which is heard and remembered, orally), is inferior to the Vedas and the Upanishads, which are
Sruti (memorised and recorded divine revelation). But arguments about superiority and inferiority apart, there is no doubt that there are many views of the relative merits of several Indian holy books.
Sushmaji, like Gandhi
ji before her, may be inspired by the Gita, but other, equally devout Hindus might have other preferences. Why not the Rig Veda, for instance, the primordial revelation text of the Hindu faith? Why not the
Smriti text known as the Srimad Bhagavatam, or Bhagavata Purana, which is recited for an entire week (
Saptaham) every year in many Hindu temples and homes?
The quest to anoint a National Holy Book will not just divide Indians - it will divide Hindus as well.
But it's the fourth problem that's most relevant to a political discussion of the issue. For a government minister to raise the idea of a National Holy Book serves to ignite not just controversy, but fears - fears of a majoritarian project that will slowly but surely erode India's "secular" - I prefer the word "pluralist" - identity and replace it with an overtly Hindu one.
Signs of such inclinations have been accumulating since the BJP rode to power in May with an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. There has been the overt declaration by RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat that all Indians are Hindus, and by implication that those who do not consider themselves Hindus aren't actually Indian, and don't belong here. There's the statement by Giriraj Singh that those who don't vote for Modi should move to Pakistan, and the one by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti that people are either followers of Rama or bastards (
Ramzadon ya Haramzadon). Both these offenders have been rewarded with a place on Prime Minister Modi's council of ministers.
There was the Shiv Sena MP shoving food down the throat of a fasting Muslim during Ramzan, and getting away without the slightest censure from the ruling NDA. There have been numerous incidents of communal violence, instigated for political purposes no doubt, but instilling fear in the targeted minorities. And now there is the episode of the mass conversion of 57 bewildered Bengali Muslims in Agra, through a mix of intimidation and inducement, under the Sangh Parivar's long-dormant "
ghar wapasi" scheme.
So Sushma
ji's statement may well have been relatively innocent - she was speaking, after all, at an event to celebrate the Bhagavad Gita, and was recalling a recommendation she had made in Parliament a few years ago, when the Russians had banned the Gita and India had protested - but her comment adds to a long list of statements and actions by our new rulers that cumulatively have stirred disquiet across the country.
Is this wise? It is ironic that Prime Minister Modi keeps on emphasising the message of development and economic transformation, while his aides persist in raising bogeys that their leader has been attempting to lay to rest. There is little doubt that after the BJP rode to power on a mantra of inclusive development - "
sab ka saath, sab ka vikas" - its Hindutva core has begun to take advantage of its proximity to government to assertively push a sectarian agenda.
Hindutva acolytes are being appointed to research professorships and vice-chancellorships, the Indian Council of Historical Research is headed by a true believer whose Hindutva credentials outshine his historical ones, textbooks are being rewritten to privilege ancient Hindu glories, and Sanskrit is being promoted. Some of this, one might argue, is inevitable in any democracy after a transfer of power from one ruling dispensation to another. But some, at least, distracts from the Prime Minister's central and oft-repeated message that economic growth is his faith, the Constitution is his holy book and Parliament is his temple.
Just as investors tend not to come to war zones - which is why peace on our borders is in our national interest - so too do investors prefer to risk their capital in harmonious societies that are focused on the future rather than divided by the past. The BJP and its government should heed one simple dictum: leave religion to the personal space and preference of every Indian. Let us have no national holy book, just as our Constitution does not permit us to have a national religion. Our country was once divided over religion; let us not now promote a Partition in the Indian soul that will be as bad as the Partition we have already endured in the Indian soil. Let us not awake demons that seven decades of secular Indian democracy have put to rest after the tragic horrors of 1947.
It is time to let sleeping dogmas lie.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. NDTV is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.