Secularism and Political Parties in India:

Some of the Political Parties in India

India claims to be a secular democratic nation. However none of the political parties follow this fundamental principle of the constitution. Communist parties do not go by old religions. They have communism as their religion.
Therefore communists also cannot be treated as secular. All parties have primary aim of getting votes and getting elected. All politicians and social workers have strong belief that they can serve nation only through the government. In order to be part of the government they need to get elected. Shortcut for getting elected is to harbour a vote bank. Easiest way they have found out is to make separate groups based on caste, religion, language, monetary limits and many other things. Caste and religion have been found to be the most favourites among politicians. This shows that secularism is only for telling others, but not for following it.

It is claimed that majority population in India is of Hindus. Name "Hindu" is imported. Arabs saw fertile land in Sindhu valley. They named people in the valley as "Sindhu". They pronounced Sindhu as "Hindu". This is how religion in India was named as "Hindu" and the country was named as "Hindustan". Europeans pronounced Sindhu as "Indus". Hence the country is known as India. Indians never thought of naming their religion and it was just known as "Dharma" meaning religion. In fact there is no necessity to name a religion. Fundamental principle of every religion is "Brotherhood" among members of a society. In order to ensure this, scholars laid down rules based on place, time and society. During olden days communication had been time consuming and hence there had been different groups of people (societies) all over the world. Environment of every society had been different. Hence, rules for society had been different. This is the reason why there are different religions in the world. As far as India is considered name to religion had been given only after Arabs visited India.

Some political parties consider all those who are not Muslims are Hindus. Most of the political parties do not wish to have harmony between Hindus and Muslims. They consider as Hindus and Muslims are separate societies and can never be amalgamated. Indian National Congress (Popularly known as "Congress") is the oldest political party in India. This party ruled India most of time after independence i. e. from 15^th August 1947. During earlier days of its rule the party had to develop confidence among various groups of people specially, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and Muslims. First true groups had been neglected for thousands of years both in the field of education and finance. They had been treated as slaves. This had been, and even today, a Herculean task. Instead of concentrating on education congress party gave importance to "reservation" in different fields. The party never concentrated on education. The result is condition of these people remains more or less unchanged. They are treated as second class citizens in public and social life. Effect of reservation had been less positive than negative. Others who cannot secure admission or employment blame "reservation" to this part of society. Instead of building a cohesive society gap between people has increased tremendously. Similar condition is for Muslims. After partition during August 1947, Muslims did need confidence building. However, politicians appeased Muslims for selfish motive of getting votes during election. The result had been a separate identity is given to Muslims based on religion. Political party like Bhartiya Janata Party (Popularly known as BJP) helped congress in maintaining separate identity for Muslims. Some other parties followed Congress in giving independent identity to Muslims.

Secularism should not be considered as treating all religions equal or not blaming other religions. It should mean while taking any decision in the national interest religion of a person or group should not be one of the decision making criteria. Quintessence is rules of nation should always supersede rules of any religion. A Political party which follows this only can lead entire nation.