මෝදි නේරු හා රාම

 

මෝදි නේරු හා රාම

 

ඉන්දීය ජාතිකයකුගේ යැයි සිතිය හැකි පහත සඳහන් ලිපිය මා පළකරන්නේ නේරුගේ හා නේරු පවුලේ ඊනියා ඓහිය (secular) දේශපාලනය මෝදිගේ හින්දු ජාතිකත්වය හමුවේ පරාජය වී ඇති ආකාරය පෙන්වීමටයි.  අයෝධ්‍යාවේ නව හින්දු කෝවිලක් විවෘත කිරීමේ උත්සවයක් ගැන ලියවී ඇති ලිපිය මෙරට පඬි නැට්ටන්ගේ අවධානයට යොමු වේය කියා හිතන්න බැහැ. පඬි නැට්ටන් දන්නේ බටහිරට අවශ්‍ය විධියට වලිගය වැනීම පමණයි.

 

නේරුගේ බටහිරගැති ඊනියා සමාජවාදී ආර්ථිකය හා දේශපාලනයම පුස්සක් ම වුණා. ඔහූ එංගලන්තයේ හැරෝ හා කේම්බ්‍රිජ් හි අධ්‍යාපනය ලැබුවෙක්. අප සාමාන්‍ය පෙළ ඉගෙන ගන්නා දවස්වල ඉංගිරිසි සඳහා නියම ව තිබූ පොතක නේරු කේම්බ්‍රිජ් ගැන ලියූ ලිපියක් තිබුණා. අපටත් ලැබුණේ හැරෝ ඊටන් ඔක්ස්ෆර්ඩ් කේම්බ්‍රිජ් අගයන අධ්‍යාපනයක්. ඒ සියල්ල අද කඩා වැටිලා. ඉන්දියානුවන් ඒ තේරුම් ගෙන ඔවුන්ගේ ජාතිකත්ව මගට ඇවිත්. එය හින්දු ජාතිකත්වය.අයෝධ්‍යා කියන්නේ රාම උපන් ප්‍රදේශය.

 

අප තවමත් ඊනියා ඓහික කතා පසුපස දුවනවා. ඉන්දියාව අද නේරු දේශපාලනය අත්හැර ලෝක බලවතකු බවට පත්වීමට කටයුතු කරනවා. නේරු දේශපාලනයෙන් රට පස්සට ගියා. අප විජාතික දේශපාලනයකින් දුගී දුප්පත් බවට පත් වෙලා. මෙරට ජාතිකත්ව මතධාරීන් ද තවමත් වාම කතා ලිබරල් කතා කියවනවා. අප තවමත් ජාතික ජාතිකත්වයක නැහැ. 

ඉන්දියාවේ චන්ද්‍රයානය යැවූ විද්‍යාඥයන් තිරුපති යනවා. මා දැක්කා පසුගිය දා ඉන්දීය ක්‍රිකට් ක්‍රීඩක ථකුර් තරගයට පෙර ආශිර්වාද ලබා ගැනීමට කෝවිලට යනවා. ඉන්දියානුවන් විද්‍යාව ක්‍රිකට් හින්දු සංස්කෘතියට අවශෝෂණය කරගෙන. අප බුදුදහම විිද්‍යාත්මක බව පෙන්වීමට යනවා.   

මේ පිළිබඳ විස්තරයක් පසුවට.

 

Modi, Ayodhya, and the Fall of Nehru’s Secular Temple

Story by Sadanand Dhume

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inauguration of a grand Hindu temple in the North Indian town of Ayodhya next week will unofficially kick off campaigning for general elections this spring. For many millions of pious Hindus, it will also commemorate the fulfillment of a cherished dream—erecting an imposing temple at what they view as the birthplace of the deity Ram, revered in Hinduism as the embodiment of moral rectitude and princely valor.

 

With Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party poised to win yet another term in office, the temple ceremony is also an epitaph for the brand of secularism championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. For decades, India’s rulers in New Delhi believed that the country’s vast diversity and fraught past were best managed by steering politics away from religious passions and toward a more Westernized idea of modernity that emphasized scientific progress and economic development. The Hindu nationalists now in power appear intent on reopening sectarian wounds by righting what they see as historical wrongs.

 

To Hindu nationalists, Muslim rulers such as the Mughal Dynasty (1526-1857) weren’t fellow Indians but colonial oppressors, no different from the British—and in many ways worse. The destruction of temples in North India by iconoclastic Muslim kings remains a particularly sore point. Mr. Modi speaks of throwing off the yoke of “1,200 years of slavery,” a reference to the first Arab incursions into the Indian subcontinent in the eighth century.

 

The new temple in Ayodhya is a victory for the Hindu nationalist worldview. It stands on the site of a more than 450-year-old mosque razed in 1992 by an enraged Hindu nationalist mob. Many Hindus saw the mosque, built by a 16th-century Mughal general, as an affront to their faith and a symbol of humiliation. Hindus and Muslims had skirmished at the site since at least the 19th century, but the movement to build the temple to Ram took center stage in Indian politics only in the late 1980s, when the BJP began to champion it.

 

More than 2,000 people died in violence that followed the mosque demolition, but the BJP also saw its strength in Parliament rise, from a meager two seats in 1984 to 161 seats by 1996. Since Mr. Modi became prime minister in 2014, Hindu nationalism has replaced Nehruvian secularism as the country’s dominant ideology.

 

Some hoped that the 2019 Supreme Court verdict that granted the current temple’s site solely to Hindus—overturning a 2010 verdict that split the land between Hindus and Muslims—would put a lid on similar disputes. A 1991 law mandates that all places of worship retain the character they had at independence in 1947, but it excludes Ayodhya because the case was already in court at the time.

These optimists were sorely mistaken. Encouraged by the Supreme Court decision, Hindu groups hope to use lawsuits to wrest control of at least two other prominent mosques—in Varanasi and Mathura—built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who reigned from 1658-1707, on the ruins of temples he had razed.

 

Why did Nehruvian secularism fail so spectacularly? In part, India’s Westernized elites miscalculated the depth of Hindu religiosity. As political philosopher Michael Walzer has argued, leaders like Nehru, educated at elite British institutions like Harrow and Cambridge, were simply far less religious than the people they helped lead to independence.

 

The historian Stanley Wolpert described Nehru as a “secular rationalist and agnostic, if not outright atheist.” The prime minister called large state-built projects such as hydroelectric dams the temples of modern India and disapproved of public displays of religiosity.

 

The Nehruvians also erred in their embrace of socialism, which couldn’t deliver the prosperity they promised. India barely made a dent in poverty for more than four decades after independence. By the time the country embarked on market-based reforms in 1991, secularism had become associated with economic misery.

 

Nehru and his followers’ fatal mistake was their unwillingness to extend their modernizing zeal to India’s large Muslim minority. In the 1950s, Nehru forcefully updated Hindu marriage and divorce laws, but he shied away from making similar changes to Muslim laws. His successors made it a habit to pander to Islamic fundamentalists on issues like blasphemy and alimony. Even today, his descendants in the opposition Congress Party can’t bring themselves to express horror at the atrocities of Oct. 7, for fear of alienating radical Muslim sentiment among Indian voters.

 

But just because Nehru and his successors failed to devise a viable framework for pluralism in India doesn’t mean that Mr. Modi will succeed. Hindu nationalists have struggled to accommodate the 1 in 5 Indians who profess a faith other than Hinduism. Their preoccupation with the past makes harmony with Indian Muslims unlikely. For the foreseeable future, religious conflict will likely remain a leitmotif for the world’s most populous nation.