Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Of Bigots and Self styled Secular Morons - an assessment of an online group

The issue of secularism in India is fraught with great challenges, a roller-coaster ride which is similar to the experience which one could have at an amusement park. I had to leave a group called ‘Secular India’ after I discovered that the people over there were not only intolerant but bereft of any reason, while approaching and deliberating on sensitive issues like communalism.

One of the most striking features of that group is that they sound very preachy and self righteous and give an impression that important institutions of democracy like judiciary have no role in addressing these issues. This is also substantiated by their own blissful ignorance in selectively highlighting certain strands of communalism, ghetto mentality, which is in no way serving the cause of their alleged secular proclivities. Ironically they would selectively pick issues and views to suit their mindset and feel vindicated.

All I can say is that they are highly ignorant about the very basics concerning issues that are significant to democracy and civil society in India. At the very outset they sounded very moronic and gave an impression of having a fixed mindset and sounded very adamant about their belief and understanding about issues like secularism, whereas it was their distorted understanding and also pathological biases which is a matter of concern - to add to it while they implicitly accepted their ignorance about social science, they also vehemently oppose any different view, akin to self righteous fascist and rabid communal demagogues. For ex - most of their understanding manifested in the belief that - Hindu bashing or 'brahmanical mindset' bashing is secularism and defending Muslims as a community or its individuals, not realizing that Secularism in Indian context refers to equal respect to all religions or equidistance of the state from all religions.

Incidentally they took kindly to the first article of mine written around eight years ago (The Pied-Piper Syndrome,http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/the-pied-piper-syndrome-1331.html) but started finding fault with the second one (Communalizing a Killing,http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/communalizing-a-killing-1439.html) and then went on to question my judgment and integrity. I had clarified later that the source I had quoted was removed from the web and had also mentioned that Ishrat is not guilty until proved so in the court of law. One of the members, perhaps a foreigner was presumptuous and stated that many elements in the Indian security agencies are communal and added that why people should call for having faith in the Indian judiciary when Muslims are victims. Since the matter is subjudice; similar logic can be used by all others to proclaim their innocence. I deleted my views which I had posted there, before leaving the group, since I thought that it was a futile exercise to argue with folks with a fixed mind.
When I cornered the admin guy (after clarifying that I will go by the judiciary) that his understanding of English is not an issue, rather his attempts to build a discourse/logic based on religious identity of the accused is a matter of concern, to which he responded by stating that he has made his point, and to forget it. It is interesting to note that there are many online fringe groups - who try to camouflage their own biases, in name of fighting for the cause of democracy, nationalism etc. Such groups exist among various religious denomination and castes, so they are not unique either, in this context.

Finally their language or choice of words (most of them seemed to be IT technocrats and their claim about ‘knowing/ understanding English’) clearly displayed a condescending/ contemptuous/ disrespectful attitude towards people having divergent opinions in general and also towards folks belonging to social science fraternity in particular. It also reflected abysmal standard/views, wherein they would also get personal and resort to making personal remarks casting aspersions on the credentials of the respondents.

It is certainly not our responsibility to find out as to why do they behave in such a manner, whether it's due to them been brainwashed or have low level of intellect in comprehending socio-political issues, or per Se have an inferior level of communication skills that is very uncouth in its manifestation.

While I do not regret the experience I had with this group, what irritated me was that they were simply peddling old jargon's and rhetoric’s, used by some political groups and media. In fact I would conclude that they are doing a great disservice to the cause of democracy and secularism. It just reminded me of what an Indian public intellectual had said that in India the greatest threat to secularism, comes from the so called secularists.

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