For a Secular India

The recent drama in the Bhajpa camp sent Indian media into a tizzy and leavened my life as well. Post an FB status update I receive messages reminding me not to “forget that your own clan was mercilessly butchered in Delhi by the ‘secular’ forces of India”, peppered with other such smug solicitudes. First things first: I am a Sikh, and Sikhism is a faith, not a clan. 

I grew up in the ‘militant hotbed of Ferozepur’ during the Khalistan movement, in a cantonment town that straddles the Indo-Pak border where the kafilas of Partition linger to this day - unsolicited advice on secularism is a bit wasted on me, don’t you think?

I am not a NaMo fan, have never been, will never be - just as with Lady Macbeth, it’s a minor case of bloodied hands which all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten. And I do not subscribe to your mathematical posturing which states that a non-NaMo fan equals a Congress acolyte. I spent too much time growing up in Punjab to not be acquainted with the vote-bank politics of Mrs Gandhi and the Frankenstein she unleashed in the name of secularism. I even wrote a book that delved into this, The Long Walk Home. Perhaps you want to read it before mailing off those meaningless messages?

Deploying a Bollywood trope, haath khoon sey rangey hain bahuton key... Come election time, perhaps you want to free yourself of the Bhajpa-Congress-religion-clan-community-caste bind and vote for the person who has really worked for your constituency? If we all did that, the Centre would take care of itself. How’s that for a secular India?