Did Indian secularism die on 5 August in Ayodhya? It follows, then, that a new Indian Republic would have been invented, a Hindu Rashtra.
If you accept those two arguments, a third becomes inevitable. Any Indian with a belief in our secular Constitution can then say this isn’t the country I was born in. And, I am going away. To America, where else, but only once Donald Trump goes this winter and immigration eases up.
To be upfront, we dismiss all of these assumptions as bunk. First of all, the rumours of the death of secularism are just that, rumours, and vastly exaggerated too. Sorry, Mark Twain, to drag you into the messiest side of our politics. Second, the death of secularism has been announced several times before; on a rough count, about as often as our commando comic TV channels declare Dawood Ibrahim dead.
Sorry for that odd comparison. But a rumour is a rumour is a rumour. Of course, it is fun if you are a masochist and relish self-flagellation.
A very vast majority, in fact almost all of the 138-plus crore of us here, have no green cards or benevolent uncles or foundations waiting to take us to America. Or Europe. Or that new destination with sex appeal for some, Turkey. We have to live in an India governed by whoever the people choose, based on the same Constitution we hold so dear.
In the past 35 years, secularism has been pronounced dead by the Right after Rajiv Gandhi’s action on the Shah Bano case (1986), the proactive ban on Satanic Verses (1988), the unlocking of the gates of Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi, Shilanyas and the launch of the national election campaign from Ayodhya with the promise of Ram Rajya (1989).
Then, in 1992, with the destruction of the mosque, followed by widespread communal riots. What else could you expect from a prime minister who “wore khaki chaddi (RSS shorts) under his dhoti?” Arjun Singh drafted Sonia Gandhi to come in with Sanjivani Booti, but that had short-lived effect in Kaliyuga. Indian secularism was again pronounced dead in 1996, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee put together India’s first BJP-led government, even if it lasted just 13 days. It was three more than what Congress party’s affable spokesman then, V.N. Gadgil, had predicted it to be, a “ten-day wonder”.
The next time Indian secularism died was in the Gujarat killings of 2002, and then died again and again as Modi kept winning there. It was then that we could foresee May 2014, May 2019 and now 5 August 2020, being scripted. I wrote two National Interest pieces, in the wake of the 2002 and 2007 Gujarat elections, anticipating the inevitable and unstoppable rise of Narendra Modi as a dominant national leader (‘The Modi Magnifier’, and ‘If Modi wins on Sunday’). The second even said Modi’s short-sleeved kurtas would become a political fashion statement.
Am I a Modi fan, or to use that expression fashionable these days, a ‘bhakt’? Not even Modi will accuse me of that. But I am a journalist with eyes and ears open. Indian secularism was pronounced dead in 2014 and again in 2019. But on 5 August, that is earlier this week, it was still alive to be killed yet again. But hang on, you might say, this time I have seen its corpse. You would be right.
Also read: Why Modi doesn’t feature in a list of India’s reformist prime ministers
Something did indeed die this 5 August in Ayodhya. It is just that it wasn’t our constitutional secularism, but a version of it confected after December 1992.
That the Babri demolition and the riots that followed angered a lot of middle-of-the-road Hindus also is a fact proven by election results that followed. This was especially so in the Hindi heartland, particularly Uttar Pradesh. After Kalyan Singh’s BJP government was dismissed, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP and Mayawati’s BSP took turns in power.
Both built their new politics around the redefined ‘secular’ vote. In Bihar, Lalu Yadav had already perfected the formula. The secular vote now came to be seen as Muslim vote.
It was around this new notion that old enemies came together in unlikely coalitions to keep the BJP out of power. The two United Front coalitions on daily wages, under H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral, were both an arrogant negation of the popular will. The only time this new post-1992 “anybody but the BJP” secular formulation won a genuine mandate was in 2009.
The reason we call the post-1992 secularism a new formulation is because of how strongly Left politics and intelligentsia got involved in it. They rewrote the Ayodhya binary as: Did Ram even exist or not? This ran contrary to the Congress party’s cautious approach where minorities were patronised, but Hinduism never mocked.
If the new BJP was dyed deeper saffron, the Congress-led alliance’s secularism was now much redder. It led to a series of blunders: The abolition of POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), as a pre-condition to the formation of UPA-1, because the ‘Muslims’ felt victimised. Never mind that the same government, not soft on terror, simultaneously amended UAPA. Is it much softer? Ask Dr Kafeel Khan.
The Sachar Committee, which raised a question like the count of Muslims in the Army, and serial announcements of Muslim job reservations (which did nothing for Muslims), followed. The UPA government gave the nation’s highest peacetime gallantry award to a police officer killed in the Batla House encounter, and its top leadership then began raising doubts on it, to ‘assuage’ the Muslim sentiment. There were other missteps like Manmohan Singh’s statement on why he thought the minorities should have the first right on the nation’s resources.
Pre-Sonia, you would have never heard a Congress prime minister say such a thing. SP, BSP and RJD were winning power simply by hyphenating the Muslim vote with one or two other large castes, and then providing lousy governance.
At some point the voter, especially the Hindu voter, had enough of it. It is that secularism which finally died this week. Its beneficiaries had seen it coming. Or you wouldn’t have seen Rahul Gandhi’s new Dattatreya Brahmin avatar in janeu, and the big temple visits. Too little, too late.
Also read: With Ram Mandir, Modi has reversed the tide of history more than any other global leader
Narendra Modi would argue that all he has done is redefine Indian secularism according to the will of the people. He speaks with the strength of a repeat mandate. You can blame the people.
Irrespective of what the Constitution says, in a genuine republic, if enough people do not like something, they will reject it. Kamal Ataturk declared Hagia Sophia to be neither a church (which it was for almost a millennium until 1453), nor a mosque, which it had been since. He made it a museum. He was no democrat, but a benevolent dictator, albeit secular. He wanted religion out of politics.
Last month, Erdogan reversed it. Unlike Ataturk, he is democratically elected. Is his decision popular in Turkey or not? Does this, then, reflect the true will of the people? What was secular wasn’t democratic, what is democratic isn’t secular. Politics is a funny game.
You can’t elect a new people. Nor are the people of India such a lost cause. Enough Hindus still vote against Modi, in spite of his massive appeal. What they need is a better proposition.
I take you back to the summer of 1996, the Lok Sabha debate on the vote of confidence that the 13-day Vajpayee government lost. Ram Vilas Paswan, ‘secular’ then, made a brilliant speech. Babur brought only 40 Muslims, he said. They then became crores because you (upper castes) did not let us in to your temples, but the mosques were open, so we went there instead, he said.
Indian secularism is enshrined in the basic structure of our Constitution, further strengthened by the Supreme Court judgment on Ayodhya that shrewdly located the 1993 law protecting all other shrines in India within it. This is worth preserving. Indian secularism doesn’t deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine, in the manner that Paswan put it.
Also read: Secularism gave up language of religion. Ayodhya bhoomi pujan is a result of that
This article sounds is balanced but still nonsense
Secularism is dead. (7th edition) Long live secularism. Actually secularism did not start dying with Shah Bano in 1986. Secularism died in 1947 when the country was partitioned on the basis of religion. Secularism (always dying) will die one more death. When the Ram temple is inagurated after 3 years. Yeh, secularism hai ya duracell battery?
THE PECUALARITY OF INDIA I IS UNITY IN DIVERSITY. DEMTOLITION OF BABRI MASJID REPLACING IT WITH RAMAR TEMPLE IS NOT AN END ITSELF. INDIAN HISTORY REPLETE WITH SIMILAR INCIDENTS. BUT INDIA IS BUILT OF WELL FOUND
CONSTITUTION. THAT CAN NEITHER BE ALTERED NOR DEMOLISHED. IN A DEMOCRACY MANY MAY COME AND GO. BUT CONSTITUTION IS FINAL. INDIA IS A FEDERAL STATE HAVING NUMEROUS RELIGION, LANGUAGES, CUSTOMS AND HABITS.ONE SHALL EMERGE SUPERIOR TO ANOTHER. BY VIRTUE OF EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS ALL THE MYTHS SHALL DIE. SO MODERN EDUCATION THE MOST IMPORTANT TO DEFEAT UNFOUND TRUTHS.
Mr. Shekhar. It’s really sad to see a senior and experienced journalist like you give a twist the facts to make sense out of nonsense. I used to be a big admirer of your work earlier. But after seeing your change in colours, it’s obvious to everyone that you too are a sold journalist. Have lost all respect for you Sir.
The point is well made, that with the laying of foundations for the Ayodhya temple in 2020, at long last has the Modi-led NDA government interred (or if you prefer, cremated) the hideously mangled and decayed corpse of what the Congress-Left-Mandal coalition haved described as ‘Secularism’: “What was secular wasn’t democratic, what is democratic isn’t secular.”..
Perhaps this twisted, stunted thing that they’ve defined as ‘Secularism’, this creature of communal politics, was actually conceived during the Emergency – when in 1976, the Indira Gandhi-led Congress enacted the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, which changed the characterization of India in the Preamble from “sovereign democratic republic.”to “sovereign, SOCIALIST SECULAR democratic republic”. With this diabolic masterstroke, the Congress made the people of India believe that they were NOT secular before 1976! And so the wonderful argument began, that the Congress alone could protect “secularism” in India, an argument that quickly morphed into “protecting minorities (read Muslims) from the ‘evil communal Gandhi-killing RSS”.
Hindu voters are dumb. Majority of them vote based on religion, which is the domain of their poverty land. As the Guru amongst them says ” chad ja beta chad ja shooli par, Bela karega Bhagwan. They have been pulling this BS for 5000 years!
Raghuraman… stop spreading your venom. To counter your opinion logically… if Hindu voters are dumb, why and how was the congress in power for decades??? was was it it despite Hindu voters??
With your age and experience and your credentials, I do assume that you know the difference between democracy and majoritarianism. So this argument that in democracy, the electorate decide what is to be done doesn’t hold much water. Democracy is not just holding of elections, it is respecting some principles as sacrosanct. With those principles routinely being violated secularism being one of them, we cannot go about pretending to be part of a functional democracy and of course, you may defend it as much as you may like but in the end we as a country will have to pay our share of pound of flesh on the day of reckoning which isn’t much far now.
Only one thing to say, Shekhar ji (with due credit to Advani ):You were asked to bend; but you are crawling now.We can imagine the reasons for this article, but don’t accept them. You call a goat a dog enough times and you hope people will believe it is a dog.Hope you get one of the Padma awards for your efforts.
To claim that’s somebody has redefined secularism is like claiming that somebody has redefined truth by claiming that a blatant lie is a redefinition of truth.
I know Sanghis don’t do irony, but MA Jinnah must be smiling from his grave .His arguments that Muslims will always be treated as third class citizens in independent India has been proven right .
You can spin it all you like, but the hopeful optimistic vision of India, which was far ahead of its time that India can be a home to people of all persuasions has been given a burial with the ceremony in Ayodhya and the republic is definitely walking back from light to darkness under the current dispensation.
Very well told Mr. JAI.
Shekhar Ji is a man who is trying his best to twist the facts and give an alternate incorrect and dishonest narrative. Sad.
Excellent comment Mr JaiPrakash !
As you perspicaciously point out, the BJP under Modi and the many bhakths who unquestioningly support this so-called “Vikas Purush” are inadvertently validating Jinnah’s claims that Muslims will be treated as third class citizens in India. And in doing so, not only are they transforming India into a country based on Golwalkar’s fascist and bigoted ideas of citizenship, they are also widening the many fissures that already exist between different communities in India today. Instead of mending and healing these fissures and devoting the energies of the nation to development, PM Modi has decided to wake up every sleeping dog in the country and exploit it for narrow political gains, the nation be damned. A strategy that neatly hides his colossal and catastrophic failures on just about every other front but rabble-rousing and minority baiting.
You hit the nail on the head when you state:
“.. with the ceremony in Ayodhya and the republic is definitely walking back from light to darkness under the current dispensation ..”
It reminded me of a quote from the Chinese writer Lin Yutang (1895-1976):
“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set”
One hopes that the voter realises that such small men have done little to put food on their tables and the Ram Mandir does not vanquish hunger. And certainly not the Chinese.
Shekhar Gupta is a fraud, like Gandhi & Nehru. Khilaffat movement was adapted by Gandhi in the name of Hindu-Muslim unity,& Mopala genocide was the result, 42nd amendment made us secular without debate in parliament, operation blue star to hurt religious sentiments of sikhs, that Iron Lady was perpetrator ,Sikh genocide and shahbano case reversal was for sake of secularism by bofor,,s scamster rajeev, cleansing of Hindus from Kashmir is the greatest example of secularism .Is Shekhar Gupta intact to listen the flawed of secularism. He will, is not dead yet.
The Indian constitution enshrined secularism; not the western idea of separating state from church but an Indian version of secularism that treated all religions and all faiths with tolerance and regarded them all to be equal in the eyes of the state. The BJP government has made a travesty of this idea. It has deliberately stoked the idea of Hindu primacy this was never envisioned by our founding fathers. But Hinduism itself is not an unitary faith, there are several strands to it and tensions between different threads are evident in Indian society today. The state pandering to its majority religion promotes disenchantment with the political order as is happening in Kashmir. An “in-your-face” Hindu cultural militancy does not bode well for India.
Mr Raghu: A superb comment Sir! Indeed, your comment is the only one here where the connection between secularism and democratic ideals such as equality before the law and freedom of religion has been spotted.
As you rightly point out, the operationalisation of secularism in India differs from its incarnations in say, Europe. In fact, the form and function of secularism vary considerably from country to country. History, culture, colonial impacts, the population mix, religious make-up and many other factors dictate the precise manifestation of secularism in a given country. Hence, it is an infinitely more nuanced and complex concept than the mere separation of state from church.
In France for instance, secularism was designed to protect the people from religion viz. the French Catholic Church and also the Vatican. Thus, one of the intentions of French secularism – called laïcité – was to prevent the Church from interfering in the affairs of the state, law making etc. However, laïcité also guarantees a reciprocal non-interference by the state in the affairs of the Church. That principle of non-interference now applies to all religions in France.
But more importantly, the French laïcité model also guarantees that the state would uphold the principle of equality (égalité) when dealing with citizens, regardless of their religion or lack thereof. That cardinal principle of equality before the law was also enshrined in the Constitution of India in Article 14.
The BJP’s deliberate dilution of Article 14 has been taking place on many fronts. Muslims are under daily threat from goons linked to the BJP. Their right to citizenship is being questioned and their loyalties are under scrutiny. An already marginalised group has been cynically exploited by both the Congress and the BJP and faces a troubled future in Ram Rajya.
Of late, even Hindus who sported beards have been called Muslims and thrashed by Hindu mobs. You might want to read about the near lynching of Prasun Goswami, a bearded Hindu researcher by very ordinary, well educated Hindus in an upscale restaurant in Jaipur here: bit.ly/3iuegh7
As you point out, Hinduism is not uniform and unitary. Hindus worship in many different ways, many different Gods, have many different diets, castes, taboos, places of pilgrimage and so on. And trying to please one set of Hindus is bound to displease another. After all, in Pakistan, with a much simpler religion like Islam, the state is yet to define who a Muslim is and who is not a Muslim.
As the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca said:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful”
PS: I have a lengthier comment in another Print about laïcité here: bit.ly/30Iy36k
India needs rule of law, all state institutions are biased against minorities, Dalits and poor. Inequality in society is glaring, a dozen people own more than half the wealth of India __ these are the real issues of this country, unless these are addressed and solved I don’t see India going anywhere.
write about muslims,don’t include poor,dalits with them. it is like when muslims talk of preserving constitution.
Nonsense Mr Rajendra ! Mr Arif Ahmad Mir makes a valid point with his incisive comment.
Dalits face the same violence, the same discrimination and the same contempt at the hands of caste Hindus that Muslims face in India. In fact Dalits have been at the receiving end of religiously sanctioned Hindu discrimination for eons. The difference though is that now under the fascist ideology of the BJP, it also receives state sanction and approval. Indeed, you can brutally lynch a Muslim and not only will you not be convicted, you will also get garlands and sweets from BJP Union Ministers. And surely with the approval of your ilk that ostensibly approves of violence against the downtrodden.
One hopes that India survives as a country that can hold its head high in the comity of nations.
Wow.. the biased narrative at work yet again…. you will not talk about Hindus being lynched like in Palghar or Delhi riots or Godhra etc…. you won’t even acknowledge the fascists teachings in Madrassas or Islam … but will play the victim card and label everybody and everybody who exposes jihadi tendencies as fascists and islamophobis….
India will be a superpower by 2050
The only thing one can be sure is that India will become a Hindu Rashtra if the BJP continues its reign. Besides of course wealth accumulating to the Ambanis, Adanis and other well connected Gujarathis…
I would not like to comment on Shekar’s article. Nothing more can be expected from him. He is making his struggle for existence. Making his ideas along with toeing twith the inevitable. I don’t where these idiots were, when secularism was given a go away in the name of excessive appeasement.
Now coming to the survival of media (journalism) if such ideas which are against the popular sentiments are tried to be thrust on readers there necessary will be boycott of such media . It is time to eradicate such model of journalism.
6:50 It was not UPA, it was Ahmad Patel. He used Sonia Gandhi to hijack party’s ideology. Kya Shekhar Sir?! Are you too good friends with Ahmad Patel? Why are you not taking his name? haha.. He used to sit by Simhasan of Sonia madam all the time whispering in her ear. She was an amateur novice and just loved the feel of power didn’t know about all this. What you are telling the viewers (UPA came across more Anti-Hindu) you didn’t realize it recently. You know this from the start. Perhaps, you should inform the readers completely and not give them half picture.
Rahulji, I would have to disagree with you on one count. Sonia was far from being naive, she is a venomous serpent who wants to erase the hindu civilization and identity from India. So she cleverly chose another anti-hindu serpent Ahmed Patel as her close advisor. The duo – filled with hatred in their hearts – set about systematically demolishing the hindus. Unfortunately for the hindus, the duo accomplished a lot in a decade towards institutionally dis-empowering the hindus. It is going to take another 15 years of BJP to undo the damage they did. God forbid, if these serpents return to power in the near future, you can say goodbye to the hindu civilization.
Mr Shekar Gupta writes:
“.. Modi would argue that all he has done is redefine Indian secularism according to the will of the people .. Irrespective of what the Constitution says, in a genuine republic, if enough people do not like something, they will reject it ..”
Alas, that is a very naïve and crude understanding of democracy. Democracy is certainly not the dictatorship of the majority.
Some examples.
USA
A majority of white Americans wanted schools to be segregated with blacks and whites going to separate schools. Likewise, the majority of white Americans did not want to give black Americans the vote, despite what the Constitution said. Indeed, dubious tests were designed to thwart blacks from voting. As an aside, that rotten tradition that is now getting revived under Donald Trump through various voter suppression schemes targeting blacks. So my question to you Mr Shekar is:
Because the white majority in the US is against giving equal rights and the vote to blacks, should the Constitution be amended to reflect that majority view as you say?
(2a) SWITZERLAND
In 1959, in the referendum in Switzerland on whether women should get the vote, 67% of male voters rejected the notion of universal suffrage. Was that majority right Mr Gupta?
That was finally overturned in the referendum in 1971 when women finally won the right to vote.
(2b) SWITZERLAND
Switzerland frequently uses referendums to decide public policy. However, to prevent the tyranny of the majority, the country employs the notion of double majority. In other words, not only should a majority of voters back a proposal, but a majority of the 26 cantons should also do so in order for the proposal to pass.
I am afraid that as things stand today, India is sliding into a majoritarian style dictator with a democratically elected dictator at the helm.
One hopes and prays that the nation remains intact at the hands of this Delhi University graduate.
Shekhar gupta ,u r the latest guy to sell Ur soul to Modi. What happened the contributions by like minded people was not sufficient or u realised that Ur old and need that money to sell out your old soul . God bless u .
Quoting communal politoician Paswan who mouths a lie that Babar came with 40 people, you sek to undermine the vicious and murderous nature of Islamic invasion of India and millions of Hindus it killed whom it called infidel/kafirs , in its own recorded history.
Sonia is not a hindu. She is hard core evnagulist christain. Their main aim to convert everyone to christianity
Mr Sam Aruja: Aren’t you a Christian yourself with a name like Sam ?
Pramod Patil sahib ; very nice and highly informative to read , your comments on secularism . I think you are absolutely clear about , the reality on ground. Please try to shape these comments , into an artical form . These comments of yours can provide a better guidance for upcoming ,modern democracies , especially the Indo Pak.
India was never secular is true sense of the word. The current disposition has just unmasked all pretentions and called the reality in black and white.
With secularism debunked let us just call India a Hindu nation and move on. Rewrite constitution, rewrite history and create a future of one religion, one language, one culture.
India secularism is already when we use fake secularism, muslim appeasement politics, our tax payer money on hajj subsidy not for improve health care sector and development. Cong, left, opposition is muslim appeasement & casteism politics and BJP is hidu and casteism.
KK: That means accept the fact that we want to create in India Jinnah’s visio for what a state ought to be? That is a Hindu Pakistan? And I suppose you know how Jinnah’s idea of an Islamic state with one religion and one language fared right?
We might move on, but perhaps not as one nation. Just check with Sikhs in Punjab first.
Mr. Gupta, you have repeatedly used the words “Indian secularism”, when there is no such thing! Secularism, democracy, are foreign concepts, and they have no Indian precedent. Western-educated leaders like Nehru foisted these concepts of ignorant, politically immature Indians, regardless of whether they were ready for them. The meaning is the word “secularism”, according to Oxford dictionary is, “an opposition to, or rejection of religion”. This is it. Anything else is bakwas. There can’t be such a thing as “Indian secularism”, or “British secularism”. The secularism meaning “an opposition to, or rejection of religion” is nowhere to be seen in India. What was meant by word “{secular”{ when it was written in the constitution in 1976 by Indira Gandhi? And what good is the constitution, if its operators misuse it, or abuse it? THEN IT CAN BECOME AN INSTRUMENT OF OPPRESSION! THE SWORD THAT CAN FREE YOU, CAN ALSO ENSLAVE YOU!
Ambedkar was right when he said, beneath the thin veneer of democracy on the top, there is an undemocratic, hierarchical society in India. Democracy, the secularism meaning “an opposition to, or rejection of religion”, and not what Modi, or Mohan Bhagwat say it should mean, are like square pegs in round holes in India. Modi can’t redefine secularism that is already defined as “an opposition to, or rejection of religion”. Yes, he can fool the people by some mumbo jumbo that he muttered during bhoomi Puja for Ram Mandir. Like you have said, “enough Hindus still vote against Modi, in spite of his massive appeal”, but even those of them who do so, still also wants him to be the next PM! They also rewarded him for his demonetisation stunt! May be they would also reward him for losing Indian land to the Chinese in Ladakh!
Modi as the PM of India, a constitutionally secular country, shouldn’t have attended the religious ceremony of bhoomi Pujan in Ayodhya. Here are some examples of what some people and objective prestigious publications think about Modi’s attending the ceremony in Ayodhya. 1. New York Times: “Modi Founds Temple on Mosque’ s Ruins, in Triumphal Moment for Hindu Base” 2. Washington Post: “India marks another day of erasure and insult against its Muslim citizens”. Some people within India are wondering, why “No Answer From SC On How Illegally Placed Idol In Babri Masjid Became Deity?”. I don’t see here any redefining of “Indian secularism”. All I see is a cruel joke of democracy and secularism. Both democracy and secularism are suffering in India.
Sir, those secular party like congress, communist,opposition are fake secularism. When they applied 370 on kashmir, they against triple those those passed in after 30 year, they against UCC, they provide hagg subsidy on tax payer money this is wasteful and some western journalist like new York Times, washigthon post those praise Bagdhadhi is clerk. BJP is not secular same like congress, opposition and communist
I agree with the reader.
Moreover another columnist Mr. Seshadri cheri in this week’s column has predicted that Kashi and Mathura are next and should not pose a problem.
So I do not understand how Mr Shekhar Gupta has come to conclusion that secularism is not under threat. Seems to me like another good journalist falling to the awe of ruling dispensation. Very sad…
Sir you Mr Shekhar Gupta are a big fraud. You are a sucker for this intolerant government cleverly disgused
Sir
1) Does the 1993 law passed by Narsimha govt regarding religious places as on 1993 apply to KASHMIR
2) YOU have been always saying for past 30 yeàrs that all ” secular ” journalist are neutral. HOWEVER due to arrival of social media. Where people pointed out to fake “secular ” journalist . SAME FAKE ” SECULAR” JOURNALISTS started admitting that ofcourse their POLITICAL PREFERENCES COLOR THEIR JOURNALISM.
3) Will you admit that ” secular votes ” cannot be expected from a community that is basically continually praying and ignore science as it goes against religious texts.