Secular Politics on the Back Foot

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter looks at the retreat of secular politics in the wider context of the rise of the Hindu Right and its critique of the Congress party’s secular practice. The politicisation of religion is responsible for secular decline, but that party alone is not responsible for it. The Congress party, too, is guilty of using religious issues for narrow political gains. The chapter argues that the Congress attempt to co-opt communitarian issues from time to time, especially issues of the Hindu Right, has not helped the party to regain support as it failed to pick up electoral dividends from this competitive wooing of the Hindu vote. But with all its inconsistencies and compromises, there is recognition on its part that secularism is essential for democracy. This stands out as the most crucial distinction between the Congress and the BJP’s political discourse, and it was this platform of secularism that kept communal polarization at bay for several decades. Whether secularism can remain India’s defining ideology in the future will depend on the strategies the Congress adopts to counter divisive politics engendered by this regime.