Historically the concept of secularism is confined to those countries only where the majority of people follow Christian religion. It is conspicuously absent in the Islamic world. Islamic world – since the origin of Islam in Arab in 628 AD – did neither believe in this principle of the separation of state from the religious institutions nor follow it in any country where Islam is in power. Why is it so? The reason is that Islam did not experience the mental awakening till now, which could evoke scientific queries and produce discoveries. Islam prohibits such queries if they go against its holy book and punishes them under blasphemy law. It has no space for people to freely speak their mind. Why Islam is unable to follow secularism? It is so because, while Christianity had abolished long ago the law of blasphemy, Islam has been unable to do so till today. While the non-Muslim world is moving at breakneck speed to uncover the scientific secrets of Nature, the Muslim world is mired in blasphemy, terrorism and violent Jihad.
The inner and outer structure of Islam and Christianity, both, is such that they cannot survive without preying upon other religions, which are incompatible with them. They say they are the only true ones and the final words of God (strangely, they both claim an exclusive God and His final word in their holy books, but do not agree with each other on that God and His words). Being the exclusive claimants for (their) God, they cannot allow a rival similar claim and, as of necessity, must devour any rival claimants, and assimilate their body within their own self. The build of their thinking and their organization is solely directed at killing all those who are foreign to them in thinking. They feed on their corpse. These two religions cannot coexist with other religions. With the invasion of India by Islam under Mohammad bin Kasim in 712 AD, for the first time a very strange situation arose in India. India had not witnessed such a situation during its long past. The Islamic State, which was integrated with that religion, disallowed Indians any kind of religious dissent. Even an attempted dissent of any kind against Islam was labeled as blasphemy and this blasphemy was declared a crime. This crime was punishable with death by the Islamic State. The medieval Indian history of Islamic rule is soaked with the blood of Indian people who were following faiths different from Islam – like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and many more like them. These hapless Indian people were declared by Islam as living in the ‘Age of Ignorance’ (Jahilya) and forced to convert to Islam under the threat of murder. Those who refused or resisted, were put to death mercilessly and their women and children were enslaved for sex (Gilmas). Their property was looted as war booty (Mal-e-Ganimat). Those of them who somehow escaped death and still survived, were imposed an exorbitant heretic tax named Zazia. A vast collection of their books – the treasure of precious knowledge – kept in libraries were burnt. In one such unfortunate incident of burning of books kept in the library of Nalanda University, a Muslim religious zealot named Bakhtiar Khilj gave an astonishing logic in justification of his act (of burning). He said, “If these books in library say what Koran has said, they are superfluous and deserve to be burnt. If they say against Koran, they are dangerous and deserve to be burnt. They say either what Koran has said or against Koran. In both cases, they need to be destroyed.” Millions of people following Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and their other sects and sub-sects were killed by Muslims simply because they believed in something that was not Islam and they refused to convert to Islam. It is estimated by some scholars that Islam committed in India the greatest genocide in the human history. This crime was committed against the Indian people because of their religious dissent.
Since the times of Mohd. bin Kasim (712 AD) this pathetic condition of the intolerance of Hindu religious ideas by the Islamic religion integrated with its State, and vested in its religious head called Caliph, continued till 1858 AD, when the British took over the State power from the last Indian Islamic ruler, king Bahadur Shah Jafar. With the British in command, the relation of State in India with religion(s) followed their peculiar imperialist strategy, of which legacy the free India’s secularism is still following without putting any thought into it. The British imperialist policy in dealing with Muslims and Hindus both was, “We are Christians. You are Hindus; and you are Muslims. Each one of you are free to do what your respective religion teaches you. But we are the State and as ruler have the power to arbitrate in disputes between both of you”. During the Indian freedom struggle, for the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity against the British imperialism, it was propagated by the Indian political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru that the imperialists adopted a policy to “divide Hindus and Muslims and rule over them”. This statement was factually wrong. Hindus and Muslims were already divided for centuries when the British came to India. This painful fact is testified by the occurrence of Hindu-Muslim riots on almost regular basis in united India from 1858 to 1947. What the British imperialists did was only to utilize this communal chasm between them to their advantage. They nurtured this divide further by taking sides, when and which way it suited them. By this strategy they often sided with the weak and vanquished the strong. It was only because of this strategy that they were able to rule this vast country despite having at their disposal in India a very small contingent of English military force.
This British policy continued till 1947 when India was partitioned on religious lines into two countries – one part called Pakistan for Muslims, where they were free to lead their life according to Islam; and another remaining part of the once united India for Hindus, where they were free to lead their life according to Hinduism or whatever they liked. The British rulers partitioned India and made Hindus and Muslims both free and choose their own path and future. The first part – Pakistan – chose Islam, which was well in accord with the Islamic philosophy as advocated by its founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah and sung by famed Islamic poet Mohd. Iqbal. Both of them – the leader and the poet – had a mindset of the bygone era of Mohd. bin Kasim. In fact, Pakistan was the fulfillment of what Muslims had sought to achieve in united India since 712 AD but could not achieve. Once they got their feet on the ground of their own country – Pakistan – they immediately engaged with more vigor with their incomplete Islamic agenda of destroying Hindu-India. For Muslims of Pakistan, from the day one, India was a Hindu-India, whether it professed secularism or not. In their heart of hearts, they cared a hoot for secularism of India. This is the reason why the left-over part of this new India – or supposedly a Hindu-India – did not see from the day Pakistan was created a moment of peace. And this India is not likely to have that peace any day soon.
Now, what did the remaining part of this once united India do in choosing its path and future? The first thing it did was to declare in its Constitution that India is not a Hindu country; that it equally belongs to Muslims; that it will be a secular country; that Hindus and Muslims (and all other religions) will have equal right to carry on the objectives – aims – of their respective religions; that they all will have the constituinal right to not only practice but also propagate what their respective religion teaches them. It was not an ordinary legal right but a fundamental right, which was guaranteed to them and could not be taken away even by the Parliament of India till eternity. The great leaders of free India who drafted the Indian Constitution did not realize the serious dangers to the very existance of this remaining India, which were inherent in such a constitutional approach.
Firstly, they did not realize that if it was possible for Muslims to carry forward their religious objectives in the united India, there was no need at all for them to demand and create their own country separate from the Hindus. Secondly, they did not realize that it was wrong to think that all those Muslims who were religiously bigots and wanted to live in their own separate country according to Islamic religion had migrated to Pakistan; and that other remaining Muslims who chose to stay back in India were not so religious bigots as to once again demand second Pakistan like their their brothers going to Pakistan had done. Moreover, there was no reason for these Indian leaders to suppose that the future generations of these Indian Muslims would always find it suitable to live along with Hindus of this remaining India. Such supposition – or expectation – of these Indian leaders was unreasonable; it was like hoping that the Indian Muslims would be unlike their forefathers who had gone to Pakistan; it was hoping that that these left-over Indian Muslims would never demand their separate country once again. Such supposition, expectation or hope was against reason and without any foundation. Generations of people succeed generations and each new generation of people think as it best suits them in their times and circumstances. There is no justification to suppose that once a generation of Muslims had demanded the creation of Pakistan out of India, another succeeding generations of Indian Muslims would not so demand again. This rational conclusion is testified by the fact that since 1947 nothing drastic has changed on their religious front in India that may give this India a hope in the change of their attitude. This assumption or expectation of those Indian leaders was vain is proved beyond any shadow of doubt by the fact that in ‘India of 2019’ an Owaisi, an Azam Khan and many more like them can openly threaten Hindus in India with violence against the established Indian law. It is also proved by the fact that sectarian Muslim organizations like Indian Muslim League and similar other organizations (which openly uphold Islamic agenda and once had spearheaded the creation of Pakistan) are still popular among Indian Muslims. Such people still harbour the sentiments of their forefathers who had once demanded the creation of Pakistan. It is not a secret and anyone with open mind and eyes can see this reality of the remaing India.