A two day seminar was held on secularism for
columnists in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on September 19th and 20th.
The event, organised by Prachar Vibagh of RSS was inaugurated by Sri Suresh
‘Bhaiyyaji’ Joshi (Sarkaryavah, All India General Secretary of RSS) on 19th
September and attended by more than 80 columnists from Southern states of
India.
Eminent personalities such as Sri Balbir Punj (Vice
President of BJP), Sri Prafulla Ketkar (Editor of Organiser), Sri N K Singh
(Senior Journalist), Smt. Madhavi Diwan (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court),
Sri K G Suresh (Editorial Advisor, Doordarshan), Dr. Makkhan Lal (Founder Director,
Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management) and Sri S Gurumurthy
(Auditor and Columnist) presented their views on various aspects of Secularism
within their respective domains such as politics, media, constitutional law and
education.
Dr. Manmohan Vaidya, while summarising the
deliberations wondered, why the word ‘Secularism’ was included in the Preamble
of our Constitution during the dark period of emergency. The constitution
makers discussed and deliberated on this point in detail and decided that it
was not necessary to include the same. He requested the legal luminaries and
political experts to ponder over this issue and to see whether the intention
was to initiate divisive communal politics in our country.
Sri Bhiyyaji Joshi delivered the valedictory
address today. He spoke about the confusions that prevail in the society such
as the name of the nation (India Vs Bharat), Country Vs State Vs Nation,
Citizen Vs National, Patriot Vs Friend of nation, Anti-national Vs Enemy of the
nation, Invader Vs Native Ruler etc. Many of these confusions were infused by
people with divisive interests including British and shallow political
discourse. Current day democratic set up assumes to have absolute right over
the public discourse which was not the case in pre-independent Indian society.
There was a clear distinction between the rights and responsibilities of both
the ruler and society. The same is needed now, for example government can
impart education while the character building has to be done by the society.
He also said that a secular state should not allow
any sects or community to infringe upon the rights of other sects or
communities. However, in Bharat today, the religious minorities are given
preferential treatment. For example in Nagaland, Mizoram and Kashmir though the
minority community is in majority, they enjoy all the privileges available to
minorities. He concluded saying that a democracy is only successful if the
people are self-aware, organised and active.
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