Secularism does not mean non-religious, but equal respect to all faiths: EAM Jaishankar
Secularism for India does not mean being non-religious but an equal respect to all faiths, but the «appeasement» government policies of the past made the biggest religion of the country feel like it had to be self-deprecatory in the name of equality, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said.
During an interaction entitled 'How a Billion People See the World' at the Royal Over-Seas League in London on Wednesday evening, Jaishankar was asked if India had changed since the Nehruvian era to become less liberal and more «Hindu majoritarian» under the BJP-led government.
While asserting that India had certainly changed, Jaishankar was categorical that the change did not mean India being less liberal but rather «more authentic» about expressing its beliefs.
«Has India changed from the Nehruvian era? Absolutely, because one of the assumptions of that era which very much guided the thinking of the polity and its projection abroad was the way we define secularism in India,» said Jaishankar, in response to a question by journalist-author Lionel Barber.
«For us, secularism doesn't mean being non-religious; for us secularism means equal respect to all faiths. Now, what happened in reality in politics was beginning with equal respect for all faiths, we actually got into a sort of politics of minoritarian pandering.
That, over a period of time, I think, created a backlash,» he said.
Jaishankar referenced «appeasement» as a very powerful word in the Indian political debate, which guided the direction in which politics went.
«More and more people started feeling that in a way, in the name of equality of all religions, in fact, the biggest religion had to be self-deprecatory and play itself down. A big part of that community
