In last 10 years, except for closet seculars, all Indians are communal: Mani Shankar Aiyar
Aiyar said the biggest transformation in India was the rise of communalism
Former Union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Friday said the only way for the Indian government to deal with Pakistan is through dialogue.
“If we have disagreements with the government, why do we take it out on the people?…The only way of dealing with the government of Pakistan is not to have the courage to do surgical strikes on Pakistan or air attacks…in Balakot, but to have the courage to sit across the table and talk to the Pakistanis. For 10 years, we have not had the courage to (do this)…,” he said.
“The excuse we make is that talks and terror can’t go together…nothing suits the terrorist better than an atmosphere of tension between India and Pakistan,” Aiyar added.
Speaking on the theme ‘Memoirs of a Secular Fundamentalist’ at the 12th Goa Arts and Literature festival, Aiyar said, “Our single biggest asset in Pakistan are the people of Pakistan, because they constitute a constituency for peace, which is larger than any Indian constituency for peace.”
Recounting his years when he was posted as the consul general of India in Karachi and his subsequent trips to Pakistan, he said, “…I came to the conclusion that India, which was secular, had taken the right path, and Pakistan, which had thought that religion could be the basis of a nation, has gone completely wrong because they didn’t understand that ethnicity matters, that religion matters…”
Stating that India was increasingly becoming non-secular, Aiyar said, “Tragically, now I think that unity in diversity is being defeated by the alternative principles…the alternative principle of unity through uniformity. That is simply not going to work. And our future will be the same as Pakistan…if you go down the path that Pakistan chose,” he said.
Aiyar said the biggest transformation in India was the rise of communalism. “Until I was about 75-year-old, all Indians were secular, except for closet communalists. In the last 10 years, all Indians are communal, except for closet seculars. That has been the radical transformation I have seen over my life,” he said.
Asserting that the state must have no religion, Aiyar said that former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had refused permission to the then President to attend the inauguration of the rebuilt Somnath temple.
“And now, we have the Prime Minister of India acting as the chief priest at a religious function, which the four Shankaracharyas refused to attend because it was not in keeping with Hinduism… At least that has shown that Hindutva is a political philosophy, whereas Hinduism is a religious way of life,” he said.