Why Hindus should not be obsessed with UCC and Section 295A, and instead seek liberation of temples

I have been a free speech absolutist. I detested Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) the same way hard-core Nehruvians abhorred Article 44 of the Constitution. Section 295A defines and prescribes punishment for “deliberate and malicious” acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs. As for Article 44, it lays down that the state shall endeavour to secure a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) for the citizens throughout the territory of India.

However, in the wake of the Nupur Sharma episode, and especially after the killing of at least six people just for supporting the former BJP spokesperson, the fallacy of the idea of free speech was too evident to miss. Though such incidents have occurred several times in the past too, the fact that this time it has taken place when there is a strong, nationalist government at the Centre, has been an eye-opener on the challenges facing the nation.

Free speech absolutism requires absolute and uncompromising equality among citizens, at least in the eyes of the establishment. It works well if the system is non-partisan and society is not besieged by fears and dilemmas. The Nupur Sharma episode and a series of killings thereafter prove that the community that is often projected by the Left-liberal ecosystem as “dara hua Musalman” doesn’t really need Section 295A to protect itself from “deliberate and malicious” acts intended to outrage its religious feelings.

Through the murderous acts of a few of its co-religionists and by invoking the collective might of the global ummah, the binary of self-censorship and orchestrated reverence for the faith is generated and street veto is instinctively put in place. No wonder, soon after a master fact-checker created a global outrage by selectively and mischievously editing the Nupur Sharma tape, I asked one of my commentators why he was repeatedly using the term “holy” in his article, and pat came the reply: “It’s better to be safe than sorry. I don’t want ‘them’ to have even an iota of doubt about my respect for their religion!”

Now rewind the Nupur Sharma tape, and see those parts which our master fact-checker deliberately edited out: In her defence, it can be said that Nupur Sharma was only reacting to the provocation of a Muslim panellist who said not-so-savoury things about a just discovered Shiva-linga at the Gyanvapi mosque. As a spokesperson of the ruling party, Nupur Sharma may have erred and embarrassed the Modi government, especially among its Arab friends, but as an individual she deserved to be defended. The BJP could have made a distinction between the two and spelt it aloud: Of her duties as a party spokesperson and her rights as a citizen of India.

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The bigger message coming out of the episode, however, is that Hindus, more than anybody else, need legal support to not just defend their way of life but also their religion and gods. Giving up on Section 295A would be like abdicating the only shield they have, especially at a time when the community as a whole has turned its back on the martial tradition of the Indic civilisation. Today, for educated Hindus the very imagery of their gods and goddesses flaunting their respective weapons seems so out of sync, born and brought up on Gandhism, which, if VS Naipaul is to believed, was a “bits and pieces” philosophy largely inspired by foreign ideals and ideologies (A Writer’s People: Ways of Looking and Feeling). So, when the State largely fails to protect its citizens and Hindus find themselves emasculated both intellectually and physically, Section 295A is all they have to protect themselves, howsoever antediluvian this notion may sound!

India’s tragedy is that when it was under British rule, it had a flourishing liberal ecosystem unabashedly led by Hindu nationalists and intellectuals. Colonial rule could not stem Hindu civilisational ethos. But after India gained Independence, the country — under the heady mix of Gandhism and Nehruism — did what our colonial masters failed to do: Put in place a system that was awfully apologetic about India’s Hindu past and in the name of secularism created an order that innately tilted in favour of minorities — Nehru pompously called it secularism!

The 1955 Hindu Code Bill, which sought to reform personal laws for the Hindu community, is a classic example of what ailed Nehruism. Noted jurist and a member of the Nehru cabinet, MC Chagla wrote his 1973 memoirs, Roses in December, how Jawaharlal Nehru showed “great strength and courage” in getting the Hindu Reform Bill passed, but “accepted the policy of laissez faire where the Muslims and other minorities were concerned”. Acharya JB Kripalani, speaking during the parliamentary debate on the Hindu Code Bill, was even more scathing in his criticism as he accused Nehru of being communal “because you (Nehru) are bringing forward a law about monogamy only for Hindu community”. He thundered, “Take it for me that the Muslim community is prepared to have it but you are not brave enough to do it.”

Today, 67 years later, when the buzz is that the Modi government may go in for the UCC, the Muslims-are-not-yet-ready narrative still finds a resonance. The State is again being advised to wait till the community is ready to embrace the change on its own. The real question, however, is: Does Hindu society need to care about UCC when both the Left-liberal, Nehruvian seculars and the Muslim community are busy giving it a communal colour? What is the Hindu community supposed to gain out of it all? Nothing! To the contrary, given the apologetic nature of our governments, one won’t be surprised if the UCC may come in with certain provisions that might deliberately and ostensibly be anti-Hindu, just to showcase the ‘other side’ how wholesome and non-partisan the entire exercise is!

Instead of the UCC, the issue that must be of immediate interest to Hindus is the liberation of their temples from state control. Why should Hindu temples be ‘managed’ by the secular State when the same courtesy is not applied to the institutions of other religions? TR Ramesh, who has been fighting for the cause for decades now, has shared several documents with this author that not just showcase the State mismanagement in running Hindu temples, but also deliberate diversion and loot of temple resources for ‘secular’ works. The State interference is not limited to just management of temples, but also mode and basis of worship.

Noted lawyer and author J Sai Deepak gives an interesting perspective to this phenomenon. In his seminal book, India That Is Bharat: Coloniality, Civilisation, Constitution, he brings out how the Indian state has enacted “at least 15 Hindu-specific legislations” that enable state control and facilitate state entrenchment in Hindu institutions. “Clearly, this is attributable to the Indian state’s embracing of the colonial assumption that the ‘Hindoo’ is corrupt, debauched and backward, especially if Brahmin, and therefore, such institutions must be under state control in order to ‘reform’ them,” he writes.

Temple liberation is what should concern — and bother — Hindus today. Yes, it would be a momentous day for India’s democracy to have UCC in place, for it would mark the beginning of a true liberal-secular culture in the country, but why should Hindus bet everything on how many times Muslims marry, especially when their own religious bodies are under the subjugation of the ‘secular’ State?

Vir Sanghvi, the then editor of Sunday, in the wake of The Satanic Verses controversy in the late 1980s, wrote: “In 1988, secular liberals found their secularism in conflict with their liberalism. The liberal view would have been to fight the ban: But the secular thing to do was to ban something that could offend Muslims... We should have preferred our liberalism over what we saw as secularism.”

Sanghvi, unintentionally, gave away the secular game in India when he matter-of-factly said that being a secular one couldn’t afford to offend Muslim. This is the Indian version of secularism. No wonder, for all his liberalism, Sanghvi, in the end, supported a ban on The Satanic Verses, even before theocratic Iran could do so. Until such a perverted version of secularism thrives in India, Hindus cannot afford but see Section 295A as an ally in defending their culture, gods. They can also resist the idea of being obsessed with the UCC, for it may come demanding a pound of flesh from the Hindu body that’s already drained of its élan vital in a patently unsecular secular order. Hindus, instead, must look inwards and seek the liberation of their temples. Let this be the electoral agenda in 2024.

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