Confessions well told

There is a very serious and, if one may add, a deeply intellectual side to Mani Shankar Aiyar: pity that it needs a brilliantly written book to bring it out. But that is exactly what Mr Aiyar?s latest work is: Confessions of A Secular Fundamentalist seems an oxymoron of a title but it is precisely why this book is a must-read.

The fact that Mr Aiyar is a minister in the Central Government must not detract from the objectivity which he brings to the book especially in delineating, and remarkably at that, the historical journey that we as a nation have made from, as he aptly calls communitarism to communalism. He presents both the right wing and the centralist view.

The moot point that the book makes and makes very well is the differentiation that many thinkers have given to the word secularism and it is indeed interesting that Mr Aiyar looks at it from the prism of history. The book begins its journey dispelling myths that we have allowed to become the obiter dicta of our lives: the Somnath temple was pillaged and looted by Hindus long before Mahmud of Ghazni partook of the spoils.

It is during this historical journey that Mr Aiyar clearly establishes the contours of secularism and the thin line between separatism and a belief in rabid communalism as India was preparing to divide itself. And he argues that division was the handiwork and desire of those who did not have the mandate to speak for the 70 million Muslims who were then part of undivided India.

The book tells a tale of nationhood from the perspective of secularism. It is clear that Mani passionately believes in an India, which cannot and must not be classified as a Hindu state since the very origin of the word Hindu came from quarters pretty Islamic.

But clearly what sets the book apart is the devastating interview with Arun Shourie with which the book opens and lays bare the intellectual hollowness of right-wing ideologues to mar the nation?s secular fabric by equating patriotism with the place of origin leave alone the place of birth.

I guess why the book is a seminal piece of work is that it does not build the logic for secularism on hatred or the much-touched principles of equality and democracy. It stays away from cliches and instead sticks to an analysis from the perspective of history, which strangely enough, as we all know, has seen changes with every successive government.

It is a book, which is therefore apt for an India, which has only recently recovered from a holocaust in governance terms where religion and not respect was the leitmotif of a society that we, thought would take us forward!