‘Historian’ Ramachandra Guha had a meltdown on Friday after Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Samadhi of Adi Shankaracharya in Kedarnath following his visit to the shrines in the holy city. Narendra Modi also performed the aarti and visited the Jyotirlinga shrine.
The ‘historian’ was not pleased with Narendra Modi practicing his faith. According to Ramachandra Guha, the Prime Minister demeaned his office through the gestures. He said, “If the Prime Minister wants to pray in a temple he should do so privately and without cameras in attendance. These public displays at state expense are repugnant. They demean his office.”
The comments appear quite bizarre as a Prime Minister is entitled to the same rights as any other citizen. He has the right to practice his faith. Furthermore, the political culture in India permits politicians to visit Temples and other religious institutions in their official capacity.
Indian secularism does not even entail a complete separation of religion and state as Governments continue to control Hindu religious institutions. Under such circumstances, it is a repugnant demonstration of the fragility of Guha’s own political inclinations that he chooses to attack something as mundane as a Hindu Prime Minister visiting Kedarnath, one of the holiest pilgrimage centres in Hinduism.
Even in the West, whose secularism Ramachandra Guha appears to endorse, does not forbid its elected representatives from practicing their religious faith. Indeed, presidents in the United States of America have a long standing tradition of taking oath upon the Bible.
Similarly, the first Hindu Congresswoman in USA, Tulsi Gabbard, took oath on the Bhagavad Gita. There are also videos of Tulsi Gabbard singing Kirtans at ISKCON events. Gabbard is, of course, not the only one. Joe Biden, throughout the course of his presidential campaign and since he took office, has made a great deal about his Catholic faith. No one had a problem with that at all.
Barack Obama, one of the most popular US Presidents, regularly spoke about his Christian faith and visited Churches while in office. And never was he attacked for it nor did anyone believe secularism was under threat due to his visit.
This phenomenon of ‘intellectuals’ berating a Prime Minister for visiting Temples is uniquely Indian. It is only the Indian ‘intellectual’ class that believes secularism could be threatened by something as ordinary as a visit to the Temple by an elected representative.
It deserves mention that such vehement proclamations of religion being a private affair are not observed when ‘secular’ politicians visit Mosques or Gurudwaras. When Mamata Banerjee visited a Mosque before her bypoll elections recently, she did not receive any criticism for it from so-called ‘intellectuals’, even though it was an egregious attempt at soliciting votes along religious lines.
Arvind Kejriwal hardly received any criticism when he performed puja on Diwali in a huge public event. And it is not even the first time that he has done it. Only recently, Kejriwal shared visuals of himself participating in the Aarti on the banks of the great Saryu river. This was after he opposed the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.
भगवान श्री रामचंद्र जी का स्वागत दिल्ली के अंदाज़ में। भव्य दिवाली पूजन कार्यक्रम | LIVE https://t.co/JZ5yUzzjyJ
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 4, 2021
There is clearly a great duplicity in the manner in which such demonstrations of piety are treated. Ramachandra Guha himself appears to live in a bubble, clutching at straws to justify his nonsensical opposition towards PM Modi’s visit to Kedarnath.
It is also emblematic of the morbid hatred that our ‘intellectual’ class has towards demonstrations of Hindu piety. For long, they have attempted to deny that Hinduism even existed in ancient India. Some went so far as to claim that Hinduism came into existence during the era of British rule.
Given such ideological predispositions, it is not surprising that visuals of the Prime Minister of India visiting Kedarnath makes them deeply uncomfortable and they lash out in ridiculous ways.
