"India's secular state is in a state of slow-motion collapse. The contours of a new theocratic dystopia are already evident."
The betrayal of secular India in Jaipur, though, is just part of a far wider treason: one that doesn't have to do with Muslim clerics alone, but a state that has turned god into a public-sector undertaking. The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Salman Rushdie & India's new theocracy: Few Indians understand the extent to which the state underwrites the practice of their faith. The State's subsidies to the Kumbh Mela, Haj pilgrimage, education funds committed to teaching pseudo-sciences like astrology, among them. In 2006-07, these kinds of activities accounted for Delhi's budget allocation ahead of environmental protection and civil defence.
"India is a country that most needs a decline in the scope of religion in civil society for it to turn its constitutional promise of secular democracy into a reality. But, India is a country least hospitable to such a decline". The real costs of India's failure to secularise: among them, the perpetuation of caste and gender inequities, the stunting of reason and critical facilities needed for economic and social progress; the corrosive growth of religious nationalism. India cannot undo this harm until god and god's will are ejected from our public life.
The time has come for Indian secular-democrats to assert the case for a better universe: a universe built around citizenship and rights, not the pernicious identity politics the state and its holy allies encourage.