By Barnes Mawrie
For centuries past, the attempt to integrate politics and religion has been made in different parts of the world. In the ancient civilization of Egypt for example, the Pharaohs who ruled the Egyptian Empire from Akhenaten to Snefru, were also considered gods. Therefore they commanded radical obedience from their subjects. They were venerated and even worshipped by the people. Ancient Greece too recorded a similar practice where we see temples built as civic places of worship to deities like Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, Venus and Diana etc, were popular. In fact, in ancient Greece, every city is associated with a deity. In ancient Rome, where the sense of republic was dominant and where democracy prevailed in the form of the Senate, there was a clear distinction between religion and politics. In fact, the Romans considered religion a private matter which should not enter into public life. But with the arrival of Caesar Augustus, monarchy entered Rome. Augustus (meaning sacred or revered) appropriated all powers of the Senate to himself.
Since then the Roman Empire had seen a number of emperors some of whom were notoriously cruel and inhuman like Nero, Caligula or Domitian. The Emperor Cult started when the emperor was considered the son of Jupiter and he was worshipped and venerated in public. These are examples from ancient civilizations where we see religion getting mixed up with politics. History tells us that in all these cases, there had been abuses of power, cruelty, oppression of the weak and the poor especially the minorities. These consequently led to the erosion of fundamental human values which in turn brought about the destruction of these mighty empires.
In Europe a similar type of theocracy developed in the medieval era when Christianity became the dominant religion of the continent. In fact, during that period the Popes assumed both spiritual and temporal powers. Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) published a bull titled Unam Sanctum where he claimed that the Pope had both these powers. Since then, the Popes started to exercise both the temporal and spiritual powers over their subjects. It was as late as 1870 that the temporal power of the Pope was taken away. However, with the Lateran Treaty in 1929, Benito Mussolini restored the Vatican to the Church. So as of today, the Pope’s temporal power is limited to the Vatican State while his spiritual power extends to all the Catholics in the world.
Looking back at past history of the medieval church when the Popes and Bishops combined in themselves both temporal and spiritual powers, Christian historians unanimously agree that it was the darkest era of the Church. Abuses of authority, moral depravity, crime, corruption and scandalous lifestyle etc, were rampant taking the Church to the brink of self destruction. Today Christianity has learned from experience that politics and religion form a deadly cocktail. Whenever, religion gets entangled with politics there has always been negative consequences. Man is a finite and fallacious being and so it is next to impossible for him to manoeuvre between the spiritual and the temporal.
Strangely enough, when history has shown that such a concoction between religion and politics does not function absolutely, there are still many states today that have adopted Theocracy as a form of government. States like Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia etc, are ruled by the Sharia Law of Islam. In such countries, minorities belonging to other religions other than Islam, have no chance to profess their religions. Secularism has no foothold in their constitutions and the basic human right of professing one’s own religion is entirely denied. Religious intolerance and active eradication of other faiths, are the order of the day. The recent horrific atrocities committed by the ISIS who professed the most radical theocracy, clearly show how terrible the consequences can be when a religious creed fuses with a political ideology.
In India today, we see the same ugly monster emerging on the scene. The BJP government is evidently heading towards a theocratic government. The slogan for Hindutva, the imposition of Hindu religious beliefs (sacredness of the cow etc), the ghar wapsi movement, the gradual persecution of the minorities belonging to Islam and Christianity, are clear manifestations of a theocratic regime that is intolerant towards others. The fact that a priest, Yogi Adityanath, has become the Chief Minister of the largest state of India, is another proof that the present government is heading towards theocracy.
Theocracy as a form of government belongs to the ancient civilization and does not fit into the post-modern world where freedom and rights of individuals are to be upheld. Is the BJP trying to take India back to the Ramayana or Mahabharata period? Is it not the government’s duty to take the country forward and not backward? The present political development in our country is definitely a step backward. How can a country like India that is so characterized by plurality in every aspect of life, be tolerant towards such intolerance? There seems to be a deliberate attempt to delete the word ‘secular’ from our Constitutions and substitute it with “Hindu.” Such an action would be most unfortunate and would spell doom for our country. Every right thinking Indian citizen irrespective of any religious affiliation should fight against such an attempt to destroy the very fabric of our nation. Meghalayans will exercise their protest against such “divisive politics” when they go to poll in 2018. Long live secularism in India.