Most of you who read this blog have seen my feeble attempt to understand my own political leanings here..
The recent Indian elections have created a confusion of sorts for my family and friends alike who ask me questions like "You are a social liberal in the United States and support the Democrats but you also support Narendra Modi who is pretty much the Ronald Reagan of India?" or "If you support Modi in India because of his economic policies, you have a blatant double standard for what you want in India vs. what you want in the US, no?" or worse "Hi, if you are all for securalism in the US, then why are you supporting BJP instead of Congress?"
Not being a politician, I do not have well rehearsed answers for these questions. Actually have to think deeply to find out answers to these questions and sometimes you might still end up wringing your hands!
The trick to answering some of these questions though is understanding that the words "liberal" and "secular" seem to be interpreted differently in India and the US. Most of the folks I interact with seem to have notions of these two words that fit a different context.
Lets take the "secular" thing first as it is relatively easy. When I grew up in India, the "secular" word meant "a co-existing of all religious faiths" which meant a "freedom of the local darga to put loud speakers and blast out muslim prayers at 4AM and the ability of the local Maariamman temple to start with Maariamma engal maariammmmmaaa at 4:05 AM". Every so often the Velankanni chariot procession with a Mother Mary statue in it will add its loud speakers to it. When the cacophony is heard by your tired and groggy ear as "alllllah whooo ammmma!", your brain subconsciously lets you understand that they are all an equal nuisance and the best thing for you to do is to turn your head in the opposite direction of "Sathyavaanimuththu Nagar" , put a pillow over your head and try to sleep.
India is a place where religion competes openly much harder than FB and Google fight for your eyeball time in the internet. Loud speakers, garish displays, festivals created by the local populace that are no where to be found in calendars of folks in other countries who practice the same religions, it is an endless barrage of "in your face religion". My understanding of Secular was that everyone could go visit whatever place of worship they wanted to go to and they had an equal right to assault the eardrums of everyone in a 5 km vicinity. They were also free to take over busy streets, cut holes in them and do "thee midhis" (fire walking) be it in the name of some Indian godess or some descendent or relative of the prophet Mohammad. I always used to wonder why the Christians in India didn't have a nice fire walking ceremony to add to the fun.
What was also odd was that the guys who do the loudspeakers are mostly cousins and some just converted to different religions. They would all show up at our house to collect money for the various festivals and my father, nice guy that he is, would kind of do a deferred payment by agreeing to let them use "electricity" from our house for their loud speakers. The irony of that is not lost on me. There are so many times I have wished to just go uproot that "illegal" umbilical cord that ran across the street from our electric box to those speakers. All said and done, everyone was different and yet everyone was the same. That kind of summed up "secular" for me.
The funny thing was that the two main political parties in Tamil Nadu were both Atheist and 90+ % of the folks doing the fire walking had a choice of voting for atheist vs. atheist.
Later in life though, it hit me hard when the reservation system reared its ugly head and I actually understood the concept of a "vote bank" after living in Banaras for 4 years. Secular meant the extension of the British Raj by the Congress party by using the "divide and rule" policy. Prey on the differences, give special treatment to minority groups where you define minority in local geographic terms and capitalize this to get votes.
In the US, my understanding of secular in my early immigrant years can be summed up in one sentence. "We are a Christian country, but we will let you go to a temple and pray the way you want as long as you understand that when we say ONE NATION UNDER GOD, we mean Jesus!" . Over the years, I have realized that given anything other than Christianity is a minority religion in the US, my understanding was more or less accurate. We were seen as a small bit of of spice to the melting pot that did not ruin the taste. The US is 79% Christian, 5% other religions, 16% non religious. Of the 16% non religious, 5% is "secular" or "unassociated".
In the US, Secular means "I am neutral to religion" in a very different way.
Now to understand the "Liberal" thingy. I am glad this was not on an exam paper for 10 marks, because I would have run out of paper or ink and not finished the exam in any alloted time. I was not sure exactly what my political leaning was in India. I never voted in an Indian election. In the south I did like the leader of one of the two Atheist parties because he had a way with words when it came to the Tamil language but did not like his party or its followers for their "hate crimes". The rest of my family loved the other parties leader as she acted as though their was a Hinduistic lean. Turned out they were both playing a similar game in different sectors. They have their own TV channels, airlines, newspapers, etc. FOX news executives can learn a thing or two from both these parties and we have a sum total of one guy who represents the Jon Stewart and Colbert spectrum in Tamil Nadu.
At a national level though, I have never liked any party be it the BJP or Congress. The congress was doing the divide and rule and their economic policies sucked. Sucked the money out of India to Swiss banks that is! The BJP was great for the local economy and Nationalistic pride makes nations improve their standing in the world (see China and how it is doing now!). However witnessing the demolishon of mosques and watching hindus and muslims go on killing sprees, curfews and shoot at sight orders in Banaras left a bitter after taste for religious politics. It is also difficult to map what party in the US maps to what party in India!
If you had to compare Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians to the Congress, BJP and the new Aam Aadmi party it really gets to be difficult. Somehow folks expect this to be a 1:1 but it is not. When it comes to economic policies, development policies, influence of religion on the party, govenment reach into policies, individual freedoms and government guarantees they are all over the place.
Now for the Modi Reagan question. I am going to agree that being a minority in the US based on my religion and part of the majority in India for the same religion, there are some views that are shaped by this discrepancy. Why? While I am not the "in your face" religious type, I do like the freedom to practice what I want to, be it religion or spirituality. It is also the reason why I am probably turned off by the far right in the US while I am not alarmed by the BJP's vote base that is equally far right because they happen to be Hindu. Somehow the reasoning that India is more of a spiritual place seems to supresses that tingling spider sense.
Supporting Obama because he will bring Healthcare to all and even out the increased divide between the folks who have access to lobbyists and folks who are being left behind while simultaneously supporting Modi who is bringing in Reagan era scalebacks of social subsidy programs does sound hypocratic. But my brain puts it in a differnt context. It is true that both countries have corrupt politicians who make themselves and the rich, richer while the poor get poorer. There are differnces though to concepts like a minimum wage that exists in US but is non existant in India. Social Welfare itself implies different things in the two countries! Infrastructure development does not have the same priority in the US and India. The needs and priorities in the two countries are very different. Yes, they both could use a multi party system and honest politicians and a populace that is not swayed by advertising and lies that makes them vote against their own interests.
In a way, Modi is closer to Obama and not Reagan because he stands to do a lot better than his partymates, seems to have a character that seems to be outside of the 3*sigma window of the politicians in his party and seems to have an uncanny ability to rally the troops when push comes to shove. He also seems to be as determined to develop the infrastructure and open up trade in the same way Obama pushed the healthcare reform. He also seems to have a personal charm, integrity and conviction, not to mention those things that are common to soccer, tennis, table tennis and cricket.
After all that rambling, the takeaway is this. The 1:1 mapping does not work between the parties or select leaders.
I am sure there will be a lot of you telling me in intricate detail where I am wrong and where I am right. Will also find out over the years myself on where my bets were right and wrong. It happened with Obama being toothless and playing victim, when it came to taking on certain fights and I am sure the same thing will happen to Modi if he plays pacifist between his far right base and his development agenda. As long as he doesn't start crying like John Boehner, think it will be okay!
