Is 'secularism' really being misused?

Tathagata Satpathy, the maverick MP from Odisha, thinks people who want to know the meaning should look up a dictionary

His argument to show the silliness of those who think Hindi should be the rashtra bhasha or ‘national language’ of India, and not merely its raj bhasha or ‘official language’, might sound twisted to those with Hindi as their mother tongue. But it struck a chord on Thursday among several non-Hindi speakers inside the Lok Sabha, not to mention the press gallery in Parliament.
 
Taking part in the Thursday discussion on the framing of the Constitution and the contribution of Dr B R Ambedkar, Biju Janata Dal Lok Sabha member Tathagata Satpathy found it irrelevant that Home Minister Rajnath Singh devoted a significant part of his speech on how the Hindi translation of English word ‘secularism’ didn’t reflect the Indian ethos of respecting all religions. The Home Minister said the current translation dharma nirpekshata should be changed to pantha nirpekshata.

 
Satpathy, an MP from Dhenkanal in Odisha and the son of Nandini Satpathy, the late former chief minister of that state, said those who want to know what ‘secularism’ means in English should flip through a dictionary. “But how the word ‘secular’ is translated into Hindi is not my problem. I am not a Hindi speaker,” he said.
 

Satpathy thought the Home Minister was being “myopic” about India’s pluralist character by claiming a certain word when translated into Hindi becomes perverted. “Just because we do not speak Hindi does not mean we are not Indians,” he said.
 

The Home Ministry under Rajnath Singh has been particularly active in promoting the use of Hindi in official correspondence. Satpathy may possibly have been referring to this when he went on to say that Hindi shouldn’t become the national language of India merely because largest numbers speak the language. He argued that it was akin to saying that the crow, which has the largest population among birds, should become the country’s national bird.
 
Satpathy is bit of an oddball for a mainstream politician who proudly wears his non-conformism on his sleeve. Earlier this year, the 60-year-old Satpathy, who is also the editor of the Oriya daily Dharitri, admitted in a social media chat that he had smoked marijuana in his younger days and found the ban on cannabis elitist. He has also spoken out against conversions to Christianity of tribals in Odisha but by pointing out how missionaries provide better health facilities and education to a people that have historically been ignored by Hinduism.

 
On Thursday, Satpathy wasn’t done with the language question. He said the concept of rajbhasha and rashtrabhasha was abhorrent to a united India.
 
The Rajbhasha Vibhag or the Department of Official Language under the Rajnath Singh-headed Home Ministry tries to popularise Hindi words by displaying a ‘word of the day’ in central government offices in Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Karnataka and West Bengal.
 
Satpathy said the department should also put a Tamil or a Bengali word in Hindi speaking states. “Let the people in Varanasi (the Lok Sabha constituency of the PM) learn Bengali or Tamil also,” he said to vigorous thumping of tables by MPs from Tamil Nadu, Bengal and other non-Hindi speaking states.

 
The MP is also a leading voice against curbs on content on social networking sites. He said he found it odd that internet was blocked in Gujarat during a recent protest, adding that it was time governments learnt to trust the people.
 
Official work in Parliament is conducted only in two ‘official’ languages – Hindi and English. Members need to take prior permission from the Speaker if they wish to speak in any other language.