The Two Faces of India
Preserving a Secular State in a Religious Country

by Stanley A. Weiss

NEW DELHI--To visit with Lal Krishna Advani is to encounter the Jekyll and Hyde nation that is the secular democratic republic of India.

There is Advani the distinguished elder statesman, deputy and heir apparent to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who tells me proudly that the United States and India are ''the twin towers of democracy.'' He speaks of an ''enduring peace'' between India and Pakistan and ''equal respect'' between Hindus and Muslims.

Then there is Advani the ideologue, the firebrand whom many Indians blame for inciting Hindu activists to destroy a disputed ancient mosque in 1992, which ignited religious riots that killed thousands. The wave of Hindu fervor propelled his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 1998.

Which Advani reflects the true face of India? Actually, both.

On the one hand, India's challenge, as described by its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, has been to build ''a secular state in a religious country.'' Indeed, the 1950 Indian constitution affirms ''the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion.''

On the other hand, the Constitution made no mention of the word "secular" until 1976 during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's brief authoritarian Emergency rule. India's founding fathers were deliberately ambiguous on religious rights - both giving the Muslim minority their own Islamic-based civil code but also promising the overwhelming Hindu majority that the government would work toward a uniform civil code.

Because the constitution gives something to everyone, all sides claim to march under the banner of secularism. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and political parties like Sonia Gandhi's Congress Party say secularism means government intervention on behalf of persecuted minorities. Hindu nationalists and parties like the BJP decry this as ''pseudo secularism'' and say true secularism means government remaining neutral.

In fact, Advani, Vajpayee and a majority of Vajpayee's cabinet belong to the controversial Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Group, dedicated to ending separate rights for Muslims in favor of a "Hindu nation." Proclaimed one recent headline here: "The BJP Reigns and RSS Governs."

Some fear that the BJP will upset India's delicate religious balance by repeating its bloody electoral success last year in the state of Gujarat. Capitalizing on riots that left 2,000 Muslims dead, Gujarat's BJP chief minister, Narendra Modi, called new elections, campaigned on an anti-Muslim platform and was reelected in a landslide. One analyst called the gruesome strategy: ''Kill Muslims and win the Hindu vote.'' Hindu fanatics speak of making Gujarat a "laboratory" for the entire nation.

But reports of the death of Indian secularism are greatly exaggerated. Gujarat was an aberration, not a harbinger of India's future.

In India all politics is local. A western border state with Pakistan, Gujarat's balloting reflected the hysteria surrounding last year's riots and the military standoff between New Delhi and Islamabad. Modi campaigned, not only against his political rivals, but against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf - an easy choice for Indian voters.

The first attempt to test the Gujarat "laboratory," in the state of Himachal Pradesh last month, backfired miserably. With Muslims comprising only 2 percent of the population and Hindus irate over local government services, voters tossed the BJP out of office. "The verdict," conceded the defeated BJP leader, ''shows that Indians are secular by nature.''

Second, coalitions curb extremists. Vajpayee is constrained by the realities of a 23-party coalition government that includes parties hostile to the BJP's aggressive Hindu agenda. In fact, Hindu fundamentalists are increasingly embittered as they fear their radical agenda will never be implemented.

Finally, Muslims matter. Vajpayee may pander to the BJP's Hindu base by blaming Muslims for their own massacre at Gujarat ("wherever Muslims are, they do not want to live peacefully"). But the Congress Party is guilty of playing both sides of the "religious card," at times stoking Muslim fears, at times appealing to Hindu nationalism.

Comprising 12 percent of the population, India's 150 million Muslims are comfortably integrated into secular India's political, business and entertainment communities and cannot be ignored. Major parties ignore them at their peril.

After a visit to the charred ruins of Gujarat last year, Vajpayee reportedly asked, ''What face will I now show the world?''

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel holds the answer. Unable to continue swinging wildly between his good and evil side, the respectable Dr. Jekyll loses control to the diabolical Hyde, who ultimately destroys them both.

There is only one way India will realize its full potential as the world's largest democracy and gain its rightful place as a leading global power. New Delhi must preserve the delicate balance of a secular state in a religious country.