Adishankaracharya, Bharat & Secularism

To day is Sankara jayanthi ..

Modern  historians  say there was not a concept of India  as such before British ..

But sankara marked the boarders of India with mutts in all  corners of modern India   .. 

wrote  slokas describing each mountain and  river of Bharat  ..

and travelled  continually  the length and breadth of it ..

 We are often told...

That  India is a secular country ..

But rarely we talk  how it became one ... 

especially when her twin sister who took birth one day before didn't become  one ...

Mostly the narrative has been  like this ..

That the first prime minister and his personally selected  constitution drafting body has taken great pains to make sure  she  be  one ...

Then  later that first prime minister's daughter  added the word secular to its preamble  by means of  an amendment   to safeguard it from the  communal majority   forces  ...

But was it   really the first prime minister and his party  who made her secular   ...

Why then  her twin sister who took birth a day earlier  didn't become a secular one  like her ...

History tells  India could become secular because ..

 She took birth  counting the heads of  the people  who belonged to a secular culture  ...

Where ever their numbers were in majority those areas were able to join together to makeup  that  secular country 

So that a secular constitution could be written for her  ....

So that a  secular modern scientific  atheist  prime minister could rule a country made up of believers  secular in mind in majority   .. 

So that the secular daughter of that secular prime minister was  able to add a word secular  in preamble in fear of that secular majority may get  changed one day   ..

So that those guardians of secularism 
 could remove from  the original draft of constitution the  pictures of   Ramayana and Mahabharata  thinking them not secular enough for  the new secularism they claim to have invented ..

So that the  son of that second  prime minister could also become  a  prime minister of this secular country  and even could  undo a secular verdict of supreme court  for secularism without upsetting the  rest of the  seculars ..

So that after the unfortunate death of that third   prime minister   again the  ' adhithi ' daughter in law from the same family   could be  the real boss of that secular country for  a long decade ..

.. it matters ..the number  of those  secular heads ... for it  to continue to be  a secular one    ... don't need to be from one religion ...but has to be the offsprings of this culture...

Those  heads to count  for British   remained  there in the first place because of a few great gurus   like Sankara  ...

Even to the extent of bearing   taxes for  their right to believe all roads  lead to you ...   

Those heads remained unbend  even after   being told their  books and beliefs are not  good enough to live in  a  modern  world   ...   

Taking a leaf from that same  books   the half naked fakir ...as he was called by churchil... planned his strategies  for a new  war ...

We have faltered ..we have wronged ...we have sinned ... We have been foolish ...

But we have  corrected and always remained secular ..

Thanks to these gurus ...

So let's continue to say    .. 

Sapta dvipa vasinaam praneenam akshaya upadvistathu ... 

Loka samastam sukino bhavantu..

Om sahana vavatu
(Om, may God protect both teacher and student)

Saha nau bhunaktu
(May He nourish us together)

Saha viiryam karavaavahai
(May we work together with great energy)

Tejasvi nau-adhiitam-astu
(May our studying be effective)

Maa vidvissaavahai
(May there be no hate among us)

Om shanti, shanti, shanti
(Om peace, peace, peace [in three forms – in me, nature and the divine forces])