Response to the Seminar Paper on Hindutva and Secularism in India: A Oneness

Pentecostal Response presented by Lalrinzuala on 23rd February 2024

@ Calvary Bible College.
Responded by Hosan Gangte.
Our resource person today presented a very scholarly paper and through the paper he
firstly introduced the topic and then made the readers familiarize with Hindutva and its
ideology, where he traces the brief uprising and the basic beliefs of the proponents of this
ideology. He then goes on to speak of the ideologies- pinpointing more directly on their
beliefs, and the activities they follow in seeking to achieve their agendas. The resource person
then goes on to define secularisation, secularist and secularism- bringing out the part of
speech they are, and their usages through the history. He then goes on to dimensional views
of secularism which includes- Religious Freedom, Citizenship, and Separation of State and
religion. He then goes on to talk on the Hindu perspective of secularism through their
pluralistic perspective, Fundamentalist perspective and under Fundamentalist perspective-
Religious nationalism, Religious Racism, and Religious Culturism. Before concluding, the
resource person gave a Oneness Pentecostal Response on Hindutva and Secularism where he
defended his stance and the Oneness Pentecostal’s stance on secularism while seeking to
bring a religious equality among them. He then Reflects on the paper where he reflected on
the Hindutva propaganda of the nation and how it has influenced the masses. Then he
concludes by touching on the need of secularism for development of the nation.
Comments:
 The paper is very scholarly and very much informative.
 The resource person managed to bring out a very detailed paper yet short and
compact.
 The resource paper has used several sources making the paper reliable for future
reference as well.
 Since it is a seminar, the resource person could have used “Resource Person” instead
of “Presenter” which would have been more appropriate.
 Page 1, first paragraph, 4th line should be “A historical…” not “An historical…”
 Page 7, last line should be “born” not borne”.
 Page 8, first paragraph, 3rd line should be “objective” not “object”.
Questions-
 Since the resource person said Hindutva is of a late origin in the later part of the
nineteenth century, can he bring out the developments of this ideology? On similar
lines, can our resource person shed a light on how Hindu, one of the most tolerant
religion, has become thus?
 “Secularism” and “Socialist” were included only in the 42 nd Amendment 1976 of the
constitution. And there is a hearing going in supreme court currently. What are the
resource person’s view on this as secularism and socialism was not a part of the
original India.
 On his response, he says that “Oneness Pentecostals must stand firm on secularism…”
meaning that we must treat all religions equally. But is it Biblical? Or do we practice
it? For we say that unless those born of water and of spirit will not enter into heaven
 and the extremist even go to the extent of saying that only UPC will go to heaven.
UPC is supreme to all religions. And our pulpit cannot be used by other
denominations (not speaking other religions), only members affiliated to UPC are
admitted to CBC.
 Is involvement in politics the only way to protect secularism? What about Pressure
groups, NGOs and Christian Alliances?
Concluding remarks:
 If we the Christians or particularly, the UPC, were in the place of Hindus in India,
I believe we would be much more extreme than them. Looking at our states-
Mizoram, Nagaland for instance where Hindus are at minority where they do not
feel safe and they are forced to not conduct business on Sundays, just because
Sunday is a holy day for Christians.
 Lastly, Christianity is on religion that has faced persecution right from the
beginning, and will continue to face. In the words of one of my professor in
college, “My religion does not need to be protected by mortal men. It is protected
by God throughout the centuries and will continue to be”. Along these lines, we
must be strong on our faith, we must have a faith strong enough to withstand
persecutions and hardships be it Hindutva, persecution even to death; for such is
the path the gospel has threaded to reach to us.