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 42nd 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.