The opening day of the monsoon session of Haryana legislative assembly saw a Jain muni addressing the legislators. This was an unprecedented violation of constitutional and parliamentary norms.

By inviting the Jain muni, Ratan Sagarji, to address the legislature, the BJP chief minister M L Khattar has struck at the root of the secular character of the State which ordains separation of religion from politics.

The Jain priest had a chair above the podium where the governor and the chief minister sat. This elevated status symbolised the supremacy of the religious leader over the constitutional functionaries of the State. The choice of the religious leader to deliver the pravachan was also dictated by the fact that he is on the approved list of the RSS which had honoured him with a title of “national saint” at the RSS foundation day celebrations held in Jaipur in October 2013.

Apart from the very act of a religious leader addressing the session being wrong and anti-secular, the content of the speech of Ratan Sagarji was on various counts objectionable. His address to the assembly consisted of remarks such as “religion in politics is purification, not saffronisation” thereby preaching the virtues of religion being mixed up with politics. Further, by portraying dharma as the husband and politics as the wife and the need for the wife to obey the husband, he set out the typical patriarchal view about women.

It is not a question of a Jain religious figure, no spiritual leader belonging to any religion should have access to parliament or legislature to propagate his or her views. It is a sad commentary on the erosion of secular values among political parties that the leader of the Congress and the INLD legislative parties welcomed the Jain muni at the outset of his address. Only the secretary of the CPI(M) Haryana state committee has publicly decried the mixing of religion and politics and the violation of constitutional norms.

Never before has a session of a legislative assembly been utilised for the delivering of a religious sermon. The secular principle ordained in the constitution has to be upheld by the speaker of the assembly and the chief minister who have sworn to uphold the constitution. By conducting this religious discourse in the assembly, they have violated the oath taken on the constitution.

The RSS views India as a Hindu Rashtra, but the BJP which has been elected to government to uphold the constitution cannot be allowed to trample upon its basic principles. The Haryana chief minister must be called to account for this serious transgression.

(September 2, 2016)