D

o you remember the 1973 James Bond spy movie Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore whose upwardly mobile eyebrows were more famous than many of his fellow actors?

The film’s eponymous theme song, written by Paul McCartney,is about a young person who initially feels everyone has the right to do their own thing, but after being exposed to the ways of the world, he becomes more cynical and egoistic, and changes his tune from “live and let live” to “live and let die”, meaning, he’ll do whatever he wants, to hell with everyone else.

Admittedly, a lot of people die in James Bond movies — almost 1,300 in total!

When he wrote the song, probably the last thing that McCartney had on his mind was secularism, but that is what I associate the song with.

Really? Well yes, because secularism is basically a “live and let live” attitude toward all religions, which in a democracy have equal rights, including minority ones.

Aug. 15, 1947, and Aug. 17, 1945, are, respectively, the independence days of India and Indonesia, the world’s largest and third-largest democracies, we like to claim. It’s true that the constitutions of both countries ensure that minorities’ rights are respected but in the past several years it seems that secularism, democracy and human rights have been under threat in both countries, in Indonesia through the rise of Islamic conservatism, and in India through the Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) politics espoused by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Secularism in India means “equal treatment of all religions by the state”, reasserted in the 42nd amendment of the Indian Constitution in 1976. “The laws implicitly require the state and its institutions to recognize and accept all religions, enforce parliamentary laws instead of religious laws, and respect pluralism”.

Anniversaries of independence days are a good time to reflect on whether we have remained true to the principles we fought and died for in the struggle for national freedom.

So I was really pleased when in late July, I received an invitation to have dinner with MJ Akbar, current Minister of State of External Affairs of India, who works directly under Sushma Swaraj, External Affairs Minister who also visited Indonesia in January this year. In between was of course the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself at the end of May. It certainly seems that Indonesia is on India’s radar!

I was eager to meet him, because of his prominent position in government, because he is a prolific writer with a stellar career working as a journalist, editor and is the author of several acclaimed books. And while a Muslim, he is always proclaiming he is a secularist. In this day and age, that is the kind of Muslim I prefer and the kind of Muslim I think is best for the world!

In person, he is good company, warm, friendly, and fascinating to listen to and converse with, because of his breadth and depth of knowledge, and also because of his insights on politics.

What intrigued me the most about MJ (as he is called among friends) was his dramatic shift. During his first foray into politics, he was a member of parliament for the Congress Party (1989-1991), the second time round, he — a lifelong liberal — joined the conservative, right-wing BJP in March 2014 as national spokesperson of the party. He got more than his fair share of flak for that shift, but it’s not an uncommon phenomenon in politics.

It seems that MJ was disillusioned by what he saw as the increased corruption of the Congress Party, accusing its members of being Luddites who blocked every change, and also what he considered the ineptitude of Rahul Gandhi, president of the Congress Party since 2017. That is dynasty politics for you. It is not something I am fond of in Indonesia either, especially with the possible candidacy of Tommy Soeharto, youngest son of the late president Soeharto, for president, through his new Berkarya Party.

So what do MJ and the BJP get from each other? For sure MJ gives the BJP prestige, given his prominent intellectual background. Furthermore, he provides the party with an eloquent Muslim voice and he is said to be formidable in debate.

What about MJ from the BJP? Perhaps a powerful platform to do something for the nation and make real change? After all, MJ says his religion is the Constitution of India and his interest is the betterment of the nation and people. After the Patna 2013 bombings during a massive election rally for Modi, MJ asked the Hindus, “Do you want to fight Muslims or do you want to fight poverty?”

In “A Mirror to Power”, the anthology of columns MJ gave me (in exchange for my Julia’s Jihad!), was a piece called “Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu Nationalist”. MJ argues that Gandhi’s nationalism was “the antithesis of communalism”, which has broken up the nation. He also said that “Gandhi would have been puzzled that Hinduism was an obstacle to secularism [...] Gandhi promised Muslims honor and equality”.

“Faith does not make us communal, human nature does”, MJ writes. Exactly. We are humans, all 7.6 billion of us on the planet.

As MJ himself said, “the world has changed, the country has changed, nothing can be extremely static”. True enough. Persecution of Muslims in present day India is seen as a serious problem whatever the Indian Constitution says, or Gandhi said.

The same is true in Indonesia, whatever the Indonesian Constitution says or our founding fathers said. Recently President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo named Ma’ruf Amin as his running mate. Ma’ruf is a conservative Muslim cleric who has helped raise the heat for the persecution of minorities, including the jailing of former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which Ma’ruf heads, is responsible for the anti-liberalism and secularism fatwa issued in 2005, which helped to cripple Indonesia’s Islam Liberal Network (JIL), provoking death threats and mail bombs sent to some of the liberal Muslim scholars. So can Ma’ruf really act as a bulwark against the perception that Jokowi is anti-Islam, or is Jokowi getting into bed with the enemy?

A report on the Indian Embassy website announces that “Pursuant to [MJ’s] visit, the first India Indonesia Interfaith Dialogue will be held in Yogyakarta on Oct. 3-5”.

Will the dialogue discuss secularism as a condition of democracy, human rights and peace in both our nations and will it make our political leaders choose to “live and let live”? Or will they keep on choosing “live and let die”?
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