'The word secularism is now being called appeasement', P Chidambaram said in a program

Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said the word secularism is now being called appeasement. Chidambaram, in a lecture on 'Future of Democracy' at St. Xavier's University here, said the word secularism was being misinterpreted. He said that appeasement is an attempt to defame the word (the concept of secularism).

He said that if you are not a Hindu, you are half a citizen. If you are a Muslim, you are not a citizen. There should be no mention of religion in elections. But today this is happening to a large extent in elections. Religion should be based on faith. Chidambaram said that a political party has been consistently refusing to field candidates other than Hindus and its basic structure seems to be united India, Hindu Rashtra. Religion seems to be the deciding factor. He said that the country is moving towards centralization which is contrary to democracy. We are weakening the institutions that promote democracy.

Chidambaram said that before taking any decision regarding the benefits of any reservation, the caste-wise survey is necessary and the central government should conduct it along with the census. Since the BJP-led central government has not conducted the census which should have been conducted in 2021, it may postpone it till after the 2024 general elections. His statement comes days after the Bihar government conducted a caste-wise survey and recommended 65 percent reservation for deprived sections.

Chidambaram said that the national census is only under the jurisdiction of the central government. State governments cannot conduct a national census. Therefore, it has been decided to do caste-wise calculation because without this it is not possible to know how many people are deprived of the benefits of reservation.