Thursday 23 September 2021

SECULARISMS (plural) OF INDIA

 


Secularism has long been the language of most public servants and many scholars in the Western world, enabling both groups to work and live as though religions were irrelevant to their respective fields. This perspective has meant that religious phenomena have been ignored or reduced to other categories such as civil society, humanitarianism or as part of a definition of “civilization.” Secularism has been more of a huge, welcoming umbrella, covering all those who object to a religious presence in public politics. In doing so, secularism has defined itself, and even been defined by its religious opponents such as the present Pope, more by what it objects to, namely religion, rather than what it is or proposes.

While the concept itself has deep historical roots, the term secularism itself dates only to the 19th century, when it was coined by British reformer George Jacob Holyoake. Revolutionary America and revolutionary France were the first two nations to establish themselves on explicitly secularist terms. The two revolutions, needless to say, had different trajectories – in part because the French Revolution was much more explicitly anti-clerical than the American one (Americans were no less hostile to Catholic priests than the French, there were just far fewer of them in 18th century America).

Secularism as a “defining ideology” is simply another Western imposition on societies that would prefer much more religion in their states. Secularism is under attack around the world in ways that are as unexpected as they are frightening. People are beginning to question the very basis and the conspiracy behind division of a secular British India on the lines of religion into independent Islamic Pakistan and an independent secular India. When the University of Texas surveyed 195 national constitutions from around the world, researchers found that over 70 of them declare some variation of the secularist ideal. Remaining 125 out of 195 national constitutions do not pretend to be secular. This may be disappointing for secularists.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and especially after the vent of September 11, 2001 there has been increasing talk of the determining role of religion in shaping the pattern of the behaviour of states and non-state actors. Years earlier, Samuel Huntington, in his article on the coming Clash of Civilizations, had argued that religion will become the most important marker of identity and the determinant of patterns of international conflicts and amities. To understand why we need to turn to the politics of secularism - what kinds of politics follow from different forms of secular commitments, traditions, habits, and beliefs? Two trajectories of secularism have been influential in international politics: laicism (separationist narrative in which religion is expelled from politics – as in Indian constitution), and Judeo-Christian secularism (a narrative of accommodation in which Judeo-Christian tradition, with all of the contradictions inherent in that hyphen, is perceived as the source and foundation of secular democracy – as in the US). These varieties of secularism don’t map cleanly onto one country or one individual—both appear in different modes in different times and places. Secular states are not atheists – the official United States motto says, “In God we trust.”

Modern, free, democratic, pluralist societies like India have many virtues, but they are also increasingly encountering one significant problem, “the problem of pluralism.” This is the problem of how to deal with a number of different, competing, and often conflicting, worldviews or philosophies of life in the modern democratic state, especially at the institutional level, such as in schools, government agencies, political parties, parliament, and most especially at the level of law. Let us appreciate the complexity; secular India places citizens of minority religions – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians (Parsis) - on a different pedestal than the majority Hindus; but majority Hindus alone have socially disadvantages sub-groups that enjoy affirmative action.

There is an image of religion as organisations or communities around competing truths, which are mutually intolerant, which perhaps even hate each other’s guts. There is some truth in that in some times and places but the opposite is more important. Respect for religion is compatible with and may be a requirement of a democratic political culture. It is important to note that the world’s major religions are also powerful international networks in their own right. They are readily mobilized to support fellow religionists in other parts of the world. India has been a victim of the Muslim and Christian international networks repeatedly just for her being a Hindu majority nation. Religions are not sedentary entities. They come alive from time to time, often with serious implications for their neighbours, just as India need to be pro-active in working with the Muslims within her borders and across her borders.

One can only insist on a separation of religion and state if one means that the state will have no official religion, but we cannot invoke this separation if we mean that religious beliefs and values cannot be invoked to influence society and culture. If this is what is meant, then secularists would be contradicting themselves every time they make any argument for cultural change based on their values. What would we say about killing of animals for consumption but not to propitiate a deity or vice-e-versa, slaughtering of animals during Navaratri and during Eid al-Adha? Can a democracy, which gets her legitimacy from the majority of the people, turn around and posit itself as unmindful of the religious views of her majority? Would it not then be rendering herself as government of the majority, by the majority but not for the majority? Is that the agenda behind constitutional fragmentation of majority Hindus into minority caste segments? Is the discrimination in doling out the state’s largesse amongst Hindu-caste-segments, and religious minorities a strategy of unification and equality or the ‘divide, conquer and rule’ strategy of the British? If caste-based affirmative action was the prescription for social inequality, the evidence is that the remedy has failed to reduce the inequality even after 70 years of therapy. 

The biggest question before Indian democracy is how to solve or at least contain the problem of pluralism, without resorting to the suppression of some views, without producing too many disgruntled citizens, without abusing political power, and without slipping into moral and political relativism.

 

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One may refer to Adrija Roychowdhury (writing in the Indian Express of December 27, 2017 for debate in the Constituent Assembly on the subject) “Secularism: Why Nehru dropped and Indira inserted the S-word in the Constitution” https://indianexpress.com/article/research/anant-kumar-hegde-secularism-constitution-india-bjp-jawaharlal-nehru-indira-gandhi-5001085/

 

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First published 06 Sep 2021

 

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