By D.V. Kumar
Secularism as a normative ideal is clearly under enormous strain in the context of systematic and organised attempts to cause communal polarisation. The recent incidents of communal violence in different parts of the country on the occasion of religious festivals have put further strain on secularism as a great organising principle in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society like ours. Such incidents raise a number of questions, one of which is whether secularism as an ethical and moral principle completely exhausted its possibilities.
The tallest leaders of the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru had tremendous faith in the viability of secularism both as a principle and practice in tackling communal tensions. But now it is argued by many that we can no longer count on secularism because it has become enormously weaker as a binding force which it was supposed to be in a multi-religious society like ours. I want to argue that secularism can still become a potent force provided it is embraced and pushed hard by different religious communities themselves in India in their daily civic lives as a normative ideal. They should come forward and appropriate secularism with its imaginative possibilities for ensuring communal peace and harmony. The hope lies with civil society organisations of different religious groups in promoting and strengthening the principle of secularism as a counter to attempts to polarise the society along communal lines.
Ashutosh Varshney, a noted political scientist argued long ago, on the basis of a well-known study of some cities in India that wherever there are strong pre-existing civic ties among religious communities, the possibilities of communal violence are drastically reduced and even if there are some scattered incidents of communal violence they can be controlled relatively easily. For this to happen, it is important that civil society organisations belonging to different religious groups adhere to secularism as a great ethical and normative principle.
But what is secularism? Broadly there are two conceptions of secularism. The first one refers to the separation between the state and Church/religion, a conception which developed in Europe in a certain context. The context was one of religious homogenisation when the dominant Church/religion persecuted and subjugated adherents of non-dominant religions in wars of religion. It later on began to meddle in the affairs of the state which proved to be quite irksome for the effective functioning of the state. The state was duty-bound to ensure freedom and equality for its citizens which was becoming difficult in the context of the interference of the dominant Church. This is when this idea of secularism i.e separation between the state and Church began to be articulated and practised. This conception of secularism did not have to worry about engaging with religious diversity as there remained only one dominant Church/religion as other non-dominant religions were already liquidated in religious wars.
The second conception of secularism, which is essentially what Gandhi strongly believed in and which found its way in our Constitution, refers to equal respect of all religions. The state shall not promote or privilege one religion over the others and freedom to practise and follow any religion is a fundamental right. The state shall maintain equidistance from all religions. This conception of religion is eminently suitable in a context like India where religious diversity has been an organic feature of its social and cultural history and which is what religious communities should appropriate and push hard for a better India. The equal moral worth of all religions was repeatedly emphasised by Gandhi. In his own words, ‘India is perhaps one nation in the ancient world which had recognised cultural democracy, whereby it is held that the roads to one and same God are many, but the goal was one, because God was one and the same. In fact, the roads are as many as there are individuals in the world…..The various religions were as so many leaves of a tree; they might seem different but at the trunk they are one’. Gandhi was aghast at the thought of one religion dominating over other religions. However, some would argue that Gandhi had strategic considerations when he talked about the equal moral worth of all religions as he was trying to keep different religious communities together in the fight against the British rule. But this is far from true. He had a deep conviction in the belief that there may be different religions but the ultimate Truth is one. He argued that Ram, Allah and Truth refer to the same entity. Attack on somebody else’s god is an attack on one’s own. No culture denies the reality of gods of another culture but finds ways of accommodating them. Gandhi made a strong plea to the religious communities to maintain communal peace and harmony themselves and ensure that there is peaceful co-existence of all religious groups, which for him is the very essence of secularism. For him one’s religious identity is not premised on the negation of other religious identities. Being a Hindu is not being anti-Muslim and vice versa.
In fact, India’s popular composite culture cannot simply be visualised without Mohammad Rafi, A. R. Rahman, Lata Mangeshkar and scores of others who belong to different religions, a fact which is conveniently ignored in times of communal polarisation. Gandhi would certainly not have approved the deletion of parts of history from school text-books in an attempt to invisibilise a whole religious community. It is a different matter that constant invocations of religion are politically expedient as they serve the purpose of distracting attention from the pressing issues of the day. But in the process the very idea of India as democratic, secular and just is endangered. Therefore, it is all the more necessary that we recover and reaffirm secularism which recognises equal moral worth of every religious group.
(D. V. Kumar is Professor, Dept of Sociology, NEHU, Shillong)