The Hindu [India], March 31, 2004
SECULARISM UNDER SIEGE
By K.N. Panikkar
Rather than redefining secularism, what is more compelling is rethinking secular practice, particularly by the political class.
THE SURGE of Hindu communalism during the last few years is a reflection on the inadequacies and weaknesses of secular practice in India. It has neither lived up to its principles nor adopted innovative modes of communication to reach out to the people. At least so believe many even among those who have been engaged in defending the secular space. Several others hold that the concept of secularism, borrowed from the West by a modernising elite headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, itself is flawed and irrelevant in Indian conditions, since it is not rooted in Indian social, cultural or political experience. According to them, this rootlessness has adversely affected its vibrancy and acceptability. Therefore they believe that secularism has no chance of survival and is doomed to an eventual and inevitable death, unless it is reconceptualised. Hence the plea in recent times to `rethink' and `redefine' secularism.
Such a view is shared by people of diverse ideological and intellectual persuasions. Hindu communalists reject secularism as a Leftwing conspiracy intended to undermine the Hindu nation and to appease the minorities. The alternative they advocate is a `true secular' polity guided by Hindu religious tenets. India is secular, they argue, and would remain so only because it is Hindu. For others, its exogenous origins and links with European modernity are the critical factors. Earlier confined to a small group of intellectuals, the number of sceptics and critics has marked some increase recently. The discomfort now appears to have spread also to some politicians who claim to be the defenders of secularism, even if their past practices do not betray any commitment to the cause. Whether it is an election itch only the future can tell.
Much of the debate about secularism, influenced by the European model, revolves around the relationship between state and religion. The focus therefore is on the secularisation of polity as happened in the West through the separation of the church and the state. There is hardly any society, including the Indian, which has not undergone the process of secularisation, even though the trajectories are not necessarily the same. In a multi- religious society such as India, secularisation is not a purely political phenomenon; it equally embraces the social and the cultural.
Not that the political practices did not influence the process. They surely did, but the secular state in India as conceived by the Constitution was not an exclusively political-intellectual construct, but it reflected the social and cultural reality of Indian society, even if the example of other countries has been useful precedents. The choice of secularism as one of the guiding principles of Indian nation, despite the communal conflagration during the Partition, is influenced by the historical experience of Indian society. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were alive to the social reality. That is the reason why they attached great importance to communal harmony, if secularism was to survive in India. What the Sangh Parivar is now trying to set aside are the social relations and political structure which history has bequeathed to the nation. Their success is not because a void existed in socio-political consciousness, but because they created a new one by obfuscating religious identity as national identity and by organising politics around emotionally charged religious issues.
By the time India achieved Independence, the necessary pre-conditions for a secular society and polity had already evolved through a process of secularisation in the social, cultural, administrative and intellectual domains. The common participation of people, regardless of their denominational differences, marked the engagements in all these fields. The state institutions, from the medieval times itself, had officials, generals and soldiers drawn from all religions. Muslim and Hindu rulers liberally employed the followers of other religions, particularly in the revenue administration and the army. Sher Shah Suri, Akbar, Aurangazeb, Shivaji, Ranjit Singh and a host of others did so. These rulers also took care to ensure that the officials conducted themselves in discharging public duties with a non-religious outlook. Building upon this tradition, the colonial rule created a secular administrative structure, which was able to withstand even the communal onslaught of the Partition days.
The movements in the intellectual-cultural field also prepared the ground for the emergence of secular ethos in society. The Bhakti and Sufi traditions enabled Hindus and Muslims to understand one another's religious and philosophical systems and thus to bridge their social differences. What they had initiated was carried forward by innumerable heterodox sects who, by challenging the Brahminical order, tried to recover their own cultural personality. They did not champion Sanskritisation, but in a way the reverse of it by trying to construct an identity distinct from that of the upper castes. Sanskritisation advocated as a strategy for erasing caste differences is a part of the communal agenda, as it privileges the Brahminical practices. Therefore, adopted as a conscious strategy, instead of ushering in secularism, it is likely to promote the communal cause as it would reinforce the Brahminical hegemony. It would also undermine the cultural identity of the lower castes. Sanskritisation as a means for homogenisation is, however, entirely different from the social process, which M.N. Srinivas had conceived.
The intellectual basis for the creation of a secular society and polity was conceived, elaborated and disseminated during the course of the 19th century. It was integral to the intellectual and cultural movements, which tried to unravel the religious truth common to all faiths. They were inspired by the ideas drawn from both indigenous and exogenous sources. The monotheism of the Vedas and monism of the Vedanta, on the one hand, and rationalism and humanism of the Enlightenment, on the other, moulded their perspective. From this engagement emerged the notion of religious universalism, which generated the intellectual rationale for people to participate in secular public sphere. It was in this secular space that the anti-colonial politics emerged and operated. Neither the intellectual movement nor the politics that followed were monochromatic. There were several fissures within. Yet among Hindus, communalism did not strike strong roots during the colonial period. And only a section of Muslims opted for religious politics. By the time India achieved Independence, the overwhelming sentiment was in favour of secularism, despite the Partition and the communal riots that followed it.
During the early days, when the Republic was struggling to find its moorings, Donald Smith, a sympathetic American political analyst, had observed: "It is far too early to dismiss the possibility of a future Hindu state in India. However, the possibility does not appear a strong one. The secular state has far more than an even chance of survival in India." Today many may not share the optimism of Smith about the survival of secularism as Hindu communalism threatens to conquer the society. Over the last 50 years, communalism has transformed itself from a marginal force to the centre stage of Indian politics. Such a transformation is not purely the result of its organisational success and emotional appeal, however strong and effective they were, but more due to the weakness of secular forces or at least those who claim to be secular.
During the early days of the Republic, the Hindu communal forces lacked legitimacy in popular estimation and hence could not make an advance in Indian politics. Suspected to be involved in the assassination of the Father of the Nation, their ideology was understood as anti-humanist, obscurantist and violent. They were therefore outside the mainstream of bourgeois politics and were not looked upon by people as an acceptable political alternative. Overcoming this stigma took years, but they did overcome it with the help of secular parties.
The coalition experiment beginning with the post-Emergency government and those that followed thereafter at the Centre and in the States, earned the communal forces a legitimate place in mainstream politics. The lure for power persuaded the bourgeois parties to discard their initial reservations and objections and to collaborate and ally with the communal forces. Even those who were ardent advocates of secularism do not now hesitate to be in the company of communal forces. The legitimacy and acceptance the communal forces thus gained is the most decisive transformation Indian politics has undergone during the last few years, which has enabled communalism to control and operate state power. If secularism is under siege today the major responsibility for it rests with those `secular' politicians who made communal advance possible by legitimising communalism and helping it to come to power. It is unfortunate that there is no realisation that the rising tide of communalism can be stemmed only by an uncompromising secular stand.
This is not to suggest that the success of communal forces is only due to the political opportunism of secular political formations. On the contrary, much of their advance was made possible because of the continuous intervention in the cultural life of people through the activities of innumerable organisations set up in different parts of the country. Through such activities, they have succeeded in transforming the cultural consciousness of people from the secular to the religious. This is a qualitatively different effort from that of the secular forces who mainly concentrate on cultural intervention, the impact of which is limited and transient. The difference between cultural intervention and intervention in culture distinguishes the cultural engagement of the communal and the secular and their relative success.
Rather than redefining secularism, what is more compelling is rethinking secular practice, particularly by the political class.
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