On Monday 18 May 2009 5:50:52 am Divya Manian wrote: > Anyhow, my opinion is India is not secular by virtue of action but only > because of in-action. Congress is really just the lesser evil right now and > not really a party committed to secularism (I don't think any party in > India is).
True, and for this reason, the word "secular" itself is coming under attack in India. This is unfortunate because I believe that secularism with some attention to how it is interpreted and implemented in the only way forward for India, and indeed the world. Let me state some views of mine on this issue. The "secularism" we speak of is actually the concept of "secular governance" - which means keeping religion out of government. Secularism actually comes in two flavors. One is secular government, and the other is a secular public space. A public park or hospital emergency room are theoretical examples of secular public spaces. While the theory sounds very good - in practice a whole lot of confounding factors come into play. In the first place the concept of "secular government" took off in Europe after the Thirty Years war and the peace of Westphalia. This basically kicked the Church out of government, and restricted the Church's political, moral and spiritual activities to areas outside government. This was soon followed by the industrial revolution and the era of imperial colonies, by the end of which period it was imagned that religion was somehow dead as a factor in intra or international issues. This is wrong. Religions are by no means dead. But let me stick to India. In India you have three major belief systems in a unique relationship. The first is "Hinduism" (a name that I oppose, but accept under protest). Hinduism is not secular. It is pluralist and believes that every faith and the large number of gods that exist should be worshipped freely and openly without giving any single one of these greedy little gods extra attention or favors. Christianity: The concept of secularism was invented specifically to keep the Church out of government. The Church was free to occupy public space as needed. In other words "Secularism" in Europe was an implementation of a "Christian version of pluralism", in which all sects of Christianity could survive and thrive. Islam is neither secular nor pluralist. Only Hinduism is pluralist by design, and "secularism" was squeezed out of Christianity after war and mayhem. So while government in India tries to behave "secular" in has to cope with a public space that is not secular. The public space is predominantly pluralist, mixed with politically active religions. Pluralism treads on some toes, while political activism treads on other toes. A railway platform is theoretically a secular space. Chanting "Bolo Shri ram Ki Jai" in a public space can be construed on the one hand as an expression of Hindu pluralism. Objecting to that chant as offensive to one's own religion (for example islam) can be a demand for real secularism rather than pluralism. Once such an objection arises, both the chant and the objection are political acts in a public space. If these political acts lead to violence, such as the Godhra incident, it becomes a law and order issue. A law and order issue is an issue of governance. So clearly we have a religion based disagreement in a public space that is spilling over into a governance issue. So religion insinuates itself into government consciousness in India in a unique way. By singing the secularism mantra the government is not necessarily addressing issues, but avoiding them when those issues are a very real problem. If you take a country that is wholly Christian in ethos, lighting up an entire street with a string of lights, playing loud devotional music and pulling around a chariot with an idol of Ganesha accompanied by incredibly loud drums at 10 PM would offend enough sensibities to make it a law and order issue. The government of the land will have to take a stand and take one side and say whether this is acceptable or not as per the existing laws. Again, this sort of public act is not allowed in most islamic countries. Should it be allowed in India or not? Would a complaint that such a public act of devotion by Hindus in a public space offends Muslim or Christian sensibilities be a valid reason for judging such acts in india? If such acts are allowed, is India "secular"? shiv
