Do we need to re-imagine secularism?

The Constitution of India does not define secularism. India is said to be a secular state, simply because India does not have a state religion.

But there are quite a few definitions of secularism, and not all of them, or any one of them, applies to all times and places.

Secularism could be defined as the state being equidistant from all religions. Alternatively, it can be defined as the separation of church and state. A less convincing definition of secularism is equal respect for all religions. The second definition is more popular in the West. The first one has been, in theory, followed by the Indian state since Independence. The last one has often been used to suppress free speech considered blasphemous. There is also the question of whether I need to respect something that is not a living being.

I say the Indian state has been equidistant from all religions only in theory, because right from Independence, political parties have been busy with cultivating vote banks based on religions. While the BJP/former Jana Sangh very obviously tries/tried to appease the majority community, or even to engineer a spirit of Hindu revivalism through projects such as the Ram temple in Ayodhya, rhetoric over cow protection, making priests chief ministers, complicity in anti-Muslim riots, and so on, it is the behaviour of “secular” parties in India that I wish to focus on, precisely because they describe themselves as secular.

When it comes to the Congress’ failure to pass a Uniform Civil Code, its pathetic decision to nullify a Supreme Court judgement in the 1985 Shah Bano case through legislation, its uneasiness about opposing triple talaq, its soft alliances with Islamist parties, or the complicity of its leaders in the 1984 Sikh massacre, one wonders why the party continues to describe itself as secular.

It is not just the Congress however, but a host of other parties covertly trying to create religious vote banks among minorities, which describe themselves as “secular” parties. Is this merely because the BJP wears religion on its sleeve, hence making its bias obvious, or is there something deeper to ponder?

This brings us to the heart of the matter — what really is secularism, and how does one visualise a truly secular, democratic state in a non-Western context?

But let us first examine the concept of separation of religion and state. It was born out of the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe, as a counter to the hegemony of the Catholic Church. It meant, over time, that the state and the church ought not to interfere in the affairs of the other.

Notice that this means two things — that the church shall not interfere in government AND that the government shall stay out of the church. However, most liberals today instinctively imagine that the principle only implies the first of these conditions — that the state is no business of religious establishments.

Some conservatives might say that we must restore the principle to its original meaning, especially in India, where the clash between the secular state and religious institutions has sometimes been bitter. Seen in this light, the struggle of devotees to prevent the Kerala government from implementing a Supreme Court verdict allowing women of menstruating age to enter the Sabarimala temple could be seen as a victory for secularism.

However, I have no problem accepting only part of the principle — that religion shall stay out of government, but not necessarily vice versa. If we do this, however, we shall compromise the definition of secularism as a separation of religion and state. Well, so be it, because I think it is an idea whose time has come.

Quite simply put, it is impossible to take separation of the temporal and spiritual very seriously in a poor country beset by ignorance, tribalism and backwardness. As many aspects of backwardness (ranging from child marriage to unequal inheritance and lack of participation in public life) find their justification in religions, the state is left with little choice but to intervene in religious practices in the interest of justice. This of course, breaks down the Western definition of secularism, though most people would not accept this freely.

However, the converse also then becomes true — the state must also intervene in religion to correct wrongs committed by members of one community unto another, or historical injustice for which the best possible compensation (of any kind) must be offered. When it fails to do this (as the Indian state sometimes has), the mob erupts in frenzy in the one case, indulging in mass murder of innocents, or in the other case, ceases to believe in secularism itself.

I was a teenager when I heard about the sacking of the Somnath temple in Gujarat by Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century. The Turkic invader pillaged and desecrated the idols, destroyed the temple, and is said to have killed tens of thousands of defenders. The shrine was desecrated time and again as the centuries went by.

What I did not know until a few years ago, however, was that the proposal to rebuild the shrine came right after Independence, and (who but) Jawaharlal Nehru opposed it on the grounds of secularism. In this, Nehru followed the Western notion of secularism and concluded that religious shrines are no business of the government. I would have concurred, until recently.

Now, I am not so sure. The act of rebuilding the temple (conducted by a minister in the Congress government with public money) was also a correction of historical injustice that had been inflicted on a community. This could raise the tenuous question of how many more temples the Indian state ought to reconstruct, given that many were destroyed in the past, but we shall leave this question to another day and merely say that the most famous ought to be considered.

To be absolutely clear — the same principle would entail that the state help rebuild a famous mosque, church or other place of worship that had been subjected to vile desecration. By saying this, I have perhaps poured cold water on the emerging hopes of my Hindutva friends that I would join in their bigotry.

So, to re-imagine secularism would be to cast it as the state placing itself not equidistant or apart from religion, but above all religions. Said like this, “above” implies not mere impartiality, but a sometimes passive, sometimes active engagement to prevent discrimination, correct historical injustices, and protect basic religious freedom while working against more pernicious practices that perpetuate social backwardness.

In this new scenario, political speeches with religious undertones, appeals to past civilizational glory and remarks about historical wrongs could be considered more objectively to find out whether the meet the test of our re-imagined secularism.

This also means one cannot accept the contradictory position taken by some secularists that all religious essentially preach the same message, but that they are all also different and cannot be brought under the aegis of a single, progressive legal code. I think that while certain differences in essential practices do exist, the victims often do not cast themselves in this movie. Most are also far more intelligent and accepting of change than their secularist friends would give them credit for.

But there has been a visible attempt to create victimhood narratives and feed it to the target audience, increasing their discomfort and alienation on the one side, and the rage of those on the other side who have been cast as oppressors. This strategy only creates fault lines in plural societies like India — it does not possess the ability to heal wounds, because wounds can be healed only by emphasising commonalities in diverse societies. People who endorse the strain of secularism I have criticised here must ask themselves what they truly feel compassion for — the victims or victimhood, the poor or poverty, the ignorant or ignorance. I much fear it is the second in all cases.

Our country has changed over the last five years. In some ways, this is an upheaval, and its impact will be felt long after the BJP finally loses power. This period will change how the people of India view some of the core concepts enshrined in its Constitution. It will take us to a new normal, but there is an urgent need to re-calibrate and rescue secularism from being consigned to the flames.

A last word — I have merely pondered over a new meaning of secularism in the paragraphs above. I personally remain conflicted, and my views continue to evolve.