Secularism today ranks foremost among India’s burden of bad ideas, a term coined by Prof. Shiva Bajpai to debunk the ill-founded Aryan Invasion Theory, which held academics in thrall for a century before being flung into the dustbin of history. The term secular entered India’s political vocabulary as a device to disarm the Hindu majority and inhibit expression of resentment against minority-appeasing policies of successive Governments.
Given the shoddy motives of its promoters, it is surprising that the term secular has come to acquire such a powerful hold over the elite. Secularism is not a lofty ideal, like liberty or equality. It owes its birth to Christianity’s inability to maintain peace between warring Christian sects, especially as the State itself sponsored pogroms against different denominations. Wearied of prolonged intra-religious warfare, France invented secularism to ensure State neutrality in matters of faith, and separation of Church and State. Secularism was thus born as an extra-religious answer to the intolerance of both Church and State.
Hindu civilization has never, even when under murderous assault, indulged in pogroms on grounds of faith. Hence, unlike western concepts of democracy and equality, which find resonance in Indian hearts, secularism cuts no ice with the masses. India has traditionally vested spiritual authority in the guru and political power in the king, and given the latter the duty to protect dharma.
Dharma is not religion in the sense that monotheistic creeds are. Dharma is a generic term for all native spiritual experience and includes the specific dharmas of specific groups (desachara, lokachara), which the king is duty bound to uphold and protect. Since dharma was never identified with a specific doctrine, the State was never doctrinaire. However, the State was always dharmic (non-secular, non-communal), because dharma is all-encompassing and embraces all without discrimination. The duty of the State (king) in Hindu thought is best exemplified by the concept of Rajdharma, which is a sacred duty for which the ruler can sacrifice anything. Stories of the travails of Raja Harish Chandra and the sufferings of Shri Rama reflect how seriously the monarch is expected to take his responsibilities and fulfill commitments.
Dharma is thus not co-terminus with religion; the closest Indian word for religion is pantha. Secularism in India, as noted jurist Dr. L.M. Singhvi insisted when translating the modified Preamble of the Constitution into Hindi, is pantha-nirpeksha (non-discrimination towards individual faiths). So, while ‘secular’ is the opposite of ‘religion’ and ‘communal,’ dharma is neither secular in the sense of being anti-religious nor communal in the sense of favouring a particular sect.
This brings us to the peculiar practice of secularism in modern India. While the proper definition of secularism should be pantha-nirpeksha, as noted previously, the media and politicians speak of dharma nirpeksha or neutral in the matter of religion. This is antithetical to Hindu civilizational experience which demands that the State respect and uphold dharma; but this is only part of the problem.
The real difficulty is that even dharma nirpeksha is not implemented honestly. Dharma nirpeksha means the State should be aloof from all religions or treat all equally. The Indian Government however, has not been religiously neutral since independence itself. Despite the terrible sufferings of Hindus before and during Partition, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru created the false bogey of “majority communalism” to create and consolidate a Muslim votebank for Congress. The first blow was struck with the refusal to implement a uniform civil code, even though this was both desirable and possible at the time of framing the constitution.
Despite grandiose commitments to equality before law, non-discrimination on grounds of religion, and equality of opportunity in public employment and public office, the Indian Constitution was manipulated to give weightage to minorities. Cumulative Hindu disquiet over the politics of appeasement gave Mr. L.K. Advani the ovation he received from Somnath-to-Ayodhya, when he promised “Justice for all, appeasement of none.”
Sadly, little has been done in the nearly fifteen years since the problem was raised in the public arena. Article 28(1) says no religious instruction should be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of the State funds, but this was undone by Article 28(3) which permits a state-recognized or state-aided school to give religious instruction or offer religious worship to those desiring it. Thus, religious schools (madrasas) receive generous state funds and the religious training imparted therein is considered at par with normal secular education. Recently, the Aligarh Muslim University was permitted fifty percent reservation for Muslim students. Interestingly, the controversy revealed that the previous NDA regime had permitted fifty percent communal reservations to Jamia Hamdard University in the capital!
The Indian state, therefore, does not practice religious neutrality, and uses secularism as a tool to discriminate against Hindus. It was a silent spectator to the brutal expulsion of Hindus from Kashmir and Buddhists from Nagaland and parts of Arunachal Pradesh. It remains mute while Andhra Pradesh moots five percent reservation for Muslims in State employment and educational institutions. It has failed to end terrorist infiltration in Kashmir, and despite warnings from the Assam Governor, appears determined to inhibit action against illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. Meanwhile, a new danger beckons in the form of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind’s demand for communal reservations in Parliament and State legislatures.
Organizer, 26 June 2005