“I yearn for the heart of friendship between the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. It subsisted between them the other day. Today it is non-existent. It is a state that no Indian patriot worthy of the name can contemplate with equanimity,” said Gandhiji on the eve of the last fast to bring about true unity among Indians, on 12 January 1948. It is our misfortune that the Mahatma’s words still ring true. One can still remember how the members of the Constituent Assembly were busy framing the Constitution of India in the midst of communal frenzy.
Nehru, too, dreamt of a secular India. He said that the Constituent Assembly had “put aside many of the dangerous features of our old Constitution which led to communalism. Whether any other remaining features will remain or not I cannot obviously guarantee, but so far as I am concerned, I hope that the less we have any form of communalism the better our Constitution and the practical working of our government.”
There were good reasons why the then Prime Minister was not sure of what kind of Constitution would emerge. The battle for a truly secular India was being fought in the Parliament. All attempts at incorporating the true ideals of secularism failed because of powerful vested interests. There was a voice of backwardness and obscurantism that wanted to ensure that when the state did anything with reference to the secular aspects of religion, it should not touch personal law. And thus, the old British colonial policy got incorporated into independent India’s Constitution.
In the name of religion, civil liberties and democratic rights were suppressed. No religion recognised equality between the sexes. Personal law deprived women of their basic rights and equality which was guaranteed under Article 14. Meanwhile, communalism grew and in the midst of the noise of shooting, killing, rioting and looting, the voice of secular India became silent. In 1976, the word ‘’secularism” was mysteriously inserted into the Preamble; it was nowhere defined since.
However, in my country, secularism has been equated with ‘communal harmony’ based on tolerance for all religions. This perspective is reflected in speeches and songs. Old Raj Kapoor films (he was a famous film maker) are the best reflection of this tradition, especially his famous song “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, sabko mera salaam,” loosely translating to “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai, I salute you all.” We may take pride in this tradition of religious tolerance, but this image is based on an attitude of self-righteousness that finds no correspondence with reality. Something we, the future generation of India, had our eyes opened to.
The problem is, in fact, much deeper. Even if we were to achieve a state of religious tolerance, we would still not be a secular state. For secularisation of a society and a culture is a universal process. It is a process by which more and more areas of culture, polity, economy, and society become divorced from religion, till the time when religion becomes a purely private affair between each individual and their god. Religion in India is a major force for the repression of democratic movements. It is synonymous with inequality, irrationality, and superstition. Yet, our Constitution protects religion and religious freedom. And it is significant that it is silent on a more fundamental right – the right to freedom of consciousness.
However, what is of the most serious concern is that there is no inbuilt resistance in Indian society to communal forces. Gandhiji started preaching his brand of secularism long ago but communal riots still take place. There is perhaps no other country in the world where so many people die in social, communal, and ethnic strife. It is time that we, the future of India examine our value system to identify inadequacies because of which secularism seems to collapse. One obvious inadequacy of our value system is that we have a distorted perception of secularism. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word “secular” means skeptical of religious truth or opposed to religious education, etc.
The word has a strong anti-religious tinge. Secularism grew in the West out of a bitter struggle against religious superstitions. But in India, the Gandhian perception of secularism is religious tolerance. This is, however, gradually degenerating into religious intolerance, which is evident from the government banning beef or pork. In India, we cannot eat beef because it is sacred in Hinduism. What about everyone else living in India? We have over 30 religions and many smaller communities. Just because Hindus are more in number, just because they are the majority? How is this secularism? It isn’t, it is the tyranny of the majority, a phrase coined by many historians and civil analysts. How can we live in a state calling itself secular when acts like the CAA are a true example of cutting out of one type of group from the melting pot of cultures?
Secularism in India, thus, does not mean the separation of religion from the state. Instead, secularism in India means a state that is neutral to all religious groups. Religious laws in the personal domain, particularly for Muslim Indians, supersede parliamentary laws in India. Currently, the state finances many religious initiatives taken by different religious groups.
These differences have led a number of scholars to declare that India is not a true secular state, and rather, secularism in India is a strategy for political goals in a nation with a complex history. It is a state that achieves the opposite of its stated intentions.
What is your decision? Are we truly secular?
Written by Saara Lunawat
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