By: Dr Elizabeth Imti & Dr Kumar Raka, Editor-ICN
The majority of Indians have never favored a theocratic State, but there have always been in the country undercurrents of thought suggesting a space for religion in State affairs.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, India’s war of independence from foreign rule was fought on the plank of equality of all faith and traditions of their followers. The scene changed thereafter and certain sections of the majority community began projecting their religion as an inseparable part of the future political ideology. As a reaction to this, some Muslim leaders began demanding special arrangements for their community in the country’s forthcoming political the structure. These competitive aspirations eventually led to the partition of the country accompanying its independence from the British rule.
Use of Rituals and Symbols in a Secular Context
While India focuses on a unique type of secular practice yet Indians are tied to their traditional roots and practice various social customs that are linked to symbols of religious practices. For instance the breaking of a coconut before starting an event is considered to be auspicious. People following Islam often consider the number 786 with a crescent moon with it to be a sign of fortune. Yet use of such symbols cannot be interpreted as attempts by any religious community to overshadow the belief system of the other. These instead are to be understood with respect to certain social context. Religion is a binding social force, a factor in social unity. Symbols are explicit form of a religious life. For a society religion also imposes moral values providing a common standard for social condition which stop us from following our own egoistic behaviour and setting up objectivity for social solidarity.
While in West explicit expression of symbols are considered to be creating segregation among the people, revealing the religious belief of an individual at a societal level, this conceptual understanding leads to categorization and compartmentalization of individuals. This has resulted in pushing of the expressions and religious beliefs as a subject of privacy. The idea of categorization and differentiation which is internalized within the human minds is discouraged to attain equality among the people hence ensuring that religious beliefs are not expressed in public sphere.
India with its diversities cannot get rid of the religious differences but also it constitutes the very essence of its social fabric. Expressing one’s religious identity in public space in India is not considered to be harmful. The Constitution guarantees to all religious communities and denominations “freedom to manage their own affairs”. Every religious community is free to establish and administer educational institutions of its choice. For the minorities, this freedom is specified by the Constitution as a Fundamental Right and the State is precluded from discriminating in any way against their educational institutions in giving financial aid. In Aruna Roy vs. UOI, “The court held that concept of secularism is not endangered if the basic tenets of all religions all over the world are studied and learned. Value based education will help the nation to fight against fanaticism, ill-will, violence, dishonesty and corruption. These values can be inculcated if the basic tenets of all religions are learned” (Alka Bharti)
Understanding Fundamentalism
Indian experience with fundamentalism has been bloody and traumatic. Mahatma Gandhi, before he could fully savor the fresh air of independent India, fell victim to a Hindu fundamentalist’s bullets (K. Kumar). Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguard in the aftermath of the Sikh fundamentalist movement that swept through the vibrant state of Punjab in the early 1980s and a female suicide bomber of the Tamil fundamentalist group from Sri Lanka blew up Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
The story of Hindu-Muslim relations takes on different hues depending upon the color of one’s ideological lenses. To the conservative Hindu Nationalists for whom the Hindu saffron and the Muslim green do not mix, the rift between the two communities is a fundamental fact of Indian history (K. Kumar). Recent issue more specific to sectarianism in India is the rise of the ‘Hindutva’ identity. It is a form of nationalism based on one of the nation’s most practised religion – Hinduism. The adoption of the Hindutva identity by some political leaders is often means of majority appeasement and an effort to garner votes from the more fundamentalist sect of the Indian society.
Tanika Sarkar in her work ‘Semiotics of Terror: Muslim Children and Women in Hindu Rashtra’ discusses what happened to Muslim women and children during the Gujarat riot. It is not about their killing, not just the sadism, but the larger symbolic purpose behind the killing and the sadism that sums up the nature of ethnic cleansing, the shape of Hindu Rashtra. She draws certain pattern of the violence that was used by the ‘Sangh Parivar’ What happened in Gujarat is not a mark of weakness or inadequacy but a sign of the strength of the Sangh parivar, its firmness of resolve, its ideological consistency (T.Sarkar). A sense of ‘Hindu identity’ had brought them together, but this was no natural coming together rather it took pace as a result of considerable planning.
The right-wing Hindu organizations function under various names in India and throughout the diaspora. There are, however, two main right-wing Hindu organisations: the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). One of the main tasks of the VHP has been to create a ‘Hindu’ religious identity. Hinduism is not codified, and has been for many years a loose combination of beliefs and practices. The VHP has, however, tried to create what Romila Thapar calls ‘Syndicated Hinduism’ (Romila Thapar). Wherein, Rajeev Bhargava asserts that while it is important to have communitarian standpoint where one takes pride for one’s region, community and linguistic group this communitarian standpoint in our country is often misunderstood by communal assertiveness. He further emphasizes that we must not understand secularism in terms of simply minority rights rather it is about our own freedom to practice our belief.
Conclusion
With this backdrop of Indian secularism it is important to understand that India is a country where religion is very central to the life of people. India’s age old philosophy as expounded in Hindu scripture called Upanishad is Sarva Dharma Samabhava which means respect to all belief system. The concept of co-existence has not been confined to the geographical and political boundaries of the country. Since ancient times the Indians have been preaching the concept of Vasundhaiva Kutumbakam or ‘the whole world is a family’.
India’s secularism has its roots in the universal outlook of promoting the message of peace and harmony and Religious fundamentalism is undoubtedly a threat to the security of a secular democratic nation. The phenomenon of Hindu nationalism has, by and large, been interpreted in India as the resurgence of Brahminism. Along with increased control by Hindu fundamentalist groups of the culture and ethos of mainstream Hindu society, there may be a corresponding growth in other fundamentalist groups, like Islamic or Christian fundamentalism. However, this is a question of intense and deep scientific research whether growing assertiveness towards communal identity in Hindu religious groups has given rise to Islamic or any other fundamentalism or the case is vice-versa.
World peace has been India’s watchword and the high values of humanism its philosophy. Indian secularism requires something more than the restrictive or neutral approach of assimilation. The ‘Indianess’ of secularism is not to getting rid of various differences but accepting and assimilating existing religious differences. It’s a way of life as it is deeply rooted in Indian society. Since all the major contours of traditional social fabric of society are gradually changing, adopting or breaking apart in the era of new technology, inventions and ideologies; secularism too is doubtful to keep its essence in this rapidly changing socio-political environment. Policy makers and political ideologues need to give it a direction beyond communal assertiveness that is leading to communal hate, violence and riots; keeping with essence of SarvaDharmaSamabhava a necessity for a multi-religious Nation and for prosperity of its people.
(Copyright Material)
About the authors
Dr Elizabeth Imti, MA, M.Phil & PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, is a Doctoral Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research ( ICSSR), a recipient of the National Merit Scholarship sponsored by the University Grant Commission (U.G.C.). She worked as a Research Assistant at the Department of Economics at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Guest faculty at the Department of Sociology at Nagaland University and the Centre for Gandhian Studies and Research, Nagaland University and on the Board of Trustees, Martin Luther Christian University, Shillong. Issues such as gender and violence, women and conflict resolutions, youth and social change, peace studies etc, are what she passionately writes and strongly advocates. Presently she is an Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Fazl Ali College , Mokokchung.
Dr. Kumar Raka is a Social Scientist graduated (M.A, M.Phil. & Ph.D.) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Executive Masters in Disaster and Emergency Management from Tel Aviv University, Israel.
