Why Mani Aiyar is wrong

Author: R Jagannathan
Publication: Business Standard
Date: December 14, 2004
URL: http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?leftnm=lmnu5&leftindx=5&lselect=2&chklogin=N&autono=175312

Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar's book Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist illustrates just what is wrong with Indian secularism.
 
It seems to call for an extreme variety of secularism that-in bottom line terms-would mean only the majority community will be held accountable for the success or failure of secularism.
 
No one else. In Aiyar's utopia, every religious community would try to be secular internally (that is, viciously self-critical), but would seek to be "liberal" (that is, uncritical) when it comes to other communities.
 
This formulation would be all right if all Aiyar is trying to say is that all communities will have the right to change at their own pace. But as we all know, in India this has effectively meant that only Hinduism will be targeted for open attack-whether it is by atheists like Aiyar and the Communists (Brahmins all) or by victims of casteism (Dalits and neo-Buddhists).
 
Aiyar's prescription of secular fundamentalism is, in fact, a recipe for reviving precisely the kind of anti-Muslim hatred that he claims to despise. If more Indians start becoming secular fundamentalists, the Hindutva lobby will receive a fresh lease of life.
 
Aggressive Hindutva emanates from a low sense of self-esteem among sections of Hindus. Gandhi understood this better than anyone else. Thus, even as he left himself open to good ideas from all religions, he tried to cultivate a sense of pride in Hindus by promoting reforms from within. Swami Vivekananda did the same, and so did other reform movements in the previous century (Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj).
 
The Ayodhya movement gathered steam in the late 1980s primarily because India's card-carrying secularists became aggressive critics of Hinduism in a way no other religious reformer would have dreamt of. But their vicious criticism also needs to be understood in its context.
 
Hindu critics of Hinduism are victims of their own low sense of self-esteem- they have internalised western criticisms of caste and turned their anger against their own people by being destructively critical of Hindus and Hindu organisations.
 
A question I would like to ask all secularists is this: can you reform a people by attacking them, and destroying all sense of pride in their past? Aiyar's secular fundamentalism is evidence that he hasn't understood the roots of the problem. His venom can only ignite Hindutva passions once again.
 
Secularism is not something that Aiyar invented. In fact, Hindus can claim as much ownership of the concept of secularism and pluralism as ancient Greece can of democracy.
 
Intolerance and illiberal attitudes are often associated with monotheism, where the key to political power is the supremacy of one god, especially my god. In contrast, polytheistic communities are much more accommodative of different ideas, different religions.
 
When people accept the legitimacy of other gods beyond their own, it is the first step towards the acceptance of pluralism in political life. In this sense, India, which is still one of the last bastions of polytheism in practice, can claim to be an early exponent of the idea of pluralism. Aiyar is preaching liberal values to the people who actually practise it.
 
Another reason why Aiyar's tract makes no sense to me is its acceptance of the basic sorting of society into majorities and minorities. In reality, all majorities and minorities are temporary and contextual. In India, Muslims may be in a minority today.
 
In Kashmir, Hindus are so. Within Hindu Kashmiris, a gay individual may be a minority and also needs protection. The only way to discuss rights is to focus on inalienable, individual human rights.
 
All other rights-minority or majority-are offshoots of this, and hence secondary in nature. Secularism is of value only in the context of our fundamental commitment to human rights, and not as something independent of it.
 
Aiyar's secular fundamentalism is thus a fraud. We can see this from the examples set by two outstanding secular fundamentalists-both of whom failed India. Jinnah and Nehru were two leaders who were genuinely secular and non-sectarian in their outlook.
 
Nehru had no great admiration for Hinduism; the same can probably be said of Jinnah and Islam. That should have made both of them kindred souls, but Nehru had nothing but contempt for Jinnah; the latter saw that he had no political future in an India where Hindus voted for Gandhi and Nehru.
 
Jinnah and Nehru had more differences with Gandhi-who professed his Sanatani Hindu identity to all comers-and practically none with each other on ideas of modernity and secularism. And yet, it was these two gentlemen who ultimately sacrificed principle in the pursuit of power. They divided India. Left to himself, Gandhi would have gone as far as to let Jinnah rule, but Nehru and Sardar Patel would have had none of it. If this is the example set by two of the country's greatest Secular Fundamentalists, we can't invest great hopes in the likes of Aiyar and Arjun Singh, can we?
 

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