HVK Archives: Does secularism have a future?
Does secularism have a future? - The Pioneer
Anirudh Despande
()
27 September 1996
Title : Does secularism have a future?
Author : Anirudh Despande
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : September 27, 1996
A recent seminar on 'Secular Values in Liberal Democra-
cy', reminded one of the Russian poem about a peasant who
boards and falls asleep in a stationary train which never
leaves Kharkov. How else do you accept a motley group of
middle class individuals who discuss historical and
political issues in a quasi political way. There were the
usual nonpartisan humanists who have added animal and
nature rights to their agenda of liberty and secularism
but, ostrich like, tried their best to depoliticise the
issue of secularism. There were die hard liberals refus-
ing to understand that the age of their forefather as
Eric Hobsbawm tells us, ended with the First World War.
When questioned the liberals fell back on their usual
dishonesty: they were not propagating the cause of polit-
ical liberalism or implied economic liberalisation per
se, they were only upholding the principle of individual
liberty etc.
It is pointless to discuss theme matters in 1996 because
issues such as negative and positive liberties and fran-
chise were settled in the century of Mill and Marx. The
history of the twentieth century has little space for a
benign liberalism. This fact cannot be brushed under the
carpet of neo-liberalism.
Most participants paid the usual jaded tributes to Indian
pluralism while asserting that secular values are import-
ant to maintain the sanity of Indian society. But nobody
showed the patience or imagination to identify, discuss
and determine the nature and dynamics of this social
plurality. Important questions in this regard were not
raised while Indian pluralism was taken for granted. For
instance the query whether Indian pluralism is driven by
historical change due to the religious, class and caste
struggles of Indian society was not debated.
In a corner were the ubiquitous Nehruvians who had ob-
tained all their secular solutions in quotations from the
works of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and the numerous
Presidential Addresses of the Indian National Congress.
These hagiographers do not understand that Muslim separa-
tism before 1947 and the Two Nation Theory, encouraged by
the British as they were, could not have succeeded if the
Congress had overcome communalism in India's struggle for
independence to begin with. Instead, by identifying
Muslim separatism as the major cause of partition, some
of these gentlemen come close to the Hindutva position on
these matters. One venerable speaker, in poor taste,
stated that scholars subscribing to these new schools
consider incidents of stone throwing academically more
serious than the nationalist movement.
The time has come to finally conclude in the secular camp
that partition was caused by the dialectical relationship
of British policy, Muslim separatism and crucial Congress
failures. Furthermore these failures were carried for-
ward into independent India and buttressed by the unsuc-
cessful Nehruvian economic experiment. Therefore the
Congress faces the charge of ushering in communalism
through the back door. The search for secular values
should first leave its old people's home without losing
sight of the fact that communalists of all hues did not
create but capitalised on the conditions created in
independent India by Congress rule. The gravity of this
criticism is not lessened by the realisation that the
efforts of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru were circumscribed by
historical forces beyond their control. Their system,
not individual commitment, is being questioned.
If apolitical or obsolete secularism can confound issues,
some partisan perspectives are not above criticism eith-
er. One of the speakers, a journalist ex-activist of the
Janata Dal, made a couple of illuminating points in her
account of the developments in Indian politics in the
1980s and 90s. With reference to the Bangladeshi immi-
grants. of which the BJP has made so much, the lady
contended, upon the authority of Mr Muchkund Dubey, that
the majority of these people after 1971 have been Hindus.
Interesting indeed! First of all it was refreshing to
learn that Mr Dubey is a diplomat demographer whose word
can be taken for granted in these matters. Secondly, she
failed to see that objectively speaking the problem of
illegal immigration is not necessarily linked to the
religion of the immigrants. Finally, by pinpointing the
religious identity of the majority of these immigrants
was the speaker not unwittingly justifying the accusation
of Hindu communalists who maintain, rightly or wrongly,
that Hindus are persecuted in Bangladesh and Pakistan?
The other point was about the growth of communal feelings
among the youth. According to the lady, in recent times,
specially after 1992, communalism has grown in the Hindu
youth whereas their Muslim counterparts have became less
communal or even secular. As of now evidence does not
establish the veracity of this claim. Once again the
lady's baseless submission helps the votaries of Hindutva
for will they not concur that after the blows of 1992-93
the Muslims have cause to become secular? Some of them
will now reiterate afresh that these blows were in fact
necessary to knock some sense into a recalcitrant commun-
ity. The effect of such recklessness upon the future of
secularism can only be pernicious.
So what happens in a convention of humanists who ignore
politics, liberals who confuse ideology with dogma,
hagiographers who corrupt history, careless apologists
who forget their homework and sundry individuals who
needlessly emphasise the role of economic development,
education and charity in society. Obviously the seminar
fails because it is childish to believe that the devel-
oped countries are necessarily secular in the modern
sense of the word. These ladies and gentlemen with excep-
tions, failed to endow Indian secularism with a new
meaning.
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