Author: Surajit Dasgupta
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: July 5, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/07/05/secularism-and-the-indian-state-the-way-ahead-232677.html

It has been about two years since I stopped greeting anybody on a festive occasion using a public platform. No more ‘Happy Holi’s and ‘Id Mubarak’s on my Facebook wall. This was a conscious decision I took after making a foray into activism (read politics). After migrating to Delhi, the colourful posters and banners carrying portraits of silly-looking politicians greeting people on a religious occasion always looked an exercise in self-promotion to me. Nope, they don’t care how your Diwali or Id is. They try to arouse that special feeling you have for your faith, which you then associate with the faces on the posters and tend to believe he is one of you.

And if I have greeted you on a Hindu occasion, I must greet you on a Muslim one too, lest I should be damned as ‘communal’, which in India does not mean “of a community”; it’s a synonym for a religious bigot. This is plain politics in the name of secularism, which should mean non-religious rather than a balancing act between communities.

All religions must be given legitimate space in the nation. However, we can only call our nation-state secular if none of them is allowed to dictate the state policy. That does not happen. There is no effort to bring the pristine, dictionary-sense secularism to this country as against the distorted version of it practised by the polity today which leads to a continuation of the British Divide & Rule legacy. It involves privileging and under-privileging the ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ in turns and pitting them against one another, creating bad blood between Indians.

With due respect to the makers of the Indian Constitution and the members of the first Lok Sabha, they did a hash job in bringing to India a foreign concept without preparing the indigenous society for the upgrade.

Bharat has, through its history, been inclusive and tolerant, but never secular. That is, the state — or local community leaders — never really distanced governing bodies from the dominant faiths of the regions where they operated. Having observed the fallacies of indulgence for the past 65 years of independence, this distance, however, appears imperative. We must begin a new chapter in treating religions of the land, which will be like not ‘treating’ any of them at all and rather keeping away from all of them.

The concept of inclusion practised by the state — rather than by members of society — has, in effect, meant turning favourable to one community at a time. This British-like policy makes every community wait for its turn to extract a pound of flesh from governance and yet it leaves all of them sulking, complaining that some other community has got a bigger share of favours. The symptom was heightened by virtue of the acts of the Rajiv Gandhi Government that once appeased the clerics among Muslims by overturning the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano verdict through legislation and then attempted to appease the fundamentalist section of Hindus by sanctioning shilanyas at the disputed Babri structure in Ayodhya.

While the allegation of pseudo-secularism practised by certain political parties holds water, counter-communalism by their rivals in politics muddies the waters even further. A befitting response to fake secularism can only be genuine secularism.

But serious questions are raised to thwart any such attempt. The detractors allege: (a) secularism is irreligious, meaning immoral; (b) secularism is anti-religion, meaning it makes the state come down heavily on believers and ritual practices, and (c) secularism is impossible in Bharat. I have convincing answers to all of these.

» Secularism is non-religious, which is not the same as being irreligious. That is, under a truly secular regime, believers are allowed to practise their faith; only the state does not become a participant in that ritual. This means that all ordinary citizens can, for example, participate in prayers either at home or in places designated for mass-scale worships, but Government functionaries can participate in them only in their private capacity, not as representatives of the state.

» Clampdown on believers and their objects of faith is Stalinism, not secularism. I do not approve of the recent developments in Europe where turbans and hijab/burqa have been banned for Sikhs and Muslims respectively, and mosques have been debarred from constructing minarets. Proscribing a religious act is as much a case of indulgence as is participating in it. The state, I hold, must simply stay away from such religious affairs.

» The alibi that secularism is impossible in this country has only served to make lives of the common people — especially the majority in any neighbourhood that is not a participant in the ritual — difficult. Ordinary citizens find it difficult to go to work due to traffic congestions and detours caused by places of worship encroaching on municipal properties like roads. Infants, students and the ailing — who badly need some rest and/or a calm atmosphere — are disturbed by noise pollution caused by overt pronouncements of faith through loudspeakers, bursting of crackers, wedding processions, etc. More seriously, the alibi that secularism is impossible in this country gives politicians the chance to meddle in all religious affairs and thus cause mistrust and confusion among the entire citizenry on the issue of what exactly the Government of the day stands for. It also gives sundry citizens and religious groups excuses to send frivolous petitions to the authority that seek to undermine office atmospheres and individual safety and security. We have inane demands coming from religious groups and individuals — like a group of Sikhs issuing an edict that making women riders of two-wheelers wear helmets is anti-Sikh, and some Muslim policeman writing to his seniors that he be allowed to grow a beard like a cleric while he serves as a cop!

Given the near-secular way that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been running this Government, may I plead with him to go the whole hog? These restrictions would apply only to such acts that are not prescribed or promoted by the scriptures of any religion. Even the fundamentalist section of any community should, therefore, not object to the following measures:

First, ban accompaniment of media/camera crews by Government functionaries and politicians while the latter participate in religious activities. While this will make atheists happy, even the religious can’t object! For, every scripture says one’s faith ought not to be advertised. As a corollary, the media should be debarred from reporting participation of persons holding public office in such ‘parties’.

Second, the act of congratulating the believers on festive occasions — be it through a mass medium like radio/TV or banner/poster/hoarding/sign campaigns in cities — be considered veiled attempts at self-aggrandisement and a bid to woo the section of voters who are being addressed through these messages. Such acts by politicians and all Government functionaries must be stopped forthwith.

Third, let civic bodies treat religious bodies cleverly. In many European nations, requests for construction of places of worship have to be routed through municipal authorities, and the construction is funded by none other than the state. This prevents the mushrooming of such structures all over the place, especially in manners that disrupt normal traffic movements and in manners to grab land. As all taxpayers’ money goes into the making of a new church or mosque, it calls for a referendum wherein citizens of one community normally veto the request of another. Will it be too un-Indian to emulate this European wisdom?

Fourth, proscription of use of loudspeakers to make religious pronouncements and playing songs is necessary. Don’t give an atheistic reason to stop them. Give a secular one (which need not be atheistic, I have explained above). Ban the mics using the alibi of noise pollution.

Fifth, in order to prevent cultural activities — which originated somehow from religion — encroaching on normal life, confine events such as wedding processions to designated places with well-defined and raised boundaries like hired banquet halls. Disallow processions on roads, be it of a Punjabi wedding or of Kawariyas or of Shias in Muharram. Just as a wedding inside a banquet hall would be okay for the citizenry of the city that are not attending the function, there is no problem with Hussainia that happens inside congregation halls. A secular state can — and must — live with confined celebrations/commemorations of a group.

My sixth recommendation will gladden the inhabitants of unauthorised colonies of big cities where municipal rules hardly apply. When I was a bachelor and new migrant to Delhi, living in two such localities, I often found leaving home for work an onerous task as a tent would obstruct my way right outside the entrance of my rented accommodation. Ban use of any thoroughfare — including lanes or by-lanes — for temporary construction of pandals, tents, etc for purpose of weddings, festivities and neighbourhood acts of worship.

The seventh piece of advice is to instil confidence in the minds of ‘others’. Stop overt display of religious imagery and idolatry in government offices in a manner as if it were the given office’s official religious belief. A Muslim employee wouldn’t be comfortable working in an office whose reception is adorned by an idol of Lord Ganesha. A Hindu would feel odd if the place had a photograph of the Ka’abah.

Eighth, mercifully, the campaign against firecrackers every Diwali has not been branded ‘communal’ ever. Make this campaign reach a crescendo for maximum impact. Additionally, this will be a service to the children who are employed as labourers in places like Sivakasi.

Ninth, apply vehicular traffic rules on all citizens uniformly. The demand to exempt Sikh women riders of two-wheelers from wearing helmets and concession of the demand are equally ridiculous.

A strict and pure secular Government can address the grievance among members of every community that other communities are more privileged. That feeling of being short-changed simmers in the subconscious; it either creates riots or at least seeks to justify them.

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