A Question of Faith
The co-existence of religious beliefs is an inexorable part of the Hindu tradition and vastly different from the Western notion of ‘secularism’
If you wish to converse with me, define your terms,” said Voltaire. For over 70 years, we have been debating on words like religion, secularism and freedom without really bothering to define or understand their true meaning in the Indian context. In any discourse on secularism, the facts that dharma is not religion and secularism has no Indian equivalent have to be accepted as ground rules. The term Hindu cannot be conflated with the Western concept of religion, which is of a fairly recent origin. On the other hand, the term Hindu in the Indian context is several millennia old. Hindu essentially meant the society with its cultural and civilisational way of life, its core beliefs, traditions, and practices and also prejudices. In the Indian way of life, dharma plays an important role and forms the basis of our day-to-day life.
Two instances of Hindu principles that symbolise the outcome of freedom of thought, expression, belief and ‘religion’ are the pronouncements made not today, but 4,000 years back by unnamed rishis: Vasudhaiva kutumbakam or ‘this world is one family’ and Ekam sat viprah bahuda vadanti or ‘the universal reality is the same, but different people can call it by different names’. In these two proclamations made in ancient Hindu India, we see the seeds of globalism and freedom of thought, belief and faith 4,000 years before the world was to become the global secular village of today.
Thus the constitutional guarantee of freedom to profess any faith of one’s choice and the state’s assurance of non-interference, euphemistically called secularism, existed and continues to exist in India from ancient times.
Unlike the institutionalised parameters of Semitic religions for the basic human rights of freedom of belief, the Indian thought process kept the faith, belief and method of worship out of the purview of the state and uncontaminated by outside influence. Yet the capacity to adjust and assimilate made Hindutva flexible, responsive to modernity and dynamic yet rooted in tradition.
The concept of secularism developed out of different historical processes, fusion between the rights of the Church and the obligations of the state and philosophical interventions in Western political history, leading to a secularisation of the state and empowering it to grant religious freedom. The question of separation of state and religion was confronted by the framers of the Indian Constitution. Can the Indian state, they pondered, with absolute power, make laws as part of political decisions affecting every aspect of human life, especially moral and religious issues, which people hold important and exclusive in their personal lives?
The framers of the Indian Constitution probably had a clearer idea of the history and evolution of not only the freedom struggle but also the social, cultural, religious and political moorings of the predominantly Hindu Indian society and its gradual transformation. They envisaged a model of a secular political system that protects all religions with equal regard (Sarva Dharma Samabhava) but under the framework of an egalitarian social order, informed by the principles of a welfare state consistent with the progressive enhancement of human dignity.
The Constituent Assembly debated the issue of defining and expressly and officially declaring India a ‘secular’ Republic and took a conscious decision not to do so (Constituent Assembly Debates, Volume 7). All amendments proposing the incorporation of the words ‘Secular, Federal, Socialist’ in the Preamble of the Constitution were made by veteran socialist leader K.T. Shah,
THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATED DEFINING AND OFFICIALLY DECLARING INDIA A ‘SECULAR’ REPUBLIC, AND TOOK A CONSCIOUS DECISION NOT TO DO SO
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF SECULARISM, WITH THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE AS A CORE PRINCIPLE IN EUROPE, WAS ALIEN TO INDIA AS WAS COMPOSITE CUTLURE, TOLERANCE OR STATE-RELIGION DIVORCE
a noted Gujarati playwright. All of his proposals, including the one for adding the word ‘secular’, were eventually rejected by the Constituent Assembly. Incidentally, his suggestion for the adoption of the presidential form of government was also rejected.
It is important to note that this rejection came in the background of extremely violent incidents following the tragic Partition of the country on the basis of religion and Pakistan declaring itself an Islamic state. In 1956, Pakistan changed into the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’, declaring Islam as the official religion, in keeping with the 1949 Objectives Resolution which envisaged an official role for Islam as the state religion.
While some advocated for explicitly declaring India a secular state, there were others who advocated the incorporation of greater ‘Hinduness’ in the Constitution, thereby officially recognising the rights of the majority. The Constituent Assembly debates reveal the true nature of the centrist Hindu who is essentially secular in the sense that he professes respect for all faiths, philosophies, ideologies and methods of worship (Sarva pantha samabhava). While the religious bias was rejected, the addition of the word ‘secular’ was seen as redundant in the Indian context. Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar argued that the essence of secularism was secured through provisions in the Fundamental Rights, and the declaration of freedom of thought, faith and expression in the Preamble.
Contesting Jawaharlal Nehru’s appeal for ‘tolerance of differences’, Acharya J.B. Kripalani distinguished between the ‘tolerance of indifference’ and a (very obviously Hindu) Gandhian approach to tolerance. “We have to respect each other’s faith,” he said. “We have to respect it as having an element of truth. No religion in the world is perfect, and yet there is no faith without some element of God’s truth.” As opposed to the idea of an ‘irreligious state’ that Nehru and the Left held, the political establishment bowed to common practice and adopted the Gandhian symbolism of all-religion prayers and equidistance from all religions without shunning any or all of them. In fact, Ambedkar explains the futility of aping the West as far as secularism is concerned and underlines the link between religion and politics better while emphasising that political revolutions and changes in India, as elsewhere, had always been preceded by a social awakening that was built on a religious template. The religious Reformation started by Martin Luther, Puritanism in colonial North America, the religious and social movement of Gautam Buddha, the religious and social reforms of Maharashtrian saints that preceded Shivaji’s reign or the social and religious force behind the Sikh empire—these are only a few of the examples that he cites to make his point of the emancipation of the mind and soul as being a necessary preliminary to the political expansion of the people (BAWS, Vol. 1, Annihilation of Caste, pp 43-44). The historical evolution of the concept of secularism, with the separation of church and state as its core principle in Europe, was as alien and inappropriate to India as was the narrative of composite culture, tolerance and a complete divorce of state and religion.
THE HINDU WAY OF LIFE
In the Indian milieu, every form of worship as well as atheism were considered a relentless pursuit of truth, unlike in the West and Europe where ancient beliefs were denounced as Paganism, their literature destroyed and atheism banned. Polytheistic societies that were known to tolerate a heterogeneity of worship were replaced with monotheistic imperialistic regimes that officially demanded total and unquestioned loyalty to the religion of the king or the church as also the acceptance of one book, one God, one Church. The religious absolutism of the church kept theocratic states alive for centuries till the emergence of enlightened reforms and the scientific temperament under democracies.
Questioning modernity and science, and legitimising obscurantism and cultural vandalism have been the hallmark of virulent and organised monotheistic Semitic religions. India, with its all-embracing civilisational continuity nurtured by strong cultural undercurrents, has remained alive for centuries without a unifying political power because of its secular political dispensa-
QUESTIONING MODERNITY AND SCIENCE AND LEGITIMISING OBSCURANTISM AND CULTURAL VANDALISM HAS BEEN THE HALLMARK OF MONOTHEISTIC SEMITIC RELIGIONS
tions. Never has there been a theocratic state in the thousands of years of India’s history.
Nehru, the first prime minister of the country, rejected the inclusion of secularism in the Constitution and, ironically, two decades later, his daughter Indira Gandhi, through the 42nd amendment and a 20-page-long detailed document, not only gave unprecedented powers to the prime minister and Parliament, but also effected drastic changes to almost all parts of the Constitution, including the Preamble, converting the ‘Sovereign, Democratic Republic’ to a ‘Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic’.
Was India any less secular from 1947 to 1976, or are we really more secular now since the Constitution says so? India’s secularism has been an integral part of the polity through the ages.
The constitutional guarantee to minorities has truly become a tool in the hands of political parties to build deep polarisation on religious grounds and create vote banks. The abject poverty, lack of opportunities and modern education, many times self-imposed by communities, unemployment and the partisan attitude of elected governments compound the fear of ‘majority domination’ among minorities. Besides being a lower level aberration, the current debate over minority alienation appears to be highly politically motivated on the one side and greatly aggravated by the acts of commission and omission on the part of the political class, contradicting the fundamental guarantees of freedom envisaged in the Constitution, although the term minority is not specifically defined by it.
Dispensation of justice becomes a challenge when it comes to deciding cases concerning religion, and the greater the degree of diversity of religions, the bigger the challenge becomes. Unfortunately, unlike economic and other secular subjects, religion cannot be brought under a statutory regulatory body. The reform and rejuvenation of faith-based associations collectively called religions has to come from within the respective communities that adhere to them.
Saner elements in society have always prevailed over the leaders of social and religious groups to eschew violence, hatred and intolerance and build strong bridges among communities using as many religious symbols of oneness as possible.