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Author(s): T. N. Madan
Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 667-697
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312965
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Modern Asian Studies 27, 3 (1993), pp. 667-697. Printed in Great Britain.
The present paper seeks 'to explore the nature of Indian secularism,
the difficulties it has run into, and the ways in which it may be
revised'. This is a large undertaking for a short text, originally written
as a public lecture, particularly because the issues posed do not readily translate into plain questions. The most that I can hope to do is
to raise some doubts and make a few suggestions for rethinking the
issues involved.
667
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668
T. N. MADAN
four hundred years and it should have succeeded in India too. Sec
ondly, it is assumed that secularism will be welcomed by all righ
thinking persons, for it shows the way to the making of rational plan
to critical scrutiny. I do not think that the virtues claimed for secular
Let me, then, take a quick look at the experience of Western societ
with secularism and secularization in order briefly to provide a com
parative perspective for a discussion of the contemporary Indian
situation.
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669
sway. The point I want to stress here is not that these processes are
value-neutral, which they are not, or good or bad, but that they
have more or less happened everywhere. They have been described
in respect of contemporary India by many social scientists, including
M. N. Srinivas and Milton Singer.4 These accounts are by no means
David Martin, 'Towards Eliminating the Concept of Secularization' in J. Gould
(ed.), Penguin Survey of the Social Sciences (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965).
2 David Martin, A General Theory of Secularization (Oxford, Blackwell, I978).
3 See, e.g., Peter Glasner, The Sociology of Secularization (London, Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1977).
4 M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modem India (Berkeley, University of California
Press, 1966); Milton Singer, When a Great Tradition Modernizes (New York, Praeger,
1972).
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670
T. N. MADAN
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671
that: scholars from Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch to Louis Dumont
and Peter Berger have in their different ways pointed to the essential
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T . N. MADAN
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673
deep, yet it was forbidden entry into 'the world of religious and
reserved region' also. Was it then all over? Not quite. The uncert
and the ambiguity of the following words from the same classic
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, is remarkable: 'there
thing eternal in religion which is destined to survive all the par
symbols in which religious thought has successively enveloped
the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life e
into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness o
14 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York, Ma
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T. N. MADAN
ant for us: "What shall we do and how shall we live?"''6 Weber
world from Marx. He was not the one to shed tears over the demise
wrote: 'the fact that the secular foundation [of life] lifts itself abo
itself, and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent real
religion, but also and more pretentiously as the ideology of the sta
which the Sri Lankan state is expected to protect and promote Budd
ism; and secularism, it is hoped, will be the prevailing ethos of mod
upon who uses the word and in what context. There is, therefor
single or straight answer to the question as to why secularism in In
has run into difficulties. Let me then attempt to present two possi
answers which are based on my understanding of Mahatma Gand
17 Max Weber, Economy and Society, ed. by Guenther Roth and Claus Witt
(Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 58-60.
18 See Karl Lowith, Meaning in History (Chicago, University of Chicago Pr
I949), p. 49. The phrase 'opium of the masses' is from Toward the Critique of Heg
Philosophy of Right and the reference to the dissolution of religion from The Ger
Ideology. See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosoph
ed. by Lewis S. Feur (New York, Doubleday, Anchor, I959), pp. 262-6, 246-6i
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675
the sacred and secular domains per se, then Gandhi would have had
no use for any such ideology. Its success would have been a moral
disaster. His vision, as has been noted so often, was holistic, with
religion as its constitutive principle-as the source of value for judging
the worth of all worldly goals and actions. Religion here means, above
all, altruism (sevadharma), moral reason (atmatushti), and the putting of
one's faith in the saving grace of God (Rama nama). 'For me', Gandhi
observed, 'every, the tiniest, activity is governed by what I consider
my religion'.19 This was a timeless principle for him and yet he was
very sensitive to the conditions and demands of particular times and
places, in conformity with the kala-desha sensitivity of Indian classical
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T. N. MADAN
has run into difficulties in India because the state is too much with
us, because it intrudes into areas of life where it has no business even
to peep. That state is best which governs the least. Talking with a
Christian missionary in September I946, Gandhi said: 'If I were a
dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion,
I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to
do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health,
communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your
or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!'26 A year later,
soon after independence and a few months before his death, he said:
22 Margaret Chatterji, Gandhi's Religious Thought (London, Macmillan, 1983), p. 85.
23 Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 124.
24 Ibid., p. 204.
25 Bhikhu Parekh, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's Political
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677
Gandhi's eyes men and women were human in virtue of their capacity
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ticism and did not consider himself a religious person. He was not,
however, uninterested in spiritual matters. Any impressions of his
boyhood experiences of Brahmanical belief and ritual were erased by
his reading of the works of Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell and other
similar thinkers. His study of world history and his encounters with
the Indian masses in the I92os and I930S made him feel very negative
about the role of religion in human affairs and he looked forward to
a secularized society. He was an agnostic and subscribed to a rationalist, and even a historicist, worldview.
that the news of Gandhi's fast (in September 1932) on the subject of
He went on to observe:
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679
sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reac
secularization.
will have little meaning and when our struggle will be on the economic basis'.36 Two years later-in fact again and again during the
next two decades-he reaffirmed the primacy of the economic factor:
'the real thing to my mind is the economic factor. If we lay stress on
this and divert public attention to it we shall find automatically that
religious differences recede into the background and a common bond
unites different groups. The economic bond is stronger than even the national
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T. N. MADAN
always put independence first and other questions, including the communal one, second, and refused to allow any other of those questions
to take the pride of place'. He added: 'I am afraid I cannot get excited
all a side issue, and it can have no real importance in the larger
scheme of things'.39
and arrows as weapons of war in the age of the atomic bomb'.43 The
viceroy, Lord Wavell, recorded in his journal on 14 July 1945: 'the
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68i
growth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat and drink, hav
And Lenin had affirmed that even while the socialists must figh
against religion, doing so did 'not mean that the religious questio
must be pushed into the foreground where it does not belong'.48
Nehru acknowledged his indebtedness to the teachings of Marx an
Lenin in his autobiography, The Discovery of India and elsewhere; but
more the ideals of the European Enlightenment than the hard facts
of society, culture and politics in India. The latter generated compul-
who in the same year, 1931, in which he gave the hopeful message
of the recession of religious differences (quoted above) persuaded the
All-India Congress Committee (at its Karachi session) to insert in
45 Marx and Engels, Basic Writings, p. 259.
46 Quoted in H. B. Acton, The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophi-
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have certainly declared that India should be a secular State. But ...
a secular state is neither a Godless State nor an irreligious, nor an
anti-religious, state'.51 Already, one can see, the notion of the secular
state, and of secularism, were being enveloped in ambiguity, meaning
More about the Constitution below. Let me first recall how Nehru,
having seen his confidence in the primacy of the economic over the
religious factor proven premature, if not wholly misplaced, looked to
the future after partition and independence. A few months after these
events he posed the question: 'Do we believe in a national state which
includes people of all religions and shades of opinion and is essentially
a secular state, or do we believe in the religious, theocratic conception
of the state?' His answer was unequivocal: 'we shall proceed on secu49 SWJN, vol. 4, I973, p- 512.
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683
lar and national lines'.52 This then became the guiding princ
animated the Constitution (then on the anvil) and became th
of state policy in all relevant areas of action. The great Indian e
ment of nation building, or national integration, had thus ente
most crucial phase.
It, however, suffered from a critical moral flaw. Given
lifelong aversion to religion as practised by common people-
Eleven years after independence, and eight years after the adoption
52 S. Gopal (ed.), Selected Works ofJawaharlal Nehru, Second Series (New Delhi, Jawa-
53 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: The Age of Reformatio
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T. N. MADAN
It is clear from this that Nehru had not given up his trust of the
processes of secularization and of the secularization thesis. The chasm
between him and Gandhi was deep. For Gandhi secularism in the
sense of religious pluralism entailed interreligious understanding and
mutual respect: it was the strength of Indian society while communal
politics tied to statism could be its bane. For Nehru, however, religiosity and the attendant conflicts were the badge of social backwardness.
Secularism in the sense of neutrality as state policy was a strategy to
cope with a difficult situation. And the state was potentially a very
important instrument of public welfare and social advancement, very
much on the lines J. S. Mill and other liberals had advocated.58 I am
puzzled by those intellectuals who speak of a hyphenated GandhiNehru view of secularism or, for that matter, of development. It is
high time we accepted the authoritative verdict of B. R. Nanda: 'The
working partnership of Nehru and Gandhi lasted till the end, but
their philosophies of life never really converged'.59
A Nehruvian answer to the question why Indian secularism has
57 See S. Gopal (ed.), Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology (Delhi, Oxford University
Press, I980), pp. 33of.
58 'In many parts of the world, the people can do nothing for themselves which
requires large means and combined actions; all such things are left undone, unless
done by the state': John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II, pp. 602-3,
quoted in Karl de Schweinitz, Jr., The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as
Inequality (London, Methuen, I983), p. I25. (I am grateful to Dr Ramashray Roy for
drawing my attention to the passage from which I have quoted the above sentence.)
59 B. R. Nanda, Gokhale, Gandhi and the Nehrus: Studies in Indian Nationalism (London,
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685
in I964. He had bet on what had seemed a sure winner, but it turned
out to be a lame horse. The most serious failure of the I950S from
the point of view of the present discussion was the shocking neglect of
Asian Drama.60
Nehru also put his faith in the Constitution and in the legislative
process, and this turned out to be the sin of 'excess' rather than
'neglect'. I am not a jurist any more than I am an economist, but I
find certain contradictions in the Constitution. An examination of
Articles 13 to 17, 19, 23, 25 to 30 (all from Part III dealing with
'Fundamental Rights'), and of Articles 44, 48 and 51 (from Part IV
on Directive Principles) brings these out clearly. Thus, Articles 25 to
30, which are the most crucial in this regard, guarantee 'freedom of
conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion'
(25), 'freedom to manage religious affairs' (26), 'freedom as to pay60 Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama, 3 vols (New York, Pantheon, i968), vol. 3, ch.
29.
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ment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion' (27), and 'free-
the sharia. This in spite of the fact that the Constituent Assembly
had, by a resolution in I948, rejected the contention that Muslim
personal law was inseparable from Islam and, therefore, protected
against legislative interference. The British rulers of India had had
greater success in this regard as the Criminal Procedure Code that
they enacted-it is still largely in force in India, but has been modified
in Pakistan--overrode traditional laws and conventions. The framers
of the Constitution, it seems to me, failed to realize that in a democratic polity the state will reflect the character of the society, and
that a communally divided society and a secular state are mutually
contradictory. One is reminded of Karl Marx's perceptive observation, in his tract on 'The Jewish Question', that 'the emancipation of
the state from religion is not the emancipation of the real man from
religion';61 needless to add that the real man he spoke of is the socially
situated person.
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687
ing the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and dra
cattle', though the reason given is a secular one, namely the organ
tion of'agriculture and animal husbandry on modern scientific
It is noteworthy that, in the furtherance of the objectives of a secularized society and the establishment of a secular state, Nehru showed
a much greater willingness to oppose what he considered reactionary
elements among the Hindus than among the other communities. This
was best illustrated by his stand on the Hindu Code Bill. The Hindu
Marriage Act, I955, the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, and the Hindu
Adoption and Maintenance Act, 1956, were enacted by the Parliament, despite opposition by conservative Hindu leaders, including
President Prasad, mainly because of Nehru's insistence. I agree with
Bhikhu Parekh's insightful observation that 'Nehru's state acted as,
and claimed all the rights of a Hindu state in its relation to the Hindus
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T. N. MADAN
the wife he divorces. The new law was a concession to the conserva-
with their own wishes. This had been endorsed by both Gandhi and
Nehru, and represented 'the benign elder brother' mentality. In any
case, the 1986 happenings could hardly be cited as the best way of
using the legislative process as an instrument of secularization. This is
particularly regrettable in view of the directive incorporated in Article
minority conundrum which has acquired near-pathological proportions in India today. This calls for some elucidation.
In a democratic polity being in a majority betokens public approval
and signifies legitimate success for the group concerned. Such majorit-
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689
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69i
will continue or will vanish must depend upon this habit of the
ity. The moment the majority loses the habit of discrimination
demands that were not tenable.70 But he did not abandon the con-
alist organization, Jama'at-i-Islami (Hind), through a series of pronouncements, accepted 'in the present circumstances', which meant
conditionally, 'the secular form of government', but rejected secular-
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another. When the order of the day is, "Protect Hindus" and "Protect Muslims", who cares about protecting the nation?'75 That was
said seventy years ago, but could have been said today.
Within this overall framework of majority-minority politics, there
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693
basis of Pakistan. But a special status was needed for retaining the
state within the union. Article 370 is said to protect 'Kashmiriat' or
Kashmiri identity. Why Kashmiri identity needs special protection
any more than, say, Bengali or Tamil identity is difficult to understand unless it is taken to mean Kashmiri Muslim identity and brought
under the rubric of minority rights and privileges.
The way to hell, it has been well said, is paved with good intentions;
and so it has been in Kashmir. Although the state has been ruled
76 SWJN, vol. I , 199I, p. 54.
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available now.
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695
Enlightenment.
It is also important to recognize that one of the major reasons fo
with the acquisition of political power. The temple and the mosqu
lovers of today's India are, first and foremost, power hungry polit
cians. In their hands religion is reduced to being its own 'shadow',
'sign of distinction' between political groups, and no longer is con
cerned with value but only with instrumentalism.80
If secularism is not essentially anti-religious, but only against rev-
elation and unreason, Indian secularism would be much less so; the
why did Nehru complain to Malraux that it was difficult to establi
78 See, e.g., Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis, The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New
79 See, e.g., Stephen A. Mcknight, Sacralizing the Secular, The Renaissance Origins
Modernity (Baton Rouge and London, Louisiana State University Press, I989).
80 See, Louis Dumont, 'Nationalism and Communalism' in Homo Hierarchicus: Th
Caste System and its Implications (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, I980; Ist edn
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T. N. MADAN
696
ideology that people in general may warm to. What exists empirically,
but not also ideologically, I had then said, exists but weakly.8'
Not that India is entirely lacking in its own resources to cope with
amic religions are so. All the Indian religions are more or less open
to questioning from within and reformulation through interpretation.
pp. 747-59. also see, T. N. Madan, 'Religion in India', Daedalus 18, 4 (1989), pp.
I 15-46.
82 See Ashis Nandy, 'The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious
Tolerance', Alternatives 13, 2 (1988), pp. 177-94.
83 For a richly documented account, see Asim Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition
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697
for it with his life.86 But things have come to such a pass to
ine concern and respect for human rights would be, perhaps, the
best guarantors of Indian secularism, understood as interreligious
understanding in society and the state policy of non-discrimination
and of equal distance (not equal proximity) from the religious concerns of the people. Precious time-the span of two generations-has
been lost, but one can learn from one's mistakes. Minerva's owl, the
Greeks told us, flies out only at dusk, and so it does; but, then, there
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