Happy Indian Independence day, everyone!
In the comments of some recent posts at Sepia Mutiny, some readers have questioned why India needs “secularism,” and even just what secularism means in India. Similar questions were also raised in response to Abhi’s “jingoism in the blogsophere” post from a few weeks ago. Since I have researched the issue of secularism as part of my academic work, I thought it might be interesting to look at the Indian and American approaches to secularism in comparison as a thought-exercise. Instead of focusing on recent issues such as the train bombings in Mumbai last month, or almost-current events like the Gujarat riots of 2002, I wanted to back up a little and take a brief look at the texts of the respective Constitutions themselves. I think this comparative exercise might shed some insight on the value and importance of secularism in both countries. Let’s start with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, implemented in 1791:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Mainly because it refers to so many different things, this has become one of the most hotly debated sentences in the English language. The first phrase guarantees the “free exercise” of religion, and it’s coupled with a statement that the U.S. government is forbidden to associate with an “Established” church.
The First Amendment was a brilliant solution to the kinds of sectarian wars that had been so damaging in Europe in the early modern era, and it also addressed the concerns of many religious sects that had fled to America from Europe to escape persecution by their governments. The clause helped to bring the country together at the moment of its founding, and it’s worked fairly well for more than two hundred years since. Admittedly, the rule wasn’t always applied as strongly as it should have been (many individual states had de facto established churches for many years), and it wasn’t really until the 1940s that smaller, more esoteric sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses were guaranteed the right to religious expression that the mainstream had earlier considered an annoyance. (The Jehovah’s Witnesses wanted the right to proselytize door-to-door as part of the free exercise of their faith; see Cantwell v. Connecticut.)
But it’s also important to note that the U.S. courts made a number of decisions against religious community rights, starting as early as the Civil War era, when the Supreme Court ruled against the Mormons on the matter of Polygamy (see Reynolds vs. United States). At the time the Mormons were extremely unhappy that what they saw as a fundamental aspect of their religious tradition was being declared illegal. But they learned to live with it, and today the community thrives in a modified form.
We can think about this history in light of India, and come to two loose conclusions. Admittedly, the histories of religion and the law in India and the U.S. are different, so there’s a limit to how far you can take this. Nevertheless:
1) Allowing the majority religious community to “establish” itself is a bad idea even if some people think that the majority religious tradition is historically a tolerant, inclusive one. Limits ought to be placed on the role of religion in government — pretty strict ones — for the benefit of the country as a whole. If the government didn’t make an effort to protect the rights of India’s many religious minorities at the time of its founding, the country would never have come together to begin with. If it doesn’t continue to do so now, it won’t stay together.
2) Following the example of the Mormons, minority religious practices that are disrespectful of human rights (especially women’s rights) can be banned by the state. That means that the state has the authority to ban polygamy in Islam (still technically legal in India), as well as “Triple Talaq.” In the short run, some Indian Muslims would be unhappy about these changes, but in a modern nation-state the government has the authority to decide on fundamental rights for all its citizens. (Of course, given current political circumstances, changing this law is an impossibility — even the NDA government didn’t try it during the years it was in power. Also, many people would argue that the problem in India is that the existing laws aren’t enforced adequately — witness female foeticide, which continues though sex-selecting ultrasounds are banned.)
The Indian Constitution is longer and more complex than America’s (there is a decent amount of information at Wikipedia, for those who are unfamiliar with it). The statements concerning secularism are much longer than in the U.S. version, and while they are more specific (the U.S. First Amendment is maddeningly general), their specificity has not made them any less controversial. Moreover, Indian Parliaments have been prone to make many minor and major Revisions and Amendments over the years. In 1976, the language of the Preamble itself was changed — and the words “socialist” and “secular” were inserted, so that the opening sentence now reads: “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens…” Were these insertions really necessary? Some of the changes made over the years detract from the power of the Constitution as a whole.
At any rate, let’s look more closely at at least one of the provisions concerning secularism in the Constitution, Article 15:
15. Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.—(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.
(2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to—
(a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment; or
(b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public.
(3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children.
(4) Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
This is just the first of several clauses dealing with “religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth” etc. in the Indian Constitution, and it’s immediately apparent that the intent and structure of the Indian text is quite different from the American version. In India, the Constitution Assembly felt obliged not just to establish general laws, but to make specific statements regarding actual religious practices and communities. Untouchability was banned (Article 17); discrimination over access to water was banned (above); discrimination in public places such as hotels and restaurants was banned.
From the beginning, then, the Indian government took on the role of reforming religion in the pursuit of social justice and equality. Nehru, Ambedkar, and other progressives understood traditional religious practices and values (from all of India’s religious communities) to be the major impediment to the kinds of modernizing, integrating social reforms they wanted, and the Constitution reflects that focus.
They were not bothered by the American idea of the “separation of church and state.” In India’s case, religion is so constantly present in everyday life, and so powerful in the social order, that the concept doesn’t really make sense. The state has to intervene in religious matters, to guarantee, for instance, that all castes of Hindus have the right to enter temples. The Indian Constitution is an activist, reformist constitution. It is also incremental — some of the changes desired would not have been accepted by most Indians in 1948. (The Hindu Marriage Act, which made major reforms on issues such as dowry, child marriage, and polygamy affecting the Hindu community, was implemented in 1955.)
What couldn’t be included under “Fundamental Rights” for practical reasons was relegated to a special section of the Constitution indicating “Directive Principles of State Policy” (Part IV). These are essentially suggestions for future legislators — it would be great if you could go in this direction, that’s really what we’d like to do, but can’t. One of the most famous of these directive Articles is Article 44: “44. Uniform civil code for the citizens.—The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.” Sixty years have passed, and nothing much has happened regarding civil codes. Directive Princples like Article 44 solve the question of the Constitutional Assembly’s “intent” that dogs so many legal debates in the U.S., but otherwise they don’t seem to matter much.
The activist approach of the Indian Consitution has helped to modernize India in many ways quite quickly. But it also has some unresolved flaws. One is the Civil Code issue I already mentioned. The other issue is caste reservations, which are allowed by the Constitution in Article 15:
(4) Nothing in this article or in clause (2) of article 29 shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
It’s worth noting that while the Constitution bans untouchability, it neither formally nor “directively” bans the idea of caste-based social relations. Defenders of reservations in employment and education argue that any society in which an institution like caste exists is going to be an institution where discrimination by caste exists. Opponents argue, first, that the reservations “Schedules” which determine proportional quotas aren’t based on current demographic realities (as I understand it, caste is not indicated in the Indian census). Second, the opponents of reservations say that some of the communities included, specifically on the OBC lists, are no more “Backward” than any other, non-Scheduled group. And third, they argue that the continued growth of this system actually reinforces social division by caste; those divisions might, with the modernization of social life in Indian cities, have withered away.
Though the hot debate we saw earlier in the year has died down somewhat this summer, I think that the reservations issue is going to be one of the most divisive ones India has to deal with going forward. I personally opposed the latest expansion of the OBC quotas that were introduced by the UPA government this spring, but separate from that issue is the general issue of what to do with the caste-based reservations system as a whole. And there I don’t have an obvious answer, though I do think this might actually be a bigger issue than Hindu-Muslim relations in the long term, as it encompasses nearly every Indian citizen.
In a related topic..the Andhra Pradesh govt recently gave larger control to the Tirupati template authority(TTD) over the land around the template and also in setting rules and regulations in the temple town. One of the recent rules has been banning all non-hindus from working in the temple town, so even truck drivers, restaurant workers are not exempt from this decision and making Tilak mandatory for all workers
Oooooooh, nice post Amardeep. Drat, I have to leave for a lunch meeting (so I’ll save my two paises for later), but I’m looking forward to some intense comments on my return.
Happy Independence Day everyone!!!!!!!! 🙂 One Love!
Very compelling post Amardeep. Thank you and Happy independence day to all.
1) Allowing the majority religious community to “establish” itself is a bad idea even if some people think that the majority religious tradition is historically a tolerant, inclusive one. Limits ought to be placed on the role of religion in government — pretty strict ones — for the benefit of the country as a whole. If the government didn’t make an effort to protect the rights of India’s many religious minorities at the time of its founding, the country would never have come together to begin with. If it doesn’t continue to do so now, it could still happen.
I’ve been reading up on the BJP et. al. lately. The moderate nationalist position as I understand it is just the opposite of your statement – the Indian state will not exist or will be challenged wherever Hindus are not the majority. There is no other basis for nationhood in India besides the Hindu culture which is recognizable throughout the country. The moderate nationalists, like the last Prime Minsister, do not reject the democratic or the constitutional framework (they stepped down quickly when they were voted out of power), in fact, they call for what you call for, a Uniform Civil Code to be applied equally to all citizens.
In addition, since the State arrogated to itself the role of Hindu reformer, they feel that Hindu institutions and infrastructure are unfairly controlled by the State, while other religions are given free reign to own, practice and propogate.
It’s worth noting that while the Constitution bans untouchability, it neither formally nor “directively” bans the idea of caste-based social relations.
True. But I wonder how you could even make the caste system illegal, when one of its principal functions is to arrange marriages. Wouldn’t marriage be a fundamental right?
MG,
The move followed a report by a panel of religious heads and retired judges that Christian missionaries were distributing pamphlets and cassettes in and around Tirumala.
I think the temple has right to hire only hindu employees. And then have the employees dress in the manner the temple considers appropriate — tilak, dhoti or whatever.
I often get into arguments w/ 1st gen folks who believe that India made a mistake when it declared itself a secular state. The decision to remain secular was, in my mind, the best decision the founders of India could have made. Excellent post, Amardeep.
A note on the relative complexity of the Indian Constitution with respect to the U.S. constitution. It is quite common for modern consitutions (see e.g., South Africa, or Germany) to be much more complex than that of the U.S. constitution. The U.S. constitution comes out of a common law rather than civil code law tradition. Most of the latter constitutional systems depend much more heavily on civil statutes than the U.S. As a result, there is much less room for judicial interpretation.
It is also important to mention that the Directive Principles are not enforceable. I don’t remember the name of the case I read in a comparative con law course I took, but the Indian Supreme Court ruled decidedly that the Dir. Principles are just that, principles, and not codified law.
Finally, Happy Independence Day to everyone back in India.
As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side.–Mahatma Gandhi
MG, I saw that news a few weeks ago, and was disturbed. But I don’t know much about the town of Tirupati — are there, in fact, any non-Hindus in the area who would be affected? If someone sued to be allowed to work or live there (or not wear the Tilak) I would support it.
Desitude, Yes, the UCC was widely advocated by Hindu nationalists throughout the 1980s and 90s. I think it was one of the left’s mistakes in those days to equivocate on this issue. A few feminists like Kumkum Sangari, who were thinking of the human rights of Muslim women, were in favor of the UCC in a provisional way (she advocated a UCC, but denied the Hindu nationalists the authority to write the specifics).
Interestingly, when the BJP were actually in power, the matter was rarely mentioned.
Sure there is — it’s called Indian culture, and it’s a composite of many different cultural, religious, and linguistic traditions.
Yes but most of what you call “Indian” culture has roots in Hinduism and Hindu practices, and to a lesser degree, many “American” culture things have roots in Christianity.
I was one of the ones who talked about the absurdity of the notion of secularism in India and even in the western world for that matter. The fundamental problem with this concept is that it is not religion-neutral. It is deeply rooted in Christian theology. It was the Christians who conceptualized the world as being divided in two: the spiritual and the temporal. This fact is accepted as a truth these days by intellectuals all across the globe.
When it became obvious that the second coming wasn’t happening anytime too soon, xtianity had to come to terms with how to live in a world permeated by sin. Xtian authorities were compelled to draw boundaries between the religious and the idolatrous. One of the forms in which this change in the nature of xitianity manifested itself was in the tendency to absorb what had previously been secular into the realm of the sacred – to force the sphere of the secular to contract, turning it either into xtian or into pagan or idolatrous. In its absorption of the pagan social world, xtianity determined what practices or domains of life were religious and which secular. In this way it created a secular world within the confines of a xtian religious world. Thus society was modeled on the monastery. This city of god was the way god wanted human society to be.
The practical means to do this were to develop comprehensive laws. There were the penetentiary laws, followed by the canon law, followed by the gregorian and and protestant reformation and then the enlightenment. Each of these movements was a tussle of power between the church and the state and the boundaries between what was secular and what was temporal were constantly redrawn based on this power equation. Later, as the secularists became more powerful the secular realm expanded and the spiritual one contracted.
The Enlightenment thinkers also talked of 2 realms. Their theories must offer a theoretical criterion that allows us to identify the separation of the 2 spheres. They do not. They simply presuppose them. The liberal thought on toleration is constrained by the basic conceptual schemes it has inherited from theology.
Enough for now – without even getting into the Indian side of the equation. But secularism is a religious concept. As such it is not universally applicable and in fact does not make sense anywhere in the world neither has it done anything to alleviate religious strife. But if you pay enough lip service to something, it begins to sound like the truth. Imagine if we were to say we should separate dharma from politics!
What do you suggest as an alternative to secularism then? In a country such as India which is divided into so many ethnic and religious groups it is impossible to appease everybody. Therefore it is in the country’s best interest to seperate religion from the laws that govern the state.
Yes but most of what you call “Indian” culture has roots in Hinduism and Hindu practices
you can invert that 🙂
for the record, i disagree with divya’s tendency to assume that words map onto reality in a 1:1 fashion and the names of categories reflect genuine substantive categories. i.e., just because early christians had to develop a theory does not mean that those without the theory lack the same substance (e.g., oda nobunaga’s relations with the buddhist temple establishment of 16th century japan was obviously not affected by christian theology, but i think it would go under the general rubric of church-state).
There are various interpretations, but I thought the establishment clause fundamentally meant the govt could not establish an official religion, as opposed to “associating w/ an established churh.”
Seperation of church and state is problematic since the phrase does not appear in the constitution. The extent to which the 1st ammendement was meant to free govt from religion or religion from govt is still hotly debated. In general, the left believes religion has been singled out to not receive any govt support, while the right belives religion is to be put on par with other belifs systems (and to single it out is to restrict religious freedom).
I think the right makes more sense. If the govt is to provide vouchers to secular schools, it cannot exclude religious ones (though it also cannot provide vouchers exclusively to religious schools). seperation of church and state, strictly speaking, would ban church buses from using public roads. To the extent the phrase is meaningful, it shows the general libertarian nature of the US constiution. Prior to FDR, there was even a general seperation of state and economics (“the constitution in exile,” it’s called today).
As the NWO spreads, I’m curious if property rights will reappear more in supreme court rulings, or even if they will become enumerated in foreign consitutions existing w/i the similar liberal democratic secular frameworks.
BTW, amardeep, I think some of the recent posts not only “questioned why India needs “secularism,” ” but also if pakistan was legitamate b/c of it’s lack therof; and the extent to which this “lack therof” has enabled the ideology of islamic fascism. Which is why some have had a hard time wishing pakistan a “happy independence;” although there may be other motives.
Amardeep,
I personally don’t think there should be a ban on non-hindus from working/living/entering Thirupati, but isn’t it the duty of a secular government not to interfere in religious matters? As for wearing Tilak, I don’t know if they want the sweepers and barbers to wear it too, but is it our business to tell them how to run the temple?
The most strict temple regarding protocol is Guruvayur. The priests only allow hindus and they must be dressed in traditional sarees(female) or mundu/no shirt(male). The namboodiri priests, in order to avoid touching non-brahmins ‘drop’ prasadam into your ourstretched hand rather than let you take it from theirs. But again, if they want to be orthodox it is not for us to tell them how to conduct their temple. When I went touring in Kerala with my friend Rachel, a Pentacostal christian, we went into the Guruvayur temple, got our prasad, sat for a few minutes, played with elephants and left with noone knowing any better. But when a family friend, a white-looking Sindhi hindu, got stopped at the entrance, he got angry and yelled, “Do you know what my name is? It is the name of the God I am going to pray to inside if you will move your ass!”
“Therefore it is in the country’s best interest to seperate religion from the laws that govern the state.”
What do Indians do about the various laws on books that have to do with caste then (to use one example)? India has NO DEARTH of laws that are all up in the bizness of religion.
Secularism in the Indian sense of the term usually means equality among various religions in the eyes of the state – quite separate from the American use of the term to signify separation of church and state. In the Indian context, Gandhi is the perfect example of secularism but he’d have balked at any attempt to remove religion from the business of the state. Nehru was more of a Western-style secularist in that sense.
Even today, when prominent Indians say they’re secular, they mean they don’t discriminate against people of other religions. NOT that they’re irreligious.
razib – for the record, i disagrre with your tendency to assume that what i write must fit neatly into every aspect of every corner of the world. sometimes it’s enough to notice the broad patterns. in this case it is much more than that, it is the ultimate kool-aid. Cannot write more until the evening.
sometimes it’s enough to notice the broad patterns.
divya, like i said, if you are talking in broad generalities you should qualify and weaken the strength of your statements to express the nuance of reality as it is.
instead, we have stuff like this:
The fundamental problem with this concept is that it is not religion-neutral. It is deeply rooted in Christian theology. It was the Christians who conceptualized the world as being divided in two: the spiritual and the temporal. This fact is accepted as a truth these days by intellectuals all across the globe.
and, i have noted a tendency for you to attempt to impose your own generalization as a litmus test for “this is hindu” and “this is not.”
Divya, you’re right about the historical roots of modern secularism. It did emerge in roughly those conditions at the moment at which nation-states were coming into being in Europe.
But I read the emergence of secularism not in terms of the dominant culture but of the minorities that fought for their rights. In England, the primary claimants in the mid-1800s were Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews. All three eventually won full legal rights to participate in English civil and political life while also continuing to practice their respective faiths. English Jews would dispute your claim that secularism is inherently tied to Christian theology.
I think it works the same way in India. Secularism is defined at least partly by the folks who demand the protection of their rights — which in India’s case includes a wide array of religious groups, some of which have connections to Hinduism (Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists), and some of whom don’t (Christians, Muslims, Parsis, Jews). All of those minority groups would stand behind the “secular” Indian constitution, even if some are content to be considered legally “Hindu” with regard to the civil code. In the Indian case the need for secularism is also apparent with regard to managing all of the caste groups within Hinduism.
In other words, secularism isn’t “cultural,” nor was its emergence inevitable. As it emerged concretely in Europe and the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was the product of specific political struggles.
Another (simpler) way to answer your point is to simply say that roots can be transplanted and traditions can be grafted together — and such is India’s modernity. The legal system, the structure of government, and the educational system are all “borrowed” from the British, but being subject to them doesn’t make one any less Indian.
In India, secularism means managing Hindu-Muslim relationships. In the US, secularism means managing the church-state relationships.
Amardeep,
The tilak requirement only applies to temple employees. The temple complex is on a hill. It’s called Tirumala.
There is a town at the base of the hill, it’s called Tirupathi. No one is being forced to wear tilak there.
the TTD owns a lot of the land around the temple (which the state government has interfered with and allowed others to encroach upon in the past and even sold against the wishes of the temple authorities) and this area has always been considered “special” or “holy” to Hindus (the entire seven hills). now the government, in order to head off a possible communal problem in the near future, has granted the rights to the entire area considered holy. it’s unfortunate but given the recent trend, it’s not suprising or wholly unwarranted given religious tensions in india. i’ve heard firsthand anecdotal evidence of harassment of hindus on their way up to tirupati.
perhaps the government felt that it’s better than letting it fester and eventually erupt in a communal rage at unchecked harassment in the name of religious freedom. protecting in the name of communal harmony is a tried and true indian practice, after all. let’s not forget this is the same state government that banned the da vinci code because they feared it would offend people and lead to violence. so perhaps the state government didn’t really have any leg to stand on. the cynical part of me says that the government doesn’t want to do anything that would diminish the importance of one of their cash cows. the fact that the govt. can appoint non-hindus to the TTD (including the possibility of appointing an evangelical christian to the ttd), who may not share the same vision as hindus, speaks for itself and the level of government interference in religion (well some religions more than others) in India. tirupati and the ttd is not a “secular” organization or a “secular” place in the modern sense of the word. this directive only came about after years of complaints about encroachment and harassment.
In general, the left believes religion has been singled out to not receive any govt support, while the right belives religion is to be put on par with other belifs systems
1) my personal impression is that “the left” differentiates between “bad religion” and “good religion.” “bad religion” is white & christian, “good religon” is everything else.
2) my personal impression is that “the right” wants religion to have even more privilege as a belief system than it already does. after all, the does “the right” want priestly confessions to be viewed the same way as a confession to your friend? does the right want “in liberal democracy we trust” on coinage so that our political ideology gets the same nod as “in god we trust.”
addendum to #1, you can universalize what “the left” thinks bad religion is by the formula, majority religion ~ bad religion.
More on the fact that secularism has a different meaning in the US and in India.
A WASP friend was shocked when the San Jose Mercury News mentioned that the city conducted elections for office-bearers in a Gurudwara. “That’s the state interefering in the Church”, he said.
I gave other examples: The Tamil Nadu government has a department (HR&CE) to run Hindu temples. The Central Government makes special arrangements for Indian Muslims to go on Hajj. My friend that these were all examples getting into the Church’s business. That’s when it hit me: secularism, in India at least, means managing Hindu-Muslim relationships.
This is not completely correct. After all, Tamil has two words: anmeeekam (spiritual matters) and laukeekam (wordly matters). Presumably these are Sanskrit words, and thus available in other Indian languages.
I agree that the Tirupati employees can be legally constrained by Hindu custom – it is, after all a temple. Unfortunately, as I mentioned to Amardeep above, so much of Hindu infrastructure is either owned or controlled by the state, every state has a temple department! And since the founding fathers arrogated to themselves the right to reform Hinduism, Hinduism is in effect the state religion in India.
More on the fact that secularism has a different meaning in the US and in India.
more like different meaning in the US and much of the rest of the world. the US attitude toward religion does have a particular protestant tinge of emphasis on confessional creeds which makes it amenable to church-state separation in a clean fashion. it has had more difficult with more all-encompassing traditions, like catholicism or orthodoxy or judaism (and now islam). see my review of the impossibility of religious freedom.
Nice blog..
I’m all for Indian style “secularism”.. It is not the “hands off” approach as in the US, rather the “reformist” approach. Unfortunately it stopped with reforming just the “Hindu” part of the population.. Hopefully Uniform civil code is introduced sooner than later..
Read this article in Indian express..link
Too bad Rajkumari Amrit Kaur didn’t help in reforming Christian personal laws or Begum Aizaz in Muslim Personal laws.. In India, Christian women were following the divorce act of late 1800s that literally means they can’t initiate a divorce.. until that got thrown out by a few good Supreme court judges in late 90s (yeah 50 yrs after independence).. Unfortunately the govt. caved into Muslim regressives in the Shah bano case..
Anyhow, I’m happy that Nehru and Ambedkar tampered with the Hindu personal laws in case of property rights and marriages/divorces..
But caste is rooted in religion, no? Only the Hindus have the concept of the caste system. If the Indian government were to truly adopt secularism, they would abolish laws based on the caste, since that is a matter of religion interfering with the state. Yes, secularism means that all religions are equal, but also that the government propagate religion. So, for instance Israel is not a secular state, since Jews enjoy all sorts of benefits above non-Jews, and of course the goal was the creation of a Jewish state.
So, for instance Israel is not a secular state, since Jews enjoy all sorts of benefits above non-Jews, and of course the goal was the creation of a Jewish state.
be careful here. the early zionists were actually very anti-religious, the key was not to create a religious jewish state, but to create a nation-state for the jewish ethnicity on the model of europe. the fact that jewish law is part of the state’s system is, from what i recall, part of a bargain that the dominant secularists made with the religious early on which has really gotten out of control in part because of the rise in the number of religious over the past 50 years (and the predominant peace that religious jews made with zionism, which they once opposed for religious reasons).
The Da Vinci Code ban by the Andhra Pradesh government, was overturned by AP Supreme Court.
From the Hindu (via the The Acorn)
Citing the protests lodged by Christians and Muslims, the Government banned the film. They held that the film’s story attacked the basic tenets of the Holy Gospel. The Government contended that the film might hurt their religious sentiments and lead to law and order problems.
Rejecting these arguments, Mr. Justice Raghu Ram, in his 48-page judgment, said, “The Constitution does not confer or tolerate such individualised hyper-sensitive private censor intrusion into and regulation of guaranteed freedom of others.”
But caste is rooted in religion, no? Only the Hindus have the concept of the caste system.
Not true. Caste effects every religious group in India, and they all fight for reservations. There are Dalit Sikhs, Muslims and Christians.
a more accurate assertion would be that only some (though the majority) hindus sacralize caste. one side of my family are recent (80 years ago) converts from hinduism who preserve some caste related “purity” customs out of habit. when a member of this branch becomes “religious” (that is, a goat-beard) there is often a tendency for them to violate and trangress these purity customs in a very blatant manner which other branches of my family find amusing. the point is that caste does not have religious saction in other groups, and that is important i think in the tone of debate. the only equivalent in islam that is religiously sanctioned might be sayyids or descents of ali, but this is a tiny proportion (at least patrilineally, it can be argued that most eurasians might be able to trace a line of descent from the prophet!).
and to be precise, my own anecdotal impression is that the lack of religious sanction of caste means that non-hindu brownz abroad tend to loose a sense of caste without the scaffold of brown culture. the only reason i know the ‘pecking order’ within the quasi-caste system of bangladesh and my own family’s position within it is that i visited bangladesh where it is salient. my parents never mentioned these issues in the USA. i have asked other brownz raised in a muslim milieu and they report the same experiences: caste consciousness tends to melt without indian cultural backing because it isn’t sacralized within the religion but is implicit.
(the main substitute among muslims is the fantasy that they are descended from turks or arabs, but i don’t think this is totally analogous)
This is similar to what has happened in Pakistan as well – that state was initially “secular” and Jinnah wasn’t much of a Muslim – step one was to recast Muslims as a separate ethnicity in India. On a related note, I read somewhere (in a book whose name I forget so I have no nifty links to produce) that the leaders of the Muslim League were quite familiar with Zionist writings during the 40s
and to be precise, my own anecdotal impression is that the lack of religious sanction of caste means that non-hindu brownz abroad tend to loose a sense of caste without the scaffold of brown culture.
It tends to melt outside of India for everyone, check Trinidad, Fiji or South Africa – I doubt any of those people know their gothras or jaati though most have retained their Hindu identity.
Caste discrimination is very strong among Christians and Sikhs, and definitely exists among Muslims throughout rural India. In urban India its attenuated greatly (at least the sacral dimension).
On the other hand Bali has an extant varna system – the idealized fourfold order – with no Dalits, and which hasn’t existed in India for a long time. There too the Indonesian government stepped in and reformed Hinduism (they call it Hindu Dharma) by declaring anyone could become a brahmin priest.
It tends to melt outside of India for everyone, check Trinidad, Fiji or South Africa – I doubt any of those people know their gothras or jaati though most have retained their Hindu identity.
my impression that it is attenuated, though it doesn’t disappear.* but i think i am willing to go along with that. let me be frank that my own “awareness” among caste among NRIs surfaced 3-4 years ago when i became more familiar with hindu brownz on a personal level. i was surprised that american born brownz would now much about caste, or take particular pride in it, but it seemed to be a caste for a subset. this might be due to the high SES/caste skew of the migration to the states.
p.s.
1) i mean ‘seemed to be the case’
2) re: gujarati muslims, it is to distinguish their more elite origins than the indentured laborers who came from UP/bihar
Great! But, what about
Invidual freedom Property Rights Intellectual Property Rights
We are way way way backward on those issues.
We need stop bragging and fix the wrong.
Talking of secularism, I grew up Catholic in Goa, India and I never, ever felt like there was any threat to the practice of the religion. Of course, in parallel, the depiction of Goans in Hindi films was despicable. Like so much of life in India, we just lived without being too aware of the boxes we inhabited. Religion was how we were -ritualistic , Indian was how our needs forced us to be – tolerant. Caste, of course, was the umbrella over every religion.
But nowadays there is a ban on midnite mass, huge temples are going up, there is a propensity among the Hindu populace to talk Marathi instead of Konkani…it is changing.
In America, we are so much more concerned with ethinicity. And Catholic church in America? Well, someone accused the congregation of being in a “pious coma”
Ponniyin (#26),
Thanks for the link to that article in Indian Express. I agree with Pamela Philipose — let’s not forget the role of the “founding mothers” in the writing of the Indian Constitution.
There were several women present at the Constituent Assembly. I was just reviewing Granville Austin’s classic book, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, and Amrit Kaur’s role seems to have been particularly important with regards to some of the clauses of the constitution we’ve been discussing. She was one of the main voices arguing that the state had to have the authority to intervene in religious practices.
Here’s what Austin has to say Amrit Kaur’s contribution:
So she’s responsible for an important distinguishing component of Indian secularism!
Amardeep,
Yes we should thank the founding mothers.. But I have a lingering doubt that these folks (westerners) try to portray people who have converted as someone who found the truth and using that truth to ‘enlighten’ the primitives.. (Rajakumari Amrit kaur is a Christian) Maybe I’m just paranoid due to the “Katherine Mayo” syndrome.. 🙂 She could have also reformed the Christian personal law to give rights to Christian women for divorcing their husbands..
Whatever.. It’s all good..
not really a constitutional issue, the state may choose to privledge priestly confessins, just as they may choose to give a jounalistic privledge or tax-empempt status to secular charaties and religions. But as far as i know, no serious right-wing legal scholar argues that we are constituionally obligatged to privledge religion.
again, the choice of the state/people. people may choose to put secular or religious slogans on coinage; both slogans are consitutionally protected in the scalia/thomas framework…but in say a larry tribe framework, the religious slogan would be unconstitutional (not sure if this is tribes’s actual belief, i juat mean someone of his general constitutional philosophy.
I think in general, the notion of “seperaton of church and state” privlidges secular/scientific/rationalistic thinking even though it clearly can accomodate the religious. There is a thread of christian thinking that gave rise to the enlightenment and science; but much of the latter is either hostile to christianity or dismissive of it. Ineveitably, a culture that truely adobts seperation of church/state will become more secular as as happened in europe. i realize the US contradicts this theory but every theory has an exception.
Ineveitably, a culture that truely adobts seperation of church/state will become more secular as as happened in europe. i realize the US contradicts this theory but every theory has an exception.
exception? what’s the trend? most european states are not ‘neutral’ with respect to religion. until 2000 all scandinavian states had an established lutheran church (sweden disestablished in 2000 at the request of the lutheran church because they felt gov. entanglement compromised their flexibility). england has an established church. germany has a optional ‘church tax’ for protestantism and catholicism and has ‘recognized’ religions. the netherlands subsidizes most major religious groups via the pillar system. greece, italy and spain are unireligious, and the latter two have been the scene of serious anti-clerical movements, but i doubt you could say that the church and state are separate in these nations (especially greece). every single one of these nations, especially the northern ones are more secular than the USA.
india is also far more religious than the USA. france is less religious. both these nations are closer to the us model (france more so). turkey is about the same as the USA, and its elite seems to espouse laicism.
give me a plausible regression or something, but don’t talk to me of ‘trends’ when i see little evidence that you know the details in europe. please.
razib:
your’re right, europe is far less religious than the US but has an entaglement between religion and state. I meant a general liberal framework in govt leading to a privledged position of secularism–b/c socities have adopted theories that came from esssentially secular/scientific worldviews– although it clearly can accomodate religious sentiment, christian or otherwise.
even the majority of “jewish” israelis are secular, not orthodox.
but probably wealth and education has more to do w/ a decreased religious sentiment; though these factors can’t be removed from a liberal democracy completely either. The US has bucked this thread, no?
I meant a general liberal framework in govt leading to a privledged position of secularism–b/c socities have adopted theories that came from esssentially secular/scientific worldviews– although it clearly can accomodate religious sentiment, christian or otherwise.
i really don’t know what you are talking about here? secularism is not privileged in germany (for example), where religious education courses are pretty universal. after reunification there was actually a controversy because in the east the secularists wanted their own form of secular education courses. the only state where secularism is privileged by state fiat is france to my knowledge in europe.
but probably wealth and education has more to do w/ a decreased religious sentiment; though these factors can’t be removed from a liberal democracy completely either. The US has bucked this thread, no?
the usa does buck the trend. but the reasoning given by sociologists like rodney stark is the total opposite of what you are suggesting: that the lack of state support and entanglement actually HELPED religion because it operated in a free market. during the early 19th century congregationalism was the established church in new england. baptism was close to being persecuted in much of the south. what is the largest protestant denomination in the USA? southern baptists. congregationalists (united church of christ) are now the smallest of the mainline denominations.
i don’t buy the universality of stark’s thesis (it doesn’t work well in europe, and there are issues in other parts of the word), but your own contention is basically not supported by data. church-state separation is not identical to laicism.
All this talk about secularism and consitutions is making me dizzy. Hold on a minute, everyone. Answer this first: Before we can comment in Sepia Mutinu we are asked to not feed the trolls and reminded “intolerant or anti-secular comments” (amongst other things) may be deleted.
Makes me wonder now. Which version of secularism did they have in mind? The US? Indian? French? … Were founding mothers also involved in drafting it? Maybe Rajan Parrikar can clarify, in his inimitable style. His opinions on secularism, Indian ishtyle, can inject some merriment and edge into this exercise.
Makes me wonder now. Which version of secularism did they have in mind? The US? Indian? French? …
the type that doesn’t turn the comment boards in a sh*tfest due to venting of personal biases and pet peeves.
know what i mean???
Rasudha
A namboodiri priest, or sivachariar, or dikshitar, or bhattachariar (vaishnava priest), or any other brahman temple priest in Southern India will not touch anybody brahman or otherwise, and in some cases will not touch even his colleague, wife or children during the course of his duties or shift. As for the non-brahman priests – pandarams and others – most of them act likewise. There is a fine distinction between the gurukkal a temple priest and the vaidika brahmanan one who performs the rituals for you at home. The latter as a rule cannot enter the garba griha, the inner sanctum or touch the murti. Practices differ very widely across the land. It is Hinduism what do you expect? In other parts of the land worshippers can enter the smaller shrines. This must be very common in Punjab, for some years ago I saw an elderly uncle (at a V.popular mandir in the US) who walked into the companion deity’s garba griham ignoring the sign at the threshold (PRIESTS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT), offered flowers and rang the bell inside the sanctum. Worshippers and the priests were too busy at the main sanctum to notice! The separation of duties among Hindus leads to some very interesting outcomes. Recently in Orissa a group of Dalits who had been barred from a major mandir for years went ahead to set up their own! And, appointed a brahman priest to run it! reasoning that only a professionally trained priest can carry out all the pujas, and services correctly!
Divya is absolutely right about secularism and the work done by SN Balagangadhara and his colleagues at the University of Ghent for about a decade now is required reading for anyone interested in the subject. Balu’s The Heathen in His Blindness is of course magisterial in its understanding of how and why those of us from India (directly or through descent) view ourselves as we do. It lends the term post-colonialism much precision. Rather than defining secularism and its history we must try to understand what India’s founding parents were trying to accomplish. Ambedkar wrote a lot about this in his Thoughts on Pakistan. The founders were misty eyed romantics, very well versed in the land’s culture, and unbelievably smart.
Yep, Shiva. I got all of that from Balu. His work is mind-blowing but itÂ’s not establishment so will take a long time to catch on.
Meena – Your question implies that there is only this one way of conceptualizing these sorts of issues. For any tradition to thrive it must have a workable system and there have been many thriving cultures. India did indeed have its own intellectual tradition. Social problems aside, no society has been more celebrated for its cultural and religious diversity than India. Yet, from colonial times onwards, both Indian and western intellectuals have argued that India needs the modern political theory of toleration to survive.
There are all sorts of rivalries in this world – rival soccer teams, street gangs, money-grubbers, power struggles. Right now, anything that happens between members of different communities (specially in India) is simply reduced to an issue of religion. This prevents us from looking deeper into the nature of the problem. In any case, the debate is not about whether people of different religious should live peacefully or not. People in general agree on this. But because we have set notions such as secularism and democracy as some sort of ultimate ideals, there is no scope for any deeper introspection on the ways and means to get there. Is a fight between a hindu and a muslim a religious fight in the first place or could it be something else? ?
Consider also the Muslim argument against UCC in India (uniform civil law for all). If secularism grants its citizens full religious freedom, including the freedom to live by the tenets of their religious personal law, this leads to deadlock. One group believes that the domain of religion includes the legal restrictions it puts on the matters of family life. If the secular state intrudes upon these matters, this is seen as a violation of the tenet of religious freedom. Another group believes that religion is a private matter of the individual and the state cannot possibly interfere in such matters. On what grounds could one take a position in this conflict on the interpretation of secularism and its principle of religious freedom? The concept of secularism lacks the cognitive sophistication to resolve these sorts of issues. What is worse, because it is a notion held by the intellectual elite, it also prevents further exploration and introspection about these matters.
Two pieces from Prof Arvind Sharma:
Secularism, Communalism, Casteism and Hinduism
We need to begin with an adequate definition of secularism which can and has been defined variously. I suggest that we use the following “working definition” for our purposes, proposed by Donald Eugene Smith: “The secular state is a state which guarantees individual and corporate freedom of religion, deals with the individual irrespective of his religion, is not constitutionally connected to a particular religion nor does it seek either to promote or to interfere with religion”
He goes on to say: “It becomes clear on a closer inspection of this definition that the concept of a secular state involves three distinct but interconnected sets of relationships concerning the state, religion and the individual. These three sets of functions are:
(1) religion and the individual (freedom of religion); (2) the state and the individual (citizenship) and (3) the state and religion (separation of state and religion)”.
The main point to note is the centrality of the concept of individualism in this context: one relates to religion as an individual and one relates to the state as an individual. For our purposes secularism may thus be virtually equated with individualism; secularism = individualism.
II
Such individualism in the Indian context has been seriously compromised by communalism and casteism.
First communalism. The partition of the country is an interesting illustration of the tension between communalism and individualism. The partition occurred as a result of the failure of two religious communities to work out a modus vivendi, yet in both the countries which emerged out of this failure contained sizable minorities of other religions: Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India, who had to relate to the respective governments of these countries in an individual capacity.
The subsequent constitutional developments in the two countries also point in the same direction though in a different way, Pakistan gradually moved in the direction of proclaiming itself as an Islamic Republic; India adopted and stayed on a constitutionally secular course, once again displaying the pull in the two directions.
Moreover, Indian politics, as distinguished from the constitution, has also become communal over the years. The failure to replace religions law by territorial law in matters of personal law is one major failure of omission. The failure of commission lies in the way Article 30 has been used by the minorities to their advantage, to the point that even a quintessentially Hindu organisation such as the Ramakrishna Mission sought to declare itself non-Hindu to take advantage of the Article.
The phenomenon usually referred to as the appeasement of the minorities raises a crucial issue: At what point do provisions which discriminate in favour of minorities come to be perceived as measures which discriminate against the majority?
III
The phenomenon referred to as Mandalisation highlights the role of caste as replacing that of the individual in dealing with the state.
An interesting aspect of the extension of reservations to backward classes lies in the fact that the backward classes do not suffer from “social” stigma as such, which means that economic criteria could have been used to identify deserving candidates for the purpose of reservations without the need focusing “caste” as a criterion.
The criterion was justified on the ground that there is a close fit between economic and social backwardness, so that the latter could be used as an index of the former. But if the fit is so close, then an economic criterion would have been equally effective. Moreover, this criterion would have applied to the individual in keeping with the spirit of secularism. The caste – criterion was accepted nevertheless. It is a point of further interest that the criterion of caste uses the word caste in terms of jaati rather than varna.
IV
It is then clear,on the basis of the communal and caste dimensions of the Indian politics, that while India may be a secular state, secularism as such has been heavily compromised and may even be said to have failed in terms of its equation with individualism. There are, however, numerous individualist dimensions to Hinduism which enable one to offer the daring proposition that Hinduism could well come to the rescue of secularism, if these dimensions are safeguarded or enlarged. It is in this context that the following suggestion is now being made: that the concept of IISHTA-DEVATA, or the chosen deity, should now be supplemented within Hinduism with the concept of ISHTA-VARNATA, or the chosen varna. The more developed version of this view will be offered in the next section.
V
The doctrine of ISHTA-DEVATA, or one’s chosen divinity, allows each Hindu to choose his or her own “God”, or to change one’s preference over time. Thus this concept enshrines spiritual individualism. Note that such a concept is in principle independent of birth, although some households have a tradition of family-deities. One’s God is essentially one’s own. The concept of ISHTA-VARNATA, by analogy, represents the idea of a chosen vocation. In pre-modern times there may have been reasons for pursuing one’s family vocation, but the geographical and occupational mobility and widespread literacy which characterise the modern world have rendered them obsolete. Once can of course still follow one’s family profession – but out of choice rather than compulsion, economic or otherwise. Note that the concept is one of ISHTA-VARNATA and not ISHTA-JATITA, because the word jaati is closely asociated with nativity. The word has a natal orientation, just as varna has an occupational orientation. An attempt was made in classical Hinduism to fuse the two, giving rise to the doctrine of VARNA-SANKARA, in an effort at evolving a kind of vocational genetics. Once varna is clearly differentiated from jaati, and linked to individual choice, then this new version of the caste system reinforces the individualism on which secularism rests. In this way Hinduism, habitually perceived as opposed to secularism in some ways, can be perceived as its ally.