Manifesto of the All
India Secular Forum
(Proposed Draft)
by Sanjay
Secularism is one of the essential pillars of the
Constitution of India, yet it is perhaps the one most in danger of crumbling at
the moment. Anti-secular communal ideologies and practices have become integral
to the workings of state and other public institutions. Their influence can be
found in criminal justice system, political establishment, education, and
media. Hundreds of minority youth are picked up routinely on fake terror
charges, and languish in jails for years. None of the political groups and
people who conspired in the destruction of the Babri mosque and have engineered
riots against minorities have been punished; rather their political fortunes
have blossomed. It is possible that the person believed to have organized the
most vicious communal pogrom in the post-independence history of the country
becomes prime minister in near future. Pubic education glorifies a particular
type of Hindu past. Media routinely caricatures minorities, targets them after
every terror strike, and spreads false propaganda about them. Most worrisome is
the widespread acceptance of anti-secular ideologies and practices by the people
at large. Political parties and candidates with clear communal histories and programmes
receive large proportion of votes in every election, in all parts of the
country. Minorities are ghettoized in all cities. They are under constant
suspicion in street level popular discourses. Among the minority communities
themselves, communal identity has become the main pole of community life. Civil
rights of minority members are threatened by the leadership of these
communities themselves, and communal propaganda plays an important role in internal
discourse.
Why is secularism faring so badly sixty five years after
India declared itself a democratic republic, despite it enjoying a clear
popular support in the anti-colonial struggle, and despite country being ruled
by at least nominally secular political parties most of the time since
independence? Does the reason for this failure lie solely with the Hindu
nationalist formations like the RSS and its affiliates? Attributing
difficulties of secularism on its opponents appears to miss the main issue.
Opponents of secularism have always opposed it; the question is why have they succeeded
in the past three decades. Success of Hindu communal politics and ideology is
not only a measure of the success of its votaries, it also is an indication of
deeper social and political processes. What are these, and how can they be
countered? Also, it is time to critically reflect on the type of secularism
visaulised in Indian constitution and attempted by Indian state. Social
scientists have distinguished secularism in India from the secularism of
Western liberal democracies, primarily on the basis of the relationship between
state and religion. The Indian one is believed to be based upon ‘Sarv Dharm
Sambhav’ (Equal respect for all religions), while the Western one is believed
to be based upon separation of state from religion. How accurate is this
distinction, and how well does it match with reality? Is the secularism conceived and attempted in India adequate to the challenges of building a
democratic society in a country like India with deep feudal and
patriarchal roots?
Indian Secularism
Secularism of Indian constitution drew its spirit from
experiences Indian freedom movement. Congress under Gandhi had declared
Hindu-Muslim unity as an important goal of the freedom movement. This unity was
attempted under a constant shadow of the British policy of divide and rule, and
machinations of the communal forces of the two communities, both outside and
inside the Congress. The establishment of Pakistan on a religious principle consolidated
the opinion that the promise of security under secularism for the remaining minorities is the best
guarantee for unity and integrity of the
country. Horrors of partition riots and murder of Gandhi by a Hindu communalist
further galvanized popular opinion against communalism. Hence, the
constitutional scheme of Indian secularism developed its two main characters;
security to religious minorities, enshrined in the fundamental right to
religious freedom and no discrimination based on religion, and opposition to
aggressive manifestations of majority communalism. Even though Indian
constitution is a thoroughly liberal, humanist and secular document, there are
important traces of concessions to sectarian demands, like the right to not
just practice but also propagate religion given under Christian missionary
demands and the Directive Principle on cow protection.
The secularism of Indian in the meanwhile has had a
chequered history. It has been high on rhetoric and commissions of enquiries,
but has often faltered in practice. Upper caste Hindu forces have enjoyed
significant presence in politics, and state apparatuses, and these forces in
administration, police and judiciary have played important role in fomenting
communal discord. Rather than keeping away from religion, Indian state has played
a supportive role to religion. It adopted an active policy of reform of
Hinduism towards an upper caste sanskritised
form. This effort was directed towards making Hinduism palatable to a
modernist sensibility. These efforts worked more to cover up the disdainful
aspects of Hinduism, and in effect gave it state support. Thus the constitution
banned untouchability and declared Hindu temples open to dalit castes, while
the enlightened dalit leadership under Ambedkar had left the temple entry
programme long before that, and had declared a resolve to leave Hinduism.
Indian state denied reservation benefits to dalits who converted to Buddhism
with Ambedkar, and till date dalits who leave Hinduism and convert to Islam and
Christianity forfeit all reservation benefits, which acts as a pressure on them
to remain within the Hindu fold. In reality, Indian state supports other
religions too. It regularly provides administrative and financial support to
various religious enterprises, like pilgrimages, festivals, places of worship and
processions.
The post-independence state in India continued many
practices from colonial times that were inspired by the colonial rulers’ policy
of treating India as a collection of distinct and communities with separate and
conflicting interestrs, rather than a community of rights bearing citizens.
Thus the state continued funding of educational institutions run by religious
trusts, and granted special management rights to those run by minorities. It
continued with laws dealing with the so called hurt to religious and community
sentiments, and spreading animosity between communities, and has banned books,
authors, films, and plays under these laws. State took over the management of
temples and other places of worship managed by erstwhile princely states as
part of accession agreements. In the late eighties, under the prime
ministership of Rajiv Gandhi, the Central Government indulged in an ugly double
appeasement of religious demands, which opened the way for a qualitatively new
growth of Hindu communalism. It passed an act regarding maintenance of Muslim
widows that annulled Shahbano judgement of the Supreme Court, to satisfy the
demands of religious heads of the community. To appease the aggressive
sentiment of Hindus it opened the locked doors to the temple in Babri mosque.
Non-communal dominant political forces in the country have
practiced a type of secularism that can best be described as the ‘iftar party’
variety, after the post-fasting parties organized by political parties during
Ramzan. Such secularism aims for symbolic communal amity under well
orchestrated conditions. It looks for the so called ‘natural leaders’ of
minority communities and opens up engagement with them with a clearly political
purpose. Through focusing interaction with the minority communities during
their religious events, it sees their concerns purely in terms of their
religious demands. The ‘iftar party’
secularism does not generate interaction among ordinary members of different
communities to create a shared domain of mutual appreciation. It does not
confront the main concerns of the members of minority community that arise from
their economic and social conditions, and the threat to their security from the
majority communalism and state institutions.
Indian state and dominating political forces have shown an
unhealthy indulgence with all religions, sects, godmen and godwomen. They have
played an important role in keeping a dominating presence of religion of all
types in the public life of the country. When religion is so important in
public life, it is unrealistic to expect that it will not have a role in
country’s politics. There is nothing wrong in itself in the presence religion
in the public life of the country, after all the fundamental right to practice
and propagate religion can not be quarantined to the so called private sphere,
as the liberal ideology imagines. This is particularly so in a country like
India, where religion has been a very important component of community
festivals and fares. What is worrisome is the priority given to religion on
public resources, overlooking of blatantly illegal practices of religious
institutions, stymieing of public discourse to assuage the so called hurt
religious sentiments, and meddling of religious heads in politics.
A principled secularism today in India has to confront
communalism, not only of the majority, which admittedly is the biggest threat
to country’s social fabric, but of all religious communities. It also has to
confront the Indian state in its various acts of commission and omission vis a
vis religion, that have compromised rights of not only minorities, but of all
citizens. Finally, it has to come to a clear understanding of the role of
religion in a plural and democratic society.
Rethinking Secularism
A very common misunderstanding regarding secularism is to
consider it related only to state policies and practices. While the key issue
to address should be how society can be made secular. Secularism of state is
justifiable only on the basis of requirements of a secular society. Secularism
of society itself is not a separate independent principle dealing with
religion. It is an integral part of `the process of democratization. As part of
this process secularism is not conceived as a negative principle, as
anti-religion. Its positive content lies in very definite assertions about
humanity and society. These assertions in fact are also values, they are
realizable only partially under capitalism, but that does not diminish their
significance for any project of human liberation. The two most important of these se are (i)
recognition of the moral autonomy of humans as individual persons, without any
reference to their birth, gender, religion, caste, economic worth, etc., and
(ii) a prescription that the social institutional structure should encourage
emergence of a community of equals of such humans as citizens. The first
assertion is realized in fundamental and equal rights assigned to individual
citizens. No other rights and privileges accepted for existing communities,
associations, or state institutions can override these fundamental rights. The second assertion demands open and
inclusive institutional structures. Within the framework of these twin assertions,
secularism is a set of claims and practices that deal with the role of religion
and faith based practices
It is during the process of democratization of society that
religion based beliefs in the supernatural have been pushed out of explanations
and workings of social institutions. Authors of the American Declaration of
Independence may have claimed ‘that all men are created equal’, and ‘that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.’ Nobody today is
bothered about whether their claim about a Creator God, common to all Semitic
religions, is right or wrong. For the evolution of democracy it was the belief
of flesh and blood humans about themselves that they are equal, and that they
have certain in-alienable rights, which turned out to be of paramount
significance. All modern political constitutions establish their source as the
will and wisdom of the people, without any recourse to a divine source or agency.
In other fields too, humanist and naturalist perspectives have become dominant.
A divine inspiration is no longer sought
behind works of art and culture. Economy is understood as emerging from the
needs and greed of humans only. Public office holders can take oath on
whatsoever they consider as the basis of their morality, any god if they so wish,
or just their own conscience, if they do not believe in any supernatural power.
However, only they as individuals are responsible for their actions, they can
not pass on the responsibility of their actions onto their god(s). Similarly,
no supernatural cause is justifiable in any modern criminal justice system.
It is impossible to imagine any modern democracy without
diverse secular processes. Secularisation of society may have started in a few
countries in Western Europe, but it has been adopted and adapted all over the
world by people who wish to form a democratic society. Some scholars have
argued that Western Christianity was most suitable for the emergence of
secularism, understood as separation of state and religion, and relegation of
religion to private domain. Christianity has always had clear institutional
form, and its theology itself imagined a separation between an eternal divine
world, and a temporal, mundane saeculum (from
which the world is secular derived). In contrast, in countries like India religion
as a way of life permeates every part of society, and it is not
institutionalized with well laid demarcations. As Gandhi’s politics was
inseperable from his religion, it is inappropriate to force a secularism in
these societies, which creates a wall of separation between religion and
politics. It can only be the project of a Westernised elite, with little mass
support.
There are a number of problems with this argument, in its
understanding of the emergence of secularism in Western Europe and valuation of
its prospects in countries like India. First, it is wrong to imagine that
religion is purely a private affair in Western European countries with well
entrenched secularism. At a symbolic level religion continues to enjoy a
significant pubic presence. No American president is unlikely to end his/her
speech to American people without ‘God Bless You’; ‘In God we Trust’ remains
printed on currency notes. Festivals related to Christianity are the biggest
community affairs. At a more substantial level, churches and church groups play
a role in politics; mobilizing their members and putting forth sectarian
demands during elections. Right wing leaders like George Bush or Sarkozy, and
like the right wing in all countries, regularly woo voters on religious
grounds. So it is not true that the religion has disappeared, or has been
forced out of public life. Nor is it the case that secularism in these
countries has reached any sense of perfection. Some of their recent policies
against Muslims and other religious minorities, need to be denounced on the
principles of secularism. What has happened is that with developments in
economy, sciences, state institutional structure; struggles between state
institutions and Church, and most importantly popular struggles for social, political
and economic rights, which often found Church as a big counter-revolutionary
conservative force, a public sphere has
emerged in which all citizens are believed to interact equals, at least
theoretically. This has resulted in a big shift. Whereas during medieval times
Church and religion had a dominating presence in society; concerns of the
public sphere now confine and determine the role of religion.
Processes similar to those in liberal West European
countries have occurred in India too, though given the unique history of Indian
religious traditions and the nature of popular struggles, Indian secularism can
not be a copy of the West European secularism. Freedom movement, struggle
against majority and minority communalisms, left led popular mobilizations, and
anti caste movements have played an important role in establishing state
politics and institutional structures on non-religious foundations. For
instance a fundamental political choice was made in Indian constitution.
Gandhian idea was to constitute independent India as a collection of village
communities, while Ambedkar had declared caste dominated Indian village to be
the prison house of oppressed castes. His programme for emancipation of dalit
castes included ‘one person one vote’ without any concession to existing
community institutions like the caste. Once caste based organization of society
was rejected, and a political system erected on Ambedkar’s scheme, the
significance of Hinduism in the public life of the country was severely
undercut, so much so that the caste itself underwent a process of
secularisation. Brahminism based untouchability was declared illegal. In the
arena of politics, and public life in general, caste is now often connected
with secular mobilizations and associations. No longer can it operate
publically as a principle of ritualized hierarchy. A very interesting
development occurred a few years ago in the most populous state of the country,
where a Dalit woman politician successfully led an alliance of Dalits and
Brahmins in state elections.
Simple questions should be asked to politicians and scholars
who question the relevance of secularism for India. Would they prefer a
political system based on the fundamental moral autonomy of all humans as equal
individuals, or the one that treats humans irreducibly as members of faith
based communities, determining what they are, and constraining their freedom to
be what they want to be? Would they prefer a criminal-justice system based on
the principle of evidence and individual culpability, or the one which grants
different evidential values to witnesses based upon their gender, religion,
etc.? The former choices are the starting principles of modern democracies. The
latter are what occurred in many medieval polities, and can still be seen in
countries like Saudi Arabia.
There is nothing inherently anti-religious in the
democratization project of society. Secularisation of society as part this
project comes into many points of contact, and possible conflicts with religion
and religious institutions. Citizens have a right to assume whatever they
believe to be the foundation of their moral agency, which may be religious, or
something else. Also, a large proportion of believers do accept that religious
tenets need to be interpreted according to the context of the current society,
rather than in a fundamentalist way, and have been thoroughly secular. Religious or faith based claims and practices
are confronted to the extent they are against the basic assertions of the
democratic process. For instance, no community, religious or otherwise, can
deny the right to exit to any of its members. Communities are not allowed to
vilify or demonise other communities or people.
If children are assumed to have certain rights, then no religious practice
can be allowed to violate these rights. Given their social conditions, women in
family, as wives, divorcees, widows, daughters, etc. may be given rights that
do not match with religious commands. A deeper conflict arises when religion
takes on a fundamentalist and exclusivist character. Religious beliefs and practices are
intimately connected with the formation of personal and collective identities,
which while bringing the adherents together, also create boundaries and exclude
others. This leads to a contradiction between open ended rational discourses
and inclusive practices required in all modern, plural and democratic
societies, and faith based rigid demands. Hence, according to secularism,
sections of Hindus have a right to build a temple to Ram in Ayodhaya after
following legal provisions. They have no right to demand, as a matter of faith,
that it should be built precisely at the location of Babri Masjid.
Once religion is no longer accepted as an organizing
principle of plural democratic societies, and secularism is recognized as
integral to the democratic project, then this project should be the aim of
anti-communal secular forces. This entails a fundamental shift in the
conception of secularism in India. For instance, protection of minorities and
communal amity emerge naturally as a consequence of the democratization project,
rather than being primary aims in themselves. As noted earlier, dominant
political forces in India have practiced an ‘iftar party’ variety of
secularism, which aims for surface communal amity without first consolidating
the regime of equal citizenship rights. A correct understanding of the
naturalist and humanist context of secularism inverts the priorities of the
politically dominant forces.
Programme of the All
India Secular Forum
Strategic goals and tactical programme of the All India Secular
Forum follow from a principled position on secularism. Secular principles of
state policy come from requirements of a secular society. Secularization of
society is an integral part of its democratization. Both strategy and tactics
of the front are determined by the primary aim of building a democratic
society. Majoritarian communalism, best exemplified in the politics of the RSS
and its organizations, is the biggest threat to secularism in the country. Other social political formations like the Shiv
Sena also follow similar programme. The success of the majoritarian communalism
in the past three decades should be seen as consolidation of a reactionary
social, political and economic programe in favour of privileged sections of the
society. This reactionary programme attacks not only the rights of religious
minorities, but also of women, oppressed castes, regions and nationalities. The
economic content of this programme is against workers and toiling masses. The Secular Forum also recognizes that Indian
state has by and large been a dishonest custodian of the principles of
secularism of Indian constitution. It has compromised with religious
leaderships of different communities, even when their demands violated
fundamental rights granted to all citizens. It has failed to confront the upper
caste Hindu communalism of its functionaries.
Secular Forum realizes the folly of the surface secularism of the
dominant political parties in the country.
These parties wear the secular hat opportunistically for political
gains. Secular Forum also realizes the threat to secularism from internal
communalism of minority communities, which violates citizenship rights of
members of minority communities under religious diktats.
The guiding strategy of Secular Forum can be summarized as
follows.
- The strategic goal of Secular Forum is realization of a democratic society in which the fundamental rights of every member are accepted and honoured as a matter of course.
- Attaining this goal involves struggles not only against religious discrimination, but also against caste, gender, language, ethnicity and nationality oppressions. While fighting against religious discrimination, the Forum will also struggle jointly with other forces fighting against these oppressions.
- Many faith based demands violate citizenship rights. Forum will struggle against all such demands without distinction.
- State is the most important formal institution in society. Many of the struggles waged by the forum will be in the form of demands put on state, and opposition to its actions. The forum however also realizes that in a society like India with a deep feudal and patriarchal past the establishment of democratic values in the day to day life of citizens involves a long ideological struggle among the people.
The immediate tactical programme of the Secular Forum can be
summarized in following points.
- The Hindutava programme and ideology of majority communalism is the biggest threat to secularism in the country. All efforts need to be made to defeat it politically. However, the Secular Forum will project its distinct principles on all platforms.
- The Secular Forum will confront the shallow secularism of dominant political forces and convince people of its limitations.
- The Secular Forum will oppose priority given to religious institutions and practices on public resources, overlooking of blatantly illegal practices of religious institutions, stymieing of public discourse to assuage the so called hurt religious sentiments, and the meddling of religious heads in politics.
- The Secular Forum will oppose gender and caste oppression in the name of religion in any community.
- Many parts of India are witnessing localized oppression of minorities based on religion, language, or ethnicity. Examples are violence by Shiv Sena against North Indians in Mumbai, or by Bodo extremists against Muslims staying in Bodoland. Secular Forum will struggle against such community based violence.
- As religious fundamentalism is becoming a potent political force in many countries, popular struggles for a secular state and way of life are occurring in many of these, for example in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey and Egypt. Forum expresses its solidarity with popular struggles for secularism in all parts of the world.
- Secular Forum denounces religious fundamentalism and oppression of minorities everywhere; Hindutva fundamentalism in India, Buddhist fundamentalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, Islamic fundamentalism in Muslim majority countries, and Christian fundamentalism in Western countries.
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