Secularism in Search of a Nation

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Jan 18, 2013

But can a person who is not atheistic truly be “secular” as expected by the Constitution, especially when the two major religions in India are Hinduism and Islam? What happens when the ways of one religion hurt the feelings of the other religion? Are atheistic lawmakers, of whom there were more than a few in the early days of the republic, qualified to decide how religious Indians must view other religious Indians?

Manu Joseph, The New York Times

In 1976, India made an amendment to its Constitution that inserted the word “secular” to describe the great republic. It was a national aspiration and still is, and is glorified as a national characteristic, which it is not from the evidence in plain sight.

By “secular,” India did not mean that it was atheistic or agnostic or that it rejected all religious practices. By “secular,” the people who framed the amendment meant that in India all faiths are accepted, and that Indians are expected to tolerate all religions. Every Indian has grown up listening to the idea of India as a “secular” republic. It is a ceaseless background hum, like all moral lessons. One cannot escape its persistence.

On this day, Dec. 6, 20 years ago, it did appear that the demand on practicing Hindus and Muslims in India to be “secular” was unnatural and unsustainable. An ancient mosque called Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, was demolished by a Hindu mob protesting the very existence of the monument. They believed that it was built over a Hindu temple and that the site itself was sacred because Lord Rama was said to have been born there.

The demonstrators had been allowed on the site after the organizers of the protest had promised the Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. The organizers, some of whom were from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which went on to govern the nation, asserted that the ensuing destruction of the mosque was the spontaneous act of an emotional crowd. In the days that followed, there were riots across India in which more than 2,000 Hindus and Muslims were killed.

The mainstream news media in India have always held that Dec. 6, 1992, was a day of shame and that the destruction of the mosque was a mindless act of vandalism. In the months after the riots, newspapers ran features about Hindus and Muslims living in harmony: a temple and a mosque somewhere standing shoulder to shoulder on a single patch of land, a Muslim family that made Hindu idols, Muslims who married Hindus, Hindus who adopted Muslim orphans and so on. That India was “secular” was the respectable point of view among educated Indians.

But, as it often is the case, there was a difference between the respectable view and what a majority actually believed and said in private, which was that the demolition of the mosque was a sign that India was changing and that in this new nation Hindus would become increasingly assertive and intimidating enough to protect themselves against other religions, especially Islam.