Dispatch #80: What is unique about Indian secularism? - Part 2
In this dispatch, we will take a look at some fresh perspectives on religion and secularism in India as argued by Rajeev Bhargava in his new book ‘Reimagining Indian Secularism’.
As inter and intra-religious dominations started getting entrenched, the idea of self-fulfilment morphed into something more sinister. To understand this new development within religion it is essential to understand the difference between the ethics of self-fulfilment and social norms of everyday conduct
The connection between the ethics of self-fulfilment and social norms could be either loose or tight.
In sanatan sanskriti, the connection is so loose that an individual can be a part of one or more ethics at the same time since the norms won’t interfere while still present around. In modern or secondary religions, their connection is very tight. An individual cannot be a part of other ethics since the social norms are codified and violation can invite humiliation, ostracisation or even retribution.
Bhargava explains this:
In sanatan sanskriti, the connection was extremely loose. This meant that you could move from one ethic to another or simultaneously partake in two or more ethics without altering one’s participation in social norms. For example, one could be a Jain at one time and a Buddhist at another, or be a Brahmin or a Vaishya. At some stage, the connection between the ethics of self-fulfilment and the norms of social interaction became very tight, so much so that one could now view them as one system. No one could have a particular view of self-fulfilment and not participate in a specific set of rituals which is associated with that ethic or not governed by highly specific and codified norms of social interaction.
In 16th-century Europe, the wars of religion were somehow halted by the Augsburg Treaty of 1555. The central tenet of the treaty was cuius regio, eius religio meaning that the religion of the ruler would be the dominant religion of the region acquired by the ruler. In Europe, this essentially meant that the ruler of a region had the right to impose his religion (Catholicism or Lutheranism) on his subjects. The subjects who dissented had the right to emigrate. This led to the rise of confessional religion and confessional states - states that recognise and practice the religion of the ruler. Confessionalization tied together three entities- religion, state and territory. Territorial belonging was beginning to be tied with religion. State religion became a doctrine that the subjects or citizens needed to follow to avoid any backlash.
Bhargava explains the implications of confessionalization:
Faiths became intolerant, teaching too doctrinaire, intellectual claims dogmatic. Religious diversity, therefore, was never an issue there - that problem had been resolved, unethically, by expulsion or execution.
With confessionalization, by the 16th and 17th centuries, institutionalized religion which we have been calling the secondary religion had established itself. Non-religion had completely disappeared. But by the 18th century when the ideas of liberty and equality were gaining salience, religion was started to be seen with a different lens. Intra and inter-religious domination emerged as antithesis to the ideas of the Enlightenment. The religion and its central institution - the church - were seen negatively because of the regressive impulses of the religion. Secularization or the idea of secularism was the response to the problems of the religion. In Europe, the central idea of secularism revolved around these aspects:
Separation of church from the state
Fighting against church domination and fighting for greater individual freedom
Loosening the connection between ethics and social norms in Christianity
In India, as described earlier, the connection between ethics and social norms was loose initially. People could freely move from one ethical framework to another. This does not mean that the social norms did not exist at all. They were present and since they existed independently of the ethical framework, they became more rigid. That explains the presence and reinforcement of caste in India. Therefore, an individual can move from one ethical set-up to another, as long as he remains within his caste. Around the 19th century, secondary religion started gaining ground in India and by the 20th-century confessional religion started rearing its ugly head.
Bhargava explains this phenomenon further:
The idea of a bounded community seeking exclusive allegiance was at best marginal, not certain stage. Fuzzy communities, multiple allegiances and fluid, hybrid and composite identities were the norm. The sudden induction of the idea of full-blown confessional religion had a dramatic, somewhat disastrous impact on religious formations in India.
But as the lines between ethics and social norms got blurred in India, the two separate and independent entities merged and were referred to as religion. It was difficult to separate the two, no matter how distinct they were. Hence in India, religion passed through four different phases:
Sanatan sanskriti
Marga
Religion proper (Secondary religion with intra and inter-religious dominations)
Confessional or political religion
As discussed earlier, in Europe version 1 and version 2 disappeared and were subsumed by version 3 and version 4. Western secularism emerged as a response to the oppressive impulses of this new version of religion. For the Western school of thought of secularism, religion is an exclusive system and a complete anathema to liberty and equality. Its major problem with the religion was its confessional nature that had full support from the state.
In India, since the 19th century, with the advent of secondary religion, version 3 and version 4 subsumed versions 1 and 2. So secondary religion either eclipsed the primary religion or both co-existed. Since all 4 versions co-existed, with the latter two versions playing a more dominant role, this eclectic mix of religions makes things quite different and complicated in India. Contemporary Indian religions are quite elastic in that sense. Religion in India can have all 4 versions together while at the same time shifting completely from version 1 to version 4. Therefore, contemporary Indian religion had ‘multiple forms and dynamism’. Now, because of this uniqueness and dynamism, Indian secularism had to respond differently. It cannot have an antagonistic relationship with versions 1 and 2 which co-exist with versions 3 and 4.
Bhargava adds:
Indian secularism did not have to work against senses 1 and 2 (sanatan sanskriti and margas), be against non-religions or if we do not wish to discard the term religion, against the pluralism of ethical religion.
Indian secularism had to fight the process of religionization on multiple levels:
Preventing the idea of loose communities of faith being transformed into communities separated by rigid walls and dictated by social norms.
Preventing communities locked within strict and well-demarcated walls into waging perpetual battles against each other.
Prevent the politicisation of religion by not letting sanatan sanskriti and margas get converted into political religions (versions 3 and 4).
Unfortunately by the 20th century, India was gripped by both inter-religious domination (communal violence) and intra-religious domination (caste). It was in this context that India ‘had to decide the character of the newly instituted state and its relationship with religion’. It had two options:
Either have a society and politics that have both inter and intra-religious domination where essentially one majority religion dominates the polity through a few upper caste individuals.
Or, have a secular constitutional democracy that would curb both kinds of dominations.
We all know what our founding fathers and mothers chose.
And in doing so India chose a very distinct kind of secularism which is completely different from its Western counterpart. Two schools of thought shaped the Indian secularism:
Gandhian political secularism
Indian constitutional secularism