Secularism and the Intellectuals Author(s): T. N. Madan Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 29, No. 18 (Apr. 30, 1994), pp. 1095-1096 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4401142 . Accessed: 15/12/2013 06:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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DISCUSSION

Secularismand the Intellectuals T N Madan THE last half a dozen years or so have witnesseda heightenedinterestamong Indian intellectuals in exploring the signifi6aftce of the ideas of 'secularism' and 'secularisation'.This is a welcome development for we have been since independence living on many unexamined or half-examined ideas, which have thus become the 'foundationmyths' of our times. Secularism certainlyis one of them. Even todayit is not clear whether it stands for the rejection of religionas 'falseconsciousness',or whether it means that the state shall treat the followers of all religions equally, without discriminating against some or favouring others. The ambiguity of connotation is sometimes sought to be overcome by employing the phrase 'Indian secularism' to denote the combinationof a multi-religious society and the non-discriminatory state. This and other aspects of secularism merit close and critical scrutiny.Andre Beteille's article 'Secularism and the Intellectuals' (EPW, March 5, 1994) is one of the more thoughtfuland lucid expositions of the subject that I have read recently. ! trust it will generate a useful discussion. Personally,I agree with the general thrust of Beteille's argumentandalso with most of the points that comprise it. Some of my emphases would be different, however. Also, I thinka few misunderstandingsshould be removed. This has become necessary because Beteille has constructed his argument partly'n response to a lecture entitled 'Secularismin Its Place' that I delivered in 1987 and which was published later that year [Madan 1987]. Since then I have published a number of essays on secularism, fundamentalismand religion [e g, Madan 1989, 1991, 1993], developing my argument which I had introducedin a couple of earlierarticles[eg, Madan1986],butBeteille has not taken notice of any of these except fleetingly of a newspaper article [Madan 1994]. Obviously, his interest lies in a particularaspect of my argumentratherthanin it as a whole, but this has resulted in the-misunderstandingsI mentioned above. Let me recallthat'Secularismin ItsPlace' was writteneight years ago at a time when most secularistsseemed complacently confident that 'scientific temper', the mantra given by JawaharlalNehru,would, if vigorously propagated,fulfil its promiseof establishing secularism in India.There were not many intellectuals then who either showed awarenessof the limitations of secularism as a worldview or displayed any great unEconomic and Political Weekly

ease about the recrudescence of religious fanaticism in the form of communalised politics or fundamentalistmovements. Although Punjab was already in violent turmoil and the Shah Bano case had attracted wide attention, the future of the nation, judged by the prevailingdiscourseon secularism,did not seem to be in greaterjeopardy thanbefore. In any case, the remedy was secularismandmoresecularism.To the best of my knowledge only a few intellectuals had dissented with this dominantdiscourse, Ashis Nandy [1981, 1985] being the most notable among them. I myself had begun to feel apprehensive that the secularist discourse tended to underestimatethe staying-powerof religion in society and also ignored the fact that religion itself could be a powerful resource in the struggle against religious extremism. I did not believe then, and do not do so now, thatwhatneeds explainingis religioustolerance ratherthanits opposite. The invitation to address a special session at the annual meetings of the American Association of Asian Studies,atwhichAsianistsfrommany parts of the world were expected to be present, afforded me an excellent opportunity to presentmy views on the prospectsof secularismin India.I did so in a deliberately provocative but carefully-wordedtext, and it did make an impact, although of course not everybody agreed with me. As Beteille has pointed out, I expressed doubt about the success of secularism as a worldview, as a political ideology, and as a societal blueprint. What he has not done, however, is to cite the reasonsI gave for my conclusions. Severalothercritics have similarly quoted the statementin question in a truncatedform [e g, Bailey 1991: 226; Baxi 1992: 89]. The omission is grievous. Let me thereforeput the record straightand quote the part of ihe argumentthat has been left out by Beteille and the others. It [secularism]is impossibleas a credoof life becausethe greatmajorityof the people of south Asia are in their own eyes active adherentsof some religiousfaith. It is impracticableas a basis for stateactioneither becauseBuddhismor Islamhave been declaredstate or state-protected religions,or becausethe stanceof religiousneutralityor equidistanceis difficult to maintainsince religiousminoritiesdo not sharethe majority's view of what this entailsfor the state. Andit is impotentas a blueprintforthefuture because,by its verynature,it is incapableof counteringreligious fundamentalismand fanaticism[Madan1987:748].

It will be seen thatwhat occurs in my text primarilyas a statementof the facts on the groundandonly secondarilyas my interpretation of them, appears,because of partial quotation, as an acerbic ideological attack on secularism. Now, I do have my reservations about this Enlightenment,ideology, more so about the received wisdom regarding it, and so have many othferscholars [e g, Toulmin 1990]. The statementin question was intended to state some of them and to draw attention to their implications for the Indianpolitical experiment.A couple of my critics have, however,jumpedto theconclusion that, since I have reservationsabout secularism as presented in the prevailing discourse, I must thereforebe a supporterof communalism. This is patentlyabsurd. To returnto the lecture itself, I had cautioned dogmatic secularis"that in a democracyit is not easy for a minorityto imposeits will upon the majority.Beteille has referred to this argumentalso. There is, however, a double misunderstandinghere. First, I did not say that the secularist minority was trying to impose secularisation upon the majority:what I mentionedspecificallywas the ideology of secularism. I agree with Beteille that it is 'useful'-I would say it is imperative-to distinguish between secularisation(in Beteille's words, "asocial process that unfolds itself on its own, as it were") and secularism ("an ideology that some membersof society striveconsciously to espouse and promote"). I myself have made this very distinction several times over in my writings. For instance, I distinguished between secularisation as a 'process' andas a 'thesis' in the 1994 newspaper article to which he refers. I agree with him that not all of the secularisation that has occurred in Indian society "has been the work of a minority of intellectuals determined to impose their will on unsuspecting masses of people"[Beteille 1994:560]. I do, however, maintain that those intellectuals who proclaim that religion is not only a 'fake' but also necessarily evil, and therefore presentsecularismas a morallysuperior soteriology, are trying to impose their will on the people. Beteille makes a further point, namely, that"thosewho wrote [the Indian]Constitution were more representative[of the Indian people] than the authors of the Dharmashastras"(ibid). This is obviously true, but my argument was not about the representativenessor otherwiseof the secularistminority:my argumentwas aboutthe secularists being a minority and about the limitationswhich a democraticpolity places upon the elected representativesof the people. They can lose their mandate to represent and may not thereforeespouse

April 30, 1994

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positionsthattheirsupportersrejector about which they feel unenthusiastic. The 1993 assemblyelections sent precisely this warning to BJP.The issue, let me reiterate,is not of representativenessbut of authority and influence. I do not think we have much evidence that the secularists have either of these in a greater measure than all their opponents. To draw attentionto the limitationsof the originalideology of secularism and its Indian version, and of their promoters,does not necessarilyimply thatone rejects the ideologies totally or the institutionsthatembody them. Critiques may well result in the strengtheningof the institutions concerned if the necessary-corrective or reinforcing measuresare carefully put in place. Beteille alleges that I believe that "the attempt to adapt [secularism] to the Indian environment is a snareand a delusion" (1994: 560). Actually what I am more sceptical about is the easy confidence of secularistsregarding unproblematic adaptation. It was in this context that I made a distinction between transfer'and 'translation'of ideas [Madan 1987: 754]. Beteille concludes: "How we view the prospects for the co-existence of religious and secular ways of life will depend in part on how we think of religion"(1994: 561). My position on this may be quoted from the penultimateparagraphof my lecture: "the only way secularism in south Asia, understood as interreligiousunderstanding,may succeed would be for us to take both religion andsecularismseriously, andnot reject the former as superstition and reduce the latterto a mask for communalism or mere expediency. Secularism would have to imply that those who profess no religion have a place in society equal to that of others, not higheror lower' [Madan1987:758, emphasis added]. But thereis something else also thatworries Beteille deeply, and this merits attention. "Whatcauses the most anxiety to secularintellectualsis a conception of religion which demands that every aspect of every individual'slife be broughtunder religious scrutinyand control" [Beteille 1994: 562]. He refers to it as the 'totalising aims' of religion, more demanding in some cases than in others. The crucial question is, he writes, "how much space will be allowed withinsociety by doctrinairereligion for the growth of secular ideas and institutions" (ibid:564). I agreethatthis is a key question and,as Beteille acknowledges,appliesto all doctrinaireideologies, religious as well as secular. Now, it seems that I did perhaps overemphasise the holistic characterof traditional relgions, particularlyHinduism, in the 1987 essay. Both Beteille andF G Bailey assert this in their critiques. Quoting from

points out thatwhen I write that"religionis constitutive of society, and the traditional vision of life is holistic",I can be understood as saying that 'society is religion, an ideology' [Bailey 1991: 223]. An almost identical sentence exists in 'Secularism in Its Place': "ForGandhireligion was the source of absolute value and hence constitutive of social life" [Madan 1987: 752]. It seems that in the passage from the concrete case (Gandhi's position) to the general thesis (holistic characterof Hinduism) I may have overstatedmy argument.It would obviously be a throw-back to an untenableDurkheimian sociologicalextremism to envisage a society in which the secularis non-existent,andI did not meanto proposesuch a monistic thesis. In 'Religion in India' I wrote: "the point is not that the religious domain is not distinguishedfrom the secular, but rather that the secular is regardedas encompassed by the religious" [Madan 1989:116]. I would like to emphasise that I do not read the Hindu tradition (so-called) as a denialof the existence of whatmay be called secular elements, but ratheras a statement of a particularkind of relationbetween the religious and the secular, namely, the hierarchical (encompassing of the contrary). Although I use the language made familiar to us by Louis Dumont, the idea of encompassmentitself may be derivedfromthe key conceptof purushartha,or the triplegoals of humanendeavour(dharma,artha,kama) as presented in, say, the Arthashastraor the Manusmriti. Moreover, my reference to the traditional view of the hierarchical relationship of the sacerdotal and the royal functions is relevant to the extent that the Hindu traditiondoes not provide us with a dualistic view of the kind which Christianity does, although it admits of a diversity of religious traditionswithin its broad framework and outside it. The Christian distinction between the sacred and secular domains (two kingdoms, two cities, two swords, etc) is widely held to have contributed to the success of the modern ideology of secularism in the west. As I pointed out in 'Secularism in Its Place', a Hindu or a Sikh, or a Muslim for that matter, would find it more difficult to make sense of the notion of 'privatisation of religion' tha.a,perhaps,a Christiandoes. This does not mean that Indians have first to be converted to Christianitybefore they may be expected to appreciate the virtues of secularism in the sense of its being the ideology of secularisation. It only draws attention to the need for greater efforts on the part of Indian intellectuals to clarify the notio.aof secularism in a context-sensitive manner, drawing upon lndia9s pluralist traditions. Contrary to myessay 'Religionin India'(1989),Bailey what Beteille seems to think, there is 1096

sufficient historical and ethnographical evidencethatit'is themassesof thiscountry, Hindusand Muslimsalike, who are comfortablewith religiouspluralismand indeed practiseit. The traditionalelite, from whomthe greatmajorityof today's intellectualsare descended,disapproved of suchpluralismas thesuperstitious ways of the masses. NotonlyhaveIndianintellectualsto make, greatereffortsto clarifythenotionof secularism,they also have to devise the most effectivewaysof communication, carrying the peoplewith them, althoughnotin the mannerof politicians.Uinlesstheydo this, the intellectualswill succeedonly in convincing one another.Secularismhasto be rescued from the preventing semantic conflation,but this shouldnot mean the impositionof one particular meaningon it. Andit hasto be madeintoa nationalethos. Thiswilltakedoingandit willtaketime.As Beteilleputsit, "Secularism hadbecomea shibbolethin Nehru'sIndia,and it is the intellectual's obligationto bringeveryshibbolethunderscrutiny" (1994:559).Andthis is preciselywhatI meantto conveythrough the title as well as the text of my 1987 lecture,'Secularismin Its Place'.I amnot thereforesure that I understandwhy he foundthe idea 'strange'.

References Bailey, F G (1991): 'Religion andReligiosito ty: IdeasandTheirUse', Contributions Indian Sociology, (NS), Vol 25, No 2, pp 21 1-32. Baxi,U (1992): 'Secularism:RealandPseudo.' in M M Sankhdher(ed), Secularismin India, pp 88-109, Deep and Deep, New Delhi. Beteille,A (1994): 'Secularismandthe Intellectuals',Economicand Political Weekly, Vol 29, No 10, pp 559-66. Madan,T N (1986): 'Secularisationand the SikhReligiousTradition',SocialCompass, Vol 33, Nos 2-3, pp 257-73. -(1987): 'Secularismin Its Place', TheJournalofAsianStudies,Vol 46, No 4, pp747-59. -(1989): 'ReligioninIndia',Daedalus,Vol 1 8, No 4, pp 747-59. -(1991): 'TheDouble-EdgedSword:Fundamentalismand the Sikh ReligiousTradition' in M R MartyandR S Appleby(eds), Fundamentalisms Observed,pp 594-627, ChicagoUniversityPress,Chicago. -(1993): 'WhitherSecularismin India?'Modem AsianStudiesVol 27, No 3, pp667-97. -(1994): 'Secularism and Pluralism',The Timesof India,January8. on Nandy, A (1981): 'A Counter-Statement HumanisticTemper',Mainstream,October 10. Manifesto',Sem-(1985): 'AnAnti-Secularist inar 314: 1-11. Toulmin,S (1990): Cosmopolis:The Hidden Agendaof ModernityTheFreePress,New York.

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April 30, 1994