New meaning of secularism
There seems to be no end to the debate on the character of Indian secularism—its possibilities or discontents. Well, at a time when the discourse of majoritarian nationalism or Hindutva has posed a threat to the ideal of egalitarian cultural pluralism, the enthusiastic champions of secularism would further plead for their case. And even those voices—non-communal, but self-critical; and rooted in spiritual traditions or folk idioms—are likely to be suspected. Yet, we need a healthy debate on the trajectory of secularism. It is in this context that the questions (say, whether secularism was defeated because it ‘disavowed our languages’, or ‘refused to learn or speak the language of our religions’, or, for that matter, ‘chose to mock Hinduism’) Yogendra Yadav raised in an article acquire relevance.
An honest self-critique should not be seen as a conspiracy, or a bid to weaken the fight against the onslaught of religious nationalism in a plural society like ours.
There are four points. First, even though religious rituals and practices might enable people to discipline their life trajectories, our religiosity— a quest for the meaning of life and death, or the search for a merger with the transcendent force—need not necessarily be always equated with the organised religion, its orthodoxy, priestcraft and ritualism. Instead, our religiosity—the ecstasy of love and connectedness—might inspire us to resist the tyranny of priestcraft, overcome the psychology of fear that the heavy baggage of ritualism generates, and even transcend the ascriptive identities of being a Hindu or a Muslim. This does not mean that the sacred texts associated with different faiths become irrelevant. Instead, a seeker interprets religious texts with her own existential/spiritual quest. This creates the ground for pluralism, dialogue and fusion of horizons. Second, reductionist/deterministic science or scientism need not necessarily liberate our consciousness, and nurture the ethics of compassion and care. Instead, it might cause disenchantment, or a sense of meaninglessness. With objectivism or instrumental rationality, we might end up creating some sort of soulless secular doctrine of ‘salvation’ in hedonism and unlimited techno-economic progress. And third, communalism—or the act of reducing religion into an ideology of group narcissism or psychic boundary—brutalises us by killing our aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities. It is an obstacle that hampers the possibility of an evolutionary journey—from limitedness to abundance, or from a restricted parochial identity to spirited universalism. And hence, even though in a heterogeneous society like ours majority communalism is terribly dangerous, minority communalism is by no means an answer to it. And finally, the language of articulating the spirit of human solidarity need not necessarily coincide with that of the university-educated/English-speaking secular elite. For instance, a rural peasant in Bengal might feel easier with the symbolism of a Baul singer rather than the vocabulary of a Marxist professor; or, for that matter, Kabir and Narayana Guru (but not MN Roy or Nehru) might make much sense to the subaltern.
The tragedy is that our secularism has often proved to be hypocritical or strategic. Even ‘secular’ parties have not always acquired the courage to question the orthodoxy of organised religions; instead, the logic of vote politics in our mass democracy has led even these parties to play with the loud symbolism of religious identities. From the billboards showing the politicians conveying their ‘best wishes’ to people (never mind even if people in Varanasi or Aligarh are living with poverty and unemployment) on the occasion of Dasehra or Shivratri to the much-publicised Iftar parties organised by political bosses: we see the dramaturgical performance of these ‘secular’ leaders. Likewise, because of the rise of militant Hindutva in our times, many of our left-Ambedkarite ‘secular’ intellectuals become too apprehensive, and refuse to see any possibility in Hindu traditions except the tyranny of patriarchal Brahminism or the lumpenism of the perpetuators of mob lynching. Even a reference to Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi or Sri Aurobindo would cause much discomfort to them. Or the occasional reference to Kabir or Surdas is largely ornamental as they are more comfortable with modern/postmodern intellectual traditions. And it would not be wrong to say that some of them would even prefer to remain silent on the reactive politics of ‘minority communalism’ or the orthodoxies that the conservative clergy seek to keep alive. Possibly, Yadav was not wrong in complaining that this is nothing but a ‘conspiracy to keep the minority voters hostage’. Does it explain the ultimate irony of our secular politics—a rightist/communal party has to eventually abolish the obnoxious practice of triple talaq? Yadav was honest in saying that the proponents of Hindu rashtra were the ‘beneficiaries of the colossal failure of secular politics’.
An honest self-critique should by no means be seen as a conspiracy, or an effort to weaken the fight against the onslaught of Hindu majoritarianism or religious nationalism in a plural or heterogeneous society like ours. Instead it should nurture our politico-moral and intellectual honesty to move towards a society that, say, Tagore imagined through his poetic wisdom—a spiritually regenerated India as a confluence of multiple traditions, or a civilisation that renews its soul to free itself from the barbarism of militant nationalism. It should also enable us to understand the deeper meaning of Gandhi’s quest: striving for a kind of religiosity that, far from fragmenting and dividing, heals and unites, and transforms politics into a spiritual act of redemption. In Tagore’s poetry or Gandhi’s prayers, there was no Rene Descartes or Karl Marx; possibly, there was a longing for the Upanishadic universalism, the spirit of ‘anasakti yoga’, the ecstasy of Nizamuddin Aulia, or the invocation of a tender (not a hyper-masculine warrior) Rama. With this realisation, our secularism would acquire its religiosity and touch people’s hearts.
