Interesting insights

SOON after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, I offered to a couple of libraries in Delhi a fairly large collection of books on socialism and communism that I had inherited from my father. The librarians flatly refused. "Nobody wants to read what Karl Marx and Lenin wrote", one of them curtly remarked. If current political and intellectual trends continue in the subcontinent, we may well have to hear similar comments on books relating to secularism not just from the custodians of our archives and libraries but also from our colleagues and students.

We know that Neera Chandoke, professor, political science, at the University of Delhi, is a lively intellectual. But it requires a certain degree of intellectual courage to write on secularism and minority rights at a time when secularism, as a concept and as a State policy, is under critical scrutiny. Chandoke's book is thorough and lively. Some of her descriptive writing is tedious, but on the whole the book is readable. If you are imbued with the mission to counter "the current phase of majoritarianism", please do not fail to read Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities.

For well over a decade now, social scientists and political commentators have introduced a discordant note in discourses on secularism, equating it with either Western liberalism or minority appeasement. Thus Ashis Nandy challenges the hegemonic language of secularism popularised by westernised intellectuals and the middle classes exposed to the globally dominant language of the nation-state. As an avowed "anti-secularist" he believes that both the ideology and politics of secularism have more or less exhausted their possibilities and we may now have to work a different conceptual frame which is already vaguely visible at the borders of Indian political culture. In such writings, secularism tends to be dismissed as an import from the West grafted on a traditional society. It is written off because of its limited appeal among the Western-educated elite. If one were to follow this intrinsically flawed logic, should India repudiate nationalism, parliamentary democracy and free speech? The central issue is not the Western provenance of an idea but its place and relevance in a plural society.

Neera Chandoke bemoans that barely 50 years after independence, India's destiny has come to be conceptualised in majoritarian terms. She proceeds to delineate contemporary assertions of majoritarianism. "The defence of secularism against these trends," she points out, "may well require a shift in our perceptions of how people of different religious persuasions can live together." Her intervention is an important one, though I see no great merit in her attempt to supplement secularism with "other definite political norms" to regulate inter-group relations. Similarly, I do not see how useful it is to press John Locke and John Rawls into service to underline the limits of secularism and the principle of toleration. But then, one cannot quarrel with political theorists in India who tend to draw upon the Western intellectual traditions to buttress their arguments.

Chandoke has written a brilliant introduction, though I am not sure if the wrapping up exercise is of the same quality. The extent to which she has managed to shift the ground of the debate on secularism is debatable, but there is no doubt that her profile of religious and political communities and her two chapters on minority rights offer interesting insights. As a theorist, she raises the level of the discussion on the subject. This is her notable contribution.

This book has earned its place on university bookshelves and in the homes of the serious reader. Anybody who has a stake in the survival of our secular society will do well to read it.

MUSHIRUL HASAN

Beyond Secularism: The Rights Of Religious Minorities, Neera Chandhoke, OUP, Rs. 545.

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