The Hindu : Secularism, Hindus and Muslims

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Friday, May 24, 2002

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Secularism, Hindus and Muslims

By Imtiaz Ahmad

Hindus and Muslims should re-examine their positions within the framework of contemporary situations and cooperate in promoting that national cohesion which is essential to the building of a modern India.

SECULARISM WAS accepted in India to facilitate the promotion of religious tolerance and cultural co-existence. Indian leaders had anticipated that acceptance of the goal of secularism would stimulate a process of cultural osmosis in the country and bring about better understanding among the different religious communities. On the one hand, the Hindus would accept the entire Indian tradition to which all sections of the Indian population have contributed and this would provide assurance to minority groups that they would be treated as equal citizens in a predominantly Hindu India. On the other hand, the Muslims and other minority groups would accept some aspects of the Hindu culture as their own to find a place for themselves within the nation as religious and cultural units.

If the secular ideology had been dispersed throughout Indian society, acceptance of secularism would perhaps have mitigated the Hindu-Muslim problem. However, the belief in secularism was confined to a very small elite. On the popular level, there were powerful forces among Hindus which were not only opposed to the ideology of secularism, but were even interested in using the opportunity provided by Independence to revive their traditional Hindu culture. Similarly, there were sections of Muslims who could not accept the cultural osmosis contemplated by the formulation of the goal of secularism.

Over the years, these forces gained ascendance in Indian life. Among sections of Hindus, a growing awareness of themselves as a community has started a process of revivalism. One aspect of this revivalism is the tendency to represent Hindu values and beliefs as the values and beliefs of all Indians. This tendency arises partly from the ideology which was used to provide a substance to the national movement (early nationalists had insisted that India was after all the land of the Hindus). Partly it arises from a desire to repudiate over a thousand years of Muslim rule in India.

Among Muslims, the consolidation of Hindu forces has created a tendency towards cultural isolationism. Feeling that the majority of the Hindus are determined to destroy their cultural symbols and deprive them of their separate religio-cultural identity, they have despairingly turned in upon themselves and are clinging desperately to their religious traditions. And, somewhat rigid and narrow interpretations of Islam have reinforced this isolationism.

Religious revivalism represented by the forces of Hindutva and cultural isolationism represented by communal-minded sections among Muslims have resulted in the failure of both to face the challenges of modernity and to adjust to the process of secularisation which have been underway though slowly and haltingly, in the country. Efforts of the forces of Hindutva to rebuild a polity based on Hindu values and to relegate Muslims and other minority communities to a secondary position until they are willing to be assimilated within the Hindu community and Muslim resistance to even those changes which would be in keeping with the original Islamic message illustrate this failure fairly clearly.

One obvious consequence of this uncanny situation is the familiar phenomenon of `othering' integral to all multi-religious and multi-cultural societies. As is well known, minority communities in societies where a dominant community exists tend to be marked out as the `other' by projecting them as different from the rest of the population (more appropriately the dominant sections of the society) and therefore susceptible to differential projection. At another level, members of the minority community are considered as being far too preoccupied with their distinctive identity and therefore prone to resisting the thrust towards a broader integration into the cultural mainstream or as being incapable of keeping pace with others to respond to social transformation that the society of which they are a part might be undergoing.They have also been projected as being wedded to religious canons without requiring examining whether these projections are in tune with the ground realities.

One can easily understand the reasons for Muslim resistance. In the course of their social history Indian Muslims created, partly out of Islamic traditions, partly out of others, an image of ultimate reality. Today, they consider this image absolutely basic to their definition as Muslims. They are reluctant to accept social changes because they feel that these will compromise their culture and thereby the very basis of their status as Muslims. On the other hand, this resistance and refusal to respond to social changes are represented by the forces of Hindutva as evidence of Muslim obduracy that ought to be fought through an equally powerful mobilisation of Hindus on communitarian lines.

Underlying these ideological conflicts are serious economic cleavages. Indian leaders had hoped that economic development would create new cleavages based on universalistic criteria and these would replace the communal cleavages. So long as the developmental plans worked well, the religious cleavages remained dormant. The failure of economic planning and the adverse effects of a globalising world economy have accentuated the old cleavages. The Gujarat violence where Muslims were specifically targeted and their properties looted and destroyed is clearly an expression of this revitalisation of the communal cleavages. It seems clear that so long as economic development continues at the present level the communal problem would continue in some form or the other and may even be accentuated. Equally, the failure of globalisation and severe economic disparities and hardships generated by it for large sections of society will add further fuel to the communal fire. What is, therefore, currently needed for the reduction of social tensions is a change of heart and attitude among both Hindus and Muslims. Each group should re-examine its position within the framework of contemporary situations and cooperate in promoting that national cohesion which is essential to the building of a modern India.

In any multi-religious society the burden of promoting secularisation and cultural tolerance rests chiefly with the majority community. So far the forces of Hindutva, with an emphasis on revival of traditional Hindu culture, and the militant demand for the restoration of the former glory of Hinduism have been serious barriers in the judgment of Muslims. They should accept the entire Indian cultural heritage as their own

On their side, Muslims should not only accept secularism on a more positive basis but also regard aspects of culture as their own. They should seek, socially a truly pluralistic India, not an autonomous community; culturally, a dynamic, participating community, not an insulated, protected minority; and, politically, total participation in the general body politic not communal politics. They should press for those rights which they share with other citizens rather than those which isolate them from and exasperate the majority community. No doubt decisions as to which issues to fight for and which to surrender may cause some agony, but it is vital that the truly crucial issues should not be sacrificed over the insignificant and ephemeral ones.

(The writer teaches political sociology at JNU.)

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