Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:17:59.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Whither Indian Secularism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

T. N. Madan
Affiliation:
Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

Extract

The present paper seeks ‘to explore the nature of Indian secularism, the difficulties it has run into, and the ways in which it may be revised’. This is a large undertaking for a short text, originally written as public lecture, particularly because the issues posed do nopt readily translate into plain questions. The most that I can hope to do is to raise some doubts and make a few suggestions for rethinking the issues involved.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This paper is an extended version of the Fourth Caparo Annual Lecture which I was privilieged to give at the University of Hull, England, on 24 October 1991. It is being published simultaneously by the University.

I am grateful to Bhikhu Parekh, Asghar Ali Engineer, James Björkman, Gopal Krishna, T. P. McNeil, and Noel O'Sullivan for their comments and criticisms. In the preparation of the present text I have been helped by the encouragement of several colleagues in Delhi, particulary Upendra Baxi, Dharma Kumar, Ashis Nandy, Ramashray Roy, Satish Saberwal and Jit Uberoi.

1 Martin, David, “Towards Eliminating the Concept of Secularization’ in Gould, J. (ed.), Penguin Survey of the Social Sciences (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Martin, David, A General Theory of Secularization (Oxford, Blackwell, 1978).Google Scholar

3 See, e.g., Glasner, Peter, The Sociology of Secularization (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).Google Scholar

4 Srinivas, M. N., Social Change in Modern India (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1966);Google ScholarSinger, Milton, When a Great Tradition Modernizes (New York, Praeger, 1972).Google Scholar

5 See Campbell, Colin, Towards a Sociology of Irreligion (London, Macmillan, 1971), pp. 4657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Becker, Carl, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1932), p. 31Google Scholar.

7 Gay, Peter, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Rise Modern Paganism (New York, Vintage Books, 1966).Google Scholar

8 Cassirer, Ernst, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 163.Google Scholar

9 Berger, Peter, The Social Reality of Religion (London, Allen Lane, 1973), p. 118.Google Scholar

10 Martin, A General Theory, p. 2.Google Scholar

11 Hopfl, Harro (ed. and trans.), Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

12 See, Smith, Harry, Secularization and the University (Richmond VA, John Knox Press, 1968), pp. 2544.Google Scholar

13 Cox, Harvey, The Secular City: Secularization ahnd Urbanization in Theological Perspective (New York, Macmillan, 1965).Google Scholar

14 Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York, Macmillan, 1915), pp. 462–96.Google Scholar

15 Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

16 Weber, Max, ‘Science as a Vocation’ in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948), pp. 155, 143.Google Scholar

17 Weber, Max, Economy and Society ed. by Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978), vol. 2, pp. 1158–60.Google Scholar

18 See Lowith, Karl, Meaning in History (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 49.Google Scholar The phrase ‘opium of the masses’ is from Toward the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and the reference to the dissolution of religion from The German Ideology. See Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. by Feur, Lewis S. (New York, Doubleday, Anchor, 1959), pp. 262–6, 246–61.Google Scholar

19 See Iyer, Raghavan (ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Vol. I: Civilization, Politics, and Religion (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1980), p. 391.Google Scholar

20 Parekh, Bhikhu, Gandhi's Political Philosophy (London, Macmillam, 1980), p. 100.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., p. 109.

22 Chatterji, Margaret, Gandhi's Religious Thought (London, Macmillan, 1983), p. 85.Google Scholar

23 Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 124.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 204.

25 Parekh, Bhikhu, Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi's Political Discourse (New Delhi, Sage, 1989), p. 74.Google Scholar

26 Iyer, (ed.), The Moral and Political Writings, p. 395.Google Scholar

27 See Bose, N. K. (ed.), Selections from Gandhi (Ahmedabad, Navjivan, 1948), p. 256.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., p. 287.

29 Borwn, Judith M., Gandhi—Prisoner of Hope (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 392.Google Scholar

30 Weber, ‘Science as a Vocation’, p. 144.Google Scholar

31 I owe this framework for examining traditional Indian thought to Professor K. J. Shah, who may not, however, approve of my use of it.Google Scholar

32 Nehru, Jawaharlal, An Autobiography (New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund/Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 374.

34 Gopal, S. (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (New Delhi, Orient Longman) [hereafter SWJN] vol. 3 1972, p. 233.Google Scholar

35 Nehru, Jawaharlal, The Discovery of India (Bombay, Asia, 1961), p. 28.Google Scholar

36 SWJN, vol. 4, 1973, p. 188.Google Scholar

37 SWJN, vol. 5, 1973, p. 203.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., p. 282.

39 SWJN, vol. 7, 1975, p. 190.Google Scholar

40 Nehru, The Discovery, p. 543.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 26.

42 Ibid., p. 547.

43 SWJN, vol. 14, 1981, p. 187.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 46.

45 Marx and Engels, Basic Writings, p. 259.Google Scholar

46 Quoted in Acton, H. B., The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism–Leninism as a Philosophical Creed (London, Cohen and West, 1955), p. 143.Google Scholar

47 Marx and Engels, Basic Writings, p. 260.Google Scholar

48 Lenin, V. I., Religion (Calcutta, Burmon Publishing House, n.d.), p. 16.Google Scholar

49 SWJN, vol. 4, 1973, p. 512.Google Scholar

50 Gopal, S., ‘Nehru and Secularism’, Occasional Papers. No. 42 (Mimeo), New Delhi, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1987, p. 12.Google Scholar

51 Constituent Assembly of India Debates, 6 December 1948, p. 825.Google Scholar

52 Gopal, S. (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series (New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund)Google Scholar[hereafter SWJN-2], vol 5, 1987, p. 26.Google Scholar

53 Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: The Age of Reformation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 352.Google Scholar

54 SWJN, vol. 7, 1975, p. 182.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., p. 562.

56 Malraux, André, Antimemoirs (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1968), p. 145.Google Scholar

57 See Gopal, S. (ed.), Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 330f.Google Scholar

58 ‘In many parts of the world, the people can do nothing for themselves which requires large means and combined actions; all such things are left undone, unless done by the state’: Mill, John Stuart, Principles of Political Economy, II, pp. 602–3Google Scholar, quoted in de Schweinitz, Karl Jr., The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality (London, Methuen, 1983), p. 125.Google Scholar (I am grateful to Dr Ramashray Roy for drawing my attention to the passage from which I have quoted the above sentence.)

59 Nanda, B. R., Gokhale, Gandhi and the Nehrus: Studies in Indian Nationalism (London, Allen and Unwin, 1974), p. 103.Google Scholar

60 Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama, 3 vols (New York, Pantheon, 1968), vol. 3, ch. 29.Google Scholar

61 Marx, Karl, ‘On the Jewish Question’ in Marx, K. and Engels, F., Collected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1975), pp. 146–74.Google Scholar

62 See Gopal, ‘Nehru and Secularism’, p. 24.Google Scholar

63 Parekh, Bhikhu, ‘Nehru and the National Philosophy of India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 5–12, 01 1991, p. 42.Google Scholar

64 See Baxi, Upendra, ‘Secularism: Real and Pseudo’, in Sankhder, M. M. (ed.), Secularism in India (New Delhi, Deep and Deep, 1992), p. 95.Google Scholar Also see Sathe, S. P., ‘Secularism, Law and the Constitution of India’, in Gore, M. S. (ed.), Secularism in India (Allahabad, Vidhya Prakashan, 1991), pp. 3959.Google Scholar

65 Cunningham, Nobel E. Jr., In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New Delhi, Affiliated East-West Press, 1991), p. 133.Google Scholar

66 See Shaikh, Farzana, Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860–1947 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

67 Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Wolpert, Stanley, Jinnah of Pakistan (Delhi, Oxford University press, 1988), p. 181.Google Scholar

69 Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. 7, 1, p. 39.Google Scholar

70 Constituent Assembly Debates, vol. 8, pp. 333–8, 346–9.Google Scholar

71 Auditor's notes at a lecture given in New Delhi, 28 Nov. 1979).Google Scholar

72 Baig, M. R. A., In Different Saddles (New Delhi, Vikas, 1967), pp. 164–80.Google Scholar

73 See Mushire-ul-Haq, , Islam in Secular India (Simla, Institute of Advanced Study, 1972), pp. 621.Google Scholar

74 See Madan, T. N., ‘The Double-edged Sword: Fundamentalism and the Sikh Religious Tradition’ in Marty, M. and Appleby, R. Scott (eds), Fundamentalisms Observed (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar

75 Hameed, Syeda Saiyidain (ed.), India's Maulana (New Delhi, Indian Council of Cultural Relations/Vikas, 1990), vol. 2, p. 145.Google Scholar

76 SWJN, vol. 11, 1991, p. 54.Google Scholar

77 These estimates are based on newspaper reports which are the only figures available now.Google Scholar

78 See, e.g., Toulmin, Stephen, Cosmopolis, The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York, The Free Press, 1990).Google Scholar

79 See, e.g., Mcknight, Stephen A., Sacralizing the Secular, The Renaissance Origins of Modernity (Baton Rouge and London, Louisiana State University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

80 See, Dumont, Louis, ‘Nationalism and Communalism’ in Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980; 1st edn, 1970), pp. 315–16.Google Scholar

81 Madan, T. N., ‘Secularism in its place’, The Journal of Asian Studies 46, 4 (1987), pp. 747–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar also see, Madan, T. N., ‘Religion in India’, Daedalus 118, 4 (1989), pp. 115–46.Google Scholar

82 See Nandy, Ashis, ‘The Politics of Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance’, Alternatives 13, 2 (1988), pp. 177–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 For a richly documented account, see Roy, Asim, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1983).Google Scholar A sceptical assessment will be found in Ahmad, Aziz, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964).Google Scholar

84 See, e.g., Von Stietencron, H., ‘Hinduism: On the Proper Use of a Deceptive Term’, in Sontheimer, G. D. and Kulke, H. (eds), Hinduism Reconsidered (Delhi, Manohar, 1991), pp. 1128.Google Scholar

85 See, e.g., Oommen, T. K., State and Society in India: Studies in Nation-Building (New Delhi, Sage, 1990), p. 11.Google Scholar

86 Nandy, Ashis, ‘Final Encounter: The Politics of the Assassination of Gandhi’, in At the Edge of Psychology (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 7098.Google Scholar