Religion Secularism and Indian Scenario by Sarbani Banerjee
Religion Secularism and Indian Scenario by Sarbani Banerjee
Religion Secularism and Indian Scenario by Sarbani Banerjee
PERSPECTIVE
Humanity and the role of religion the formal and the methodical. Marxians
look at religion as playing a vital role in
Human beings, perturbed by doubts, supporting the values and goals of the
confide to religion as a way of seeking bourgeoisie and the ruling class (Winter
certainty or truth (Engineer 1999, 38). The 1977, 35). According to Marx, ‘...the final
functionalists claim that the main role of demise of religion as a form of
religion lies in helping a society cope with consciousness could only be achieved
tension and a sense of uncertainty and through a transformation of the actual
powerlessness that arise out of realizing that structure of society’ (Turner 2011, 7).
God is unpredictable and indifferent to Having been churned out of a specific
human ethics. Thought that way, religion social, historical and political context, each
helps a society to work normally. Absence religion has its own locus. For example,
of religion can lead to the recognition of Hinduism emphasizes non-violence,
one’s limitedness before the human Buddhism dwells on compassion,
condition and intensify one’s frustration and Christianity’s crux is love, and Islam
intolerability (Parsons 1957, 380-5). highlights justice and brotherhood (Engineer
According to David Martin’s analysis, 1999, 43). However, one cannot deny that all
religion plays a role in forming the the religions universally appeal to
collective psyche of a people, in ‘unit[ing] humanitarianism and share a complementary
myth in the sense of partial representation relationship with one another. While
to a framework of understanding, a Buddhism bases its values on compassion, it
perspective, a poetic and dramatized is still reliant on the pacifist world-view that
symbolic system’ (Martin 1969, 19). defines the Hindu philosophy. The Sufi
While the rationalists question religion school of thought looks at the Creator more
for promoting superstitions, both Bertrand as a personal, affectionate being than an
Russell and William James underscore the austere doctrinaire body, which draws on
importance of faith, a psychological Christian ideals. Seen this way, a common
category, in developing knowledge. thread of human experience, agency and
Nevertheless, religion in its fossilized state consciousness runs through all the religions
can lead to convictions, manufactured in the world, coordinating each cult’s
violence, hatred and divisive attitudes, incipience, evolution and decadence.
producing an unjust society where the According to Satchidananda Dhar, the deep-
category of the ethical has been replaced by seated significance of religion lies in its
ability to sift divinity from animality and Brahmanical law, including monarchic
appeal to the humanitarian values, which despotism, expansion of kingship at the
‘shall be a common ground of union in all expense of tribal privilege, and a
aspects of life. And religion and religious widespread casteist attitude.
outlook alone can foster true unity Durkheim reveals how the divinity-
and integration between man and man’ mortal relationship ultimately simulates the
(Dhar 1989, 85). functioning of a government:
way analogous to the Indian case of present day, many Indian religious
Sarvadharma Sambhàvanà (possibility of institutions thrive in the form of a
coexistence of different religions), as can be bureaucratized and multipurpose complex
observed during the Bhakti Movement, or around the sanctum sanctorum. They are a
under the reigns of rulers like Akbar and self-sufficient structure, comprising a
Dara Shikoh (Hasan 1996, 203). According kitchen for cooking, a tank for bathing, and
to Wendy Doniger, ‘Rather than specific allotted places for the development
characterizing the ritual world of the Rig- of education through lectures, discourses
Veda as worldly, one might do better to and publication of souvenirs, and
characterize the non-ritual Vedic world as additionally provide accommodation to
sacred’ (Doniger 1981, 229). In India, the young scholars at a waived fee. Such an
essence of religious principles lies in institution is responsible for the production
coalescing a moral community around of knowledge, employment of skilled
certain beliefs and practices, and is labours, and sometimes even financing of
regardless of the Western values of the needy, such as the poor orphans and the
objective reasoning and positing of man as aged. It reserves a dual capacity of
a cognitive animal. Unlike the Church influencing the Indian society—through
whose cosmic theories had been disproved instilling fundamentalism and corruption, as
by inventors like Galileo Galilei, the eastern well as through supporting philanthropism
religions were not at odds with science, and and social service.
so would not be seen as a hurdle to the path Because ‘secularism’ is not an
of secularization by way of scientific indigenous concept and the pre-colonial
advancement (Devi 2002, 64). Even prior to Indian government systems were based
the crystallization of a scientific self-image either on Vedic or Islamic treatises, it is not
of the Indian nation-state, the idea of perfectly translatable to Indian languages,
human community here was shaped around and leads to an array of misplaced
religious lores and traditions. Contrarily, meanings, which range between agnosticism
some scholars understand Indian religion as and religious neutrality. In his research,
‘. . . an artifact of historical sources . . . Satchidananda Dhar shows that the
people’s ideas and behaviour were shaped Dharmashàstras and Arthashàstras, which
. . . by an underlying network of power offer practical methods towards education,
relations, not religion’ (Copland et trade, commerce, economic progress and
al. 2012, 16). justice, have always formed the edifice of
Showing how the idea of modernity and the Indian governments, monarchic or
religion in India are not entirely removed otherwise (Dhar 1989, 21). The Jàtakas also
from one another, Turner observes that discuss the qualities of members who would
India has at least partially succeeded in constitute an assembly of justice, and in the
‘avoiding the dismemberment of important Purànic myths Nàrada is described as
ritual types, and [they] have incorporated having emphasized the importance of
into [their] ritual performances many of the elderly people, dharma and truth in the
issues and problems of modern urban living court of law (Dhar 1989,24). Louis
and succeeded in giving them religious Dumont’s study argues that secularism in
meaning’ (Turner 2003, 131). Until the ancient India faced a setback when religion
Jawaharlal Nehru suggests that during religion, even if at the cost of amending its
Akbar’s reign, Tulsidàs was more popular defects (Skaria 2009,189). In the immediate
than the Mughal emperor himself (Nehru decades after independence, the Congress
2004). Likewise, Engineer studies several tried to fortify the secularist framework by
cases that bear out to the layered and electing three presidents from among the
syncretic spirit of India. The Shaivite minorities—Badruddin Tyebji from the
poetess, Laleshwari, and the Sufi saint, Muslims, Dadabhai Naoroji from the Parsis,
Rishi Nuruddin, for example, both of whom and Woomesh Chandra Bonnerjea from the
belong to a common Kashmiri ethnicity, Christians. However, these strategies did
share a similar style of poetry writing. not put the minority-majority question to
While a number of ulemas of the Firang rest, and cannot be equated on the same
Mahli order have been worshippers of Lord plane with the teachings of Kabir, Dàdu,
Krishna, the Meo Muslims of Rajasthan and Nànak, Vivekananda and Ramakrishna,
Haryana are highly Hinduized in their which appealed to dissolving religious
customs of celebrating Holi and Diwali, and differences and bringing about religious
solemnizing marriages through synthesis. Before the cracking of the
circumambulation of fire. On the other subcontinent, leaders of the Muslim League
hand, Brahmin caretakers have been in and the Congress played the religious rather
charge of several mausoleums in the past, than the national card, and dismissed the
such as the Haji Malang Baba’s Sufi likelihood of meeting at a ‘common
mausoleum (Engineer 1999, 177). Both platform’ (Joshi and Josh 1992, 281).
Dhar and Engineer note that ‘purification’ Under such circumstances, the reformist
movements to either rid Indian Islam of approach appeared as nothing short of
local non-Muslim influences, or the ‘creation of a new ethic, a doctrine which
Hindutva parties’ attempts at curtailing would give the ‘sanction of orthodoxy’ to
religious freedom and binding all faiths into newly emerging feelings and moods’ (ibid.,
one for the sake of political and economic 274). These ‘feelings and moods’ mostly
benefits, have repeatedly proven ineffectual. came up in the form of affected
Gandhi confessed that he would, if nationalistic and religious rhetorics,
needed, die for his own religion; yet, he shrouding vested interests, both at the level
also considered religion as a personal affair, of the individual and the collective. In
such that he would never support a today’s India, these rhetorics are visible
theocratic government in India. Ràma, for through the furnishing of a definitive
Gandhi, was not a Hindu god, but history of different faiths and
symbolized the supreme truth and the law museumization of sacred sites to draw
that governs everything, in other words, the compatibility between the ancient tenets and
Sachchidànanda (ibid., 238). However, as a modern science (see Brady Williams 2001).
flip side to his egalitarian vision, he Secularism in the present-day India as a
combined religious spirit with the spirit of reflection of the Western model, then,
Swadeshi. According to him, just as one frequently becomes a pretext for floating
ought to restrict oneself to the service of ideas that are crafted towards benefiting
one’s immediate surroundings, one also personal interests, by foraying the
must confide only to one’s ancestral phantasm called religion.
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