Gandhi was bold enough to admit that secularism could be relevant to India only in the sense of tolerance and accommodation and equated the secular orientation in the Constitution to sarvadharma sambhav (equal treatment of all religions) ... Nehru abandoned the advocacy of the European-type of secularism and equated secularism in India to "equal distance from all religions."
Critics ... have generally focussed on precisely the ground that was either left open or imperfectly defined by the architects of new India. On the traditionalist and religious fundamentalist side, the critics have claimed that the secular idea ... undermines religion or negates its positive role in ordering life. On the secular liberal side, the critics have faulted secularism for its foreignness to the distinctively indigenous genius which rejects the dichotomy of the religious and secular or encompasses both within a common framework for life.
Both sets of criticisms ... are widely off the mark in that they take the European conception of secularism and plant it on the Indian soil merely in order to attack it ... Under the circumstances, the mounting criticism of secularism on grounds of its foreignness or its negation of the positive dimensions of religion is little more than a kind of shadow-boxing.
Taking a practical view, it would appear that leaving secularism largely undefined ... was after all not a bad strategic choice. The ambiguity allowed secularism to be accepted widely among the different social and religious communities ..
Muslims and other groups were initially skeptical of what secularism might entail and whether the state was actually seriously committed to upholding it. They preferred to wait and watch. Then they rejected it, claiming that it carried the potential to deny them a basis for the preservation of their cultural distinctiveness and religious integrity. Finally, they recognised the positive role of secularism and have been using it to advantage wherever possible. There may be no clear recognition as yet among the Muslims that the claims of the secular state and society impose limits and they cannot simply take it as given but have a responsibility to play a role to strengthen it. They are enthusiastic in demanding that the state and others act in a secular fashion, but are reluctant to insist that secularism be adhered to wheu members of their own community act in ways which seem to undermine secularism. Even so, secularism is seen by most Muslims as a positive feature, in marked contrast to a growing section of Hindus which is inclined to reject secularism on the ground that it does injustice to the Hindu historical heritage and turns an "epistemic error into a political blunder."
Ambiguity over the precise meaning and content of secularism may have been an advantage to begin with, but it ... is being turned fast into a cover to dislodge secularism from its place. Fundamentalist groups ... are trying to play upon this ... ambiguity to enlarge the spaces for their operations and are suggesting their own ideologically surcharged points of view as alternatives to secularism. Under the circumstances, the need to define secularism and put a positive content into it ... has become imperative ... People see religion as s source of their self-definition in a world where their identity both as individuals and as groups or communities is constantly being threatened by developments at the national as well as global level. Therefore, while they might not be devout practitioners of religion on an individual-personal plane, they like to retain the integrity of religion as the basis of a distinctive communitarian identity ... They are more than ever inclined to come out in demonstration of a sense of solidarity ..
People are unwilling to concede their religious faith and communitarian self-identification to the state, but they also expect that what communitarian self-identification they choose to project should not exercise a determining influence over their life chances. They want the choice to uphold their religion in both the private and public domains and to stick to their communitarian self- identification without direct interference from the state or other social and religious communities. At the same time, they insist that ... they should enjoy equal agcess to assets in society, economy and the polity. They are contending that the present dispensation of secularism has acted to the detriment of some groups and advantage of others and this is tantamount to a negation of the secular credo ...
Unless secularism becomes an ideology and public policy capable of ensuring for the people so vastly different in their religious outlook and world-views equal opportunities and access to social and economic assets without their religious faith or self- identification working as a negative factor against them, we are likely to have more and more of communalism, conservatism and religious fundamentalism and less and less of secularism. (Source: The Hindu, 31 July, 1999).
Shahabuddin's Comments, Letter to The Hindu, 2 August, 1999
Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad's article "Secularism in Search of a Meaning" (31 July, 1999) sets up an artificial dichotomy, and then demolishes it! Indian secularism is a well-defined concept. Its object was never to secularise the Indian society which, both Gandhi and Nehru knew, was inherently religious but to set up a secular state which did not identify itself with any religion, which respected religion and extended equal respect to all religions and which maintained neutrality and equidistance in situation of inter-religious conflict. By implication secularism meant protection of religious minorities and their right to identity equality. What more of a meaning or positive content does Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad desire?
No doubt, in practice under pressure from the majoritarian forces, the State, and particularly the administration, acquired a tilt and a colour and the religious minorities were denied equal access to 'social assets, economy and polity'. State secularism cannot by itself erode private communalism or abolish religious conservatism or fundamentalism. These social objectives can be achieved only through education, development and modernisation, within the context of a secular state Prof. Imtiaz should not confuse the State structure with social processes.
