Much of the Indian debate on secularism is built around what seem to be the common sense assumptions about India and the west. But a close look at the impact of Protestant Puritanism on the relationship between religion and politics in the US suggests that these assumptions are mistaken. Far from having fundamentally different experience, there are some striking similarities between India and the US: similarities which draw attention to potential long-term dangers for India.
... What insights does this comparison provide for those seeking, either to influence future developments in India, or to understand their likely course? A few simple points are worth emphasising.
First, the fear that the establishment and maintenance of a secular state will necessarily weaken religious beliefs and institutions, and the charge that pro-secular attitudes are necessarily anti-religious, are both completely misplaced. In the US, a long line of distinguished sociologists, from Tocqueville (1969) to Lipset (1996), have observed that quite the reverse is true. The long separation of religion and politics has fostered a continual process of renewal, which has enabled religious institutions and beliefs to flourish to an exceptional extent.
Second, comparison with the US raises important questions about what criterion should be used for judging whether or not secularism has been successfully institutionalised. If religious activism in politics is seen as evidence that secularism has failed in India, then secularism must also be judged to have failed in the US.
Third, comparison with. the US highlights the importance of disaggregating categories like Protestantism and Hinduism, if an adequate understanding of the political impact of religion is to be reached. Clearly caste communities frequently have radically different political loyalties. But it would also be interesting to explore whether Hindus committed to Bhakti and other 'personalist' traditions, have different political loyalties to Hindus committed to more 'ritualist' traditions, just as pietistic and liturgical Protestants have different loyalties in the US.
Here, however, I am more concerned to draw attention to some other, potential long-term consequences of current developments in India. The similarities between the party system now emerging in India and the American party system of the second half of the 19th century, suggest that consideration of the subsequent history of the US may help to clarify some of these potential long-term consequences ... In no democracy is the party system a simple reflection of the multiple interests and issues which are present in that society. For the party system also helps to pick out and strengthen the salience of some of these interests and issues, and weaken the salience of others. In short, the party system helps to establish which interests and issues are to be recognised as politically important. By reinforcing the salience of ethno-religious interests, the US party system in the second half of the 19th century undermined the prospect for class politics, by weakening the salience of economic interests and of distributive justice. Voters were, of course, concerned about their economic interests, but, by and large, when they went to the polls, taking their cue from the agenda set by the party system, they voted not for their class, but for their ethno-religious interests.
This is one of the main reasons, why, even in the late 19th and early 20th century, when the US had become one of the leading capitalist economies in the world, it still failed to produce an electorally important labour or socialist party. It also helps to explain why, to this day, the US has weak unions, insecure workers, negligible interest in redistributive policies, and no real welfare state.
Can these outcomes be avoided in India? It hardly needs to be said that no society is destined to simply follow a path already laid down by others. The enduring role of religion in the US is itself evidence of that. But the similarities between the American party system in the second half of the 19th century, and that now emerging in India, should give pause for thought: especially to those motivated by the ideals of the socialist tradition.
Through the first third of the 20 century, when labour and socialist parties became major contenders for government in every advanced capitalist society, in the quintessentially capitalist US, political controversy was focussed on issues like the prohibition of alcohol, and on whether to teach Biblical or Darwinian science in schools [Marsden 1991]. Not until a quarter of the labour force was thrown out of work in the Great Depression of the thirties, did a social democratic tinge appear in American politics.,Roosevelt responded to the depression with his 'New Deal' programme, which repositioned the Democrats as a semi-social Democratic Party, and forced a realignment of the party system. But by the last third of this century, ethno-religious issues had reasserted themselves. The cadres of the Christian coalition are now more important to the Republic Party, than union activists are to the Democrats and issues like abortion and the sexual behaviour of the president dominate political space.
My argument in this article is informed by a large concern about the use of all-embracing concepts like 'modernity' and the 'west'. These terms are frequently used to suggest that western societies share a common core of cultural characteristics, one of which is secularism. But in the norms that govern that attitudes to religion and politics, western societies share no such cultural core. In these matters, even a single, paradigm, western society like the US has no common core of cultural norms.
The anti-secularists are right when they say that India has a political culture which is deeply influenced by religious traditions. But they are wrong when they say that India does not have a secular political culture. For, just like the US, it has both. Each country has two powerful political subcultures, tied together by a mix of ideology and self-interest. One seeks to subvert the religious neutrality of the state. The other seeks to maintain it. In complex democracies like India and the US, political culture is not monochromatic: it is composed of multiple competing traditions, of which these two are the most important.
In both countries there is a constant political struggle to see which of these traditions will prevail. But in both countries there is also a vital, often-ignored, meta-struggle about the salience of these traditions, and about whether or not they should continue to define the main terms of political conflict. (Source: The Economic and Political Weekly, 10 April, 1999)
