Dharma, an ancient concept ... is both an untranslatable Sanskrit term ... No one-word translation ('faith', 'religion' and 'law') can convey the full range of meaning implicit in the term. "English has no equivalent for dharma", writes P. Lal in the glossary 'to his "transcreation" of the Mahabharata, in which he defines dharma as "code of good conduct, pattern of noble living, religious rules and observance". ...

Dharma ... attract the opprobrium of the Hindutva brigade, I believe, it is the key to bridging the present gap between the religious and the secular. T.N. Madan, the social scientist, has argued: "It is the marginalistion of faith, which is what secularism is, that permits the perversion of religion. There are no fundamentalists or revivalists in traditional society". The implication is that secularism has deprived Indians of their moral underpinnings - the meaning that faith gives to life and religious extremism has risen as an almost inevitable antithesis to the secular project. The only way out is for Hindus to return to dharma - to the tolerant, holistic, just, pluralist Hinduism articulated so effectively by Swami Vivekananda

Hinduism, after all, has not traditionally accepted the notion of a separation between dharma and moksha (salvation) on the one hand and artha (wealth) and kama (pleasure) on the other. In other words, the Hindu's secular pursuit of material happiness is not meant to be divorced from the ethical and religious tenets of his faith. So, the distinction between 'religious' and 'secular' is an artificial one. There is no such compartmentalisation in Hinduism. Secularism avowed by successive Indian governments, as R.S. Misra of Benaras Hindu University has argued, is based on dharma-nirpekshata ("keeping apart from dharma"), whereas an authentically Indian ethic would ensure secular objectives be infused with dharma.

I find this view persuasive but incomplete. Yes, dharma is essential in the pursuit of material well-being, public order and good governance, but this should not mean turning public policy over to sants and sadhus, nor excluding any section of Indian society from its rightful place in the Indian sun. If we can bring dharma into our national life, it must be to uphold, rather than at the expense of, Indianness.

... To live in dharma is to live in harmony with one's purpose on earth. This emerges from Hindu tradition. It is not necessarily practised in a traditional way. ...

No more certitudes. Accept doubt and diversity. Let each man live by his own code of conduct, so long as he has one. Derive your standards from the world around you and not from a heritage whose relevance must be constantly tested. Reject equally the sterility of ideologies and the passionate prescriptions of those who think of themselves an infallible. Uphold decency, worship humanity, affirm the basic values of our people – those which do not change - and leave the rest alone. Admit that there is more than one Truth, more than one Right, and more than one dharma ...

Hinduism has always acknowledged the existence of opposites (and reconciled them): pain and pleasure, success and failure, creation and destruction, life and death are all manifestations of the duality inherent in human existence. These pairings are not contradictory, but complementary; they are aspects of the same overarching reality. So also with the secular and the sacred: a Hindu's life must involve both. to acknowledge this would both absorb and deflect the Hindu resurgence.

I, too, am proud of my Hinduism; I do not want to cede its verities to fanatics. To discriminate against another, to attack another, to kill another, to destroy another's place of worship, on the basis of his faith is not part of Hindu dharma ... (Source: The Indian Express, 22 March, 1998)