Superficial Ways of Being Secular

Modernity opened up a secular sphere where religion could no longer simply remain religion. It has transformed religion for the better and worse

- Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

FOR orthodox secularists who only adhere to the positive meaning of the word ‘secular’, the January 22 event at Ayodhya is a matter of religion and a religious takeover of a secular polity. The matter is not that simple and certainly not so straightforward. American philosopher Charles Larmore argued that the transcendental aspect of God allowed the secular argument that if God must rule the other world, human beings need to take charge of this world.

The process of secularisation and rationalisation that changed Europe since the middle of the 16th century had a deep impact on our relationship with religion. In fact, since modernity, faith has never been faith in a strict or pure form. There has been a dramatic infusion of worldly matters into matters of faith. The politics of religion, called communalism in India, has also been a process where the secular and the religious have lived side-by-side, instrumentally used for political advantage.

This secular game with religion in the political sphere, one must keep in mind, is antithetical to the principle of secularism that a secular state follows as a matter of policy. A secular principle involves equal respect for all religions. India did not take the European route by banishing religion from state policy but rather looked for harmony, a necessary ethic in a multi-religious society.

The idea India adopted for constitutional secularism, as political theorist Rajeev Bhargava put it, was “principled distance”, and not drastic separation. There were disputes that involved religion, which the state had to arbitrate by upholding a principle that did not dismiss the religious nature of the dispute but by following a principle of justice that was secular—in other words, by gathering this-worldly reasons (historical fact, nature of argument) to make a judgment.