MARCH 12

Defining Secularism

The basis of the partition of the country in 1947, at least implicitly, was that India was to be declared a Hindu state, and Pakistan a Muslim state. And it did happen in Pakistan. It was declared a Muslim state. So the logical parallel was to declare India a Hindu state. But one thing in India, prevented such a declaration being made. That was that Hindus had gone sufficiently ahead in modern education for a majority of their educated class to think along non-religious lines, Pandit Nehru being at the apex. It was due to the pressure of these educated Hindus that India was declared a secular state instead of a Hindu state.

This state of affairs was indeed a boon for the Indian Muslims. Unfortunately though, due to the misguided leadership of certain Muslim leaders, they could never place secularism in its correct perspective. Their leaders had told them that secularism meant an anti-religious system. That is why they were never in a position to think about it with clear minds. They could never adjust to this idea.

The interpretation of secularism, quite simply, means ‘a worldly or non-religious system.’ As such, in a pluralistic society secularism entails a political settlement, whereby religious freedom is granted in private spheres, while the ordinary, everyday worldly spheres of life are dealt with on a non-religious basis. This obviates the kind of dissension, which can arise in a society where people of different persuasions exist side by side.

According to this interpretation, secularism cannot be called an anti-religious system. To put it more precisely in the Indian context, secularism can be termed a system of non-interference. That is, the State maintains a policy of non-interference in the religious affairs of various groups, while attending to practical matters of concern to all the groups, on a non-religious basis.

As a result of this misunderstanding by the Muslims, they failed to participate fully in secularism. Those Muslims who openly participated in the secular system were never respected, and never gained credibility among the Muslims. This is the basic reason for secularism not being a complete success in the country.

Although Muslims are numerically in a minority, due to their large numbers they are in the position of being next to the majority in the country. A community in this position has an extremely crucial role to play. It is because of this special position of Muslims that no system in India can be successfully established unless Muslims accept it and extend to it their full cooperation.

All the known records prove that Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru and his colleagues were secular in the best sense of the word. Had they received the full support of the Muslim community, they certainly would have succeeded in establishing a secular system in the country.

Whatever the system, secular or Islamic, it can never be perfect in this world of ours. It will always have some shortcoming or the other. India being such a vast country, something or the other will always fall short of the ideal, even if it were an Islamic state. Failing to understand this situation Muslims have repeatedly pinpointed the supposed or real shortcomings of the system and regularly make fiery speeches and write barbed articles, which denigrate the system. They accuse the Congress of functioning under the banner of secularism without actually practicing it. As a result, Muslims have continued to give a negative vote, thereby seriously undermining the stability of the Congress, the stability that was necessary to establish a secular system.

For instance, take the question of government service. Seeing that the Muslim ratio was much lower in government jobs, Muslims alleged that the government talked a great deal about secularism but that, in fact, most of the jobs were given to Hindus, not Muslims. This was not the case. The actual reason for the greater number of Hindus in government jobs was to be found elsewhere. When Muslims in Govt. jobs migrated to Pakistan in large numbers before partition the Hindus who had left their jobs to come to India were naturally given first preference. Automatically, they came to exceed the number of Muslims in government jobs.

Another reason for the smaller ratio was that Muslims were 100 years behind Hindus in modern education. There were, therefore, far fewer degree holders among Muslims than among Hindus.

For instance, at the Aligarh Muslim University, when the Muslims opened their own medical college, using their own funds, they were forced to employ Hindu professors. The reason being that the Muslims themselves had lagged too far behind in medical education in particular to apply for such positions.

This is traceable to Muslims’ lack of awareness of modern imperatives. Their negative response to the opening of the first medical college in Calcutta in 1835 is a matter of history. While Muslims were taking out processions for its closure, Hindus were at the same time seeking admission to it. Muslims in fact could not separate the English from their sciences. Since they were launching movements against British rule, they thought that even their sciences had also to be discarded. It was for reasons such as these that Muslims have suffered in the past and are still suffering the consequences. However, they were quick to lay all the blame at the door of the government, even in places where the government had no hand.

No system can work efficiently without the cooperation of the public. The government can undertake only 50 percent of the task. The other 50 percent has to be undertaken by the people.

But instead of pulling their weight, which would have meant correcting their own attitude, they ranged themselves against secularism, of which they felt profoundly suspicious. Their failure to improve their own condition in terms of education only made them more rigid in this stance.

Now this state of affairs was exploited by the fundamentalist Hindus. They may not have been the creators of this state of affairs, but I would stress that they have exploited the situation.

Since secularism was upheld by the Congress, and favoured by educated classes everywhere, fundamentalist groups found themselves relegated to the background. The theocratic state was in the process everywhere of being rejected by the enlightened minds. But Muslims did not play their role. This is what is largely responsible for the erosion of secularism. There are certainly other factors, but Muslims’ failure to realize the actual meaning of secularism is the most decisive one.

Muslims failed to play their 50 percent part, thus encouraging the rise of Hindu fundamentalism. If the BJP seats in Parliament rose from 2 to 119 the direct responsibility for this must be attributed to the ill-advised leadership of Muslims.

Pandit Nehru had an excellent team of individuals, imbued with the spirit of secularism, in the best sense of the word, but Muslims failed to support them. There were certain Muslims both inside and outside the party who favoured secularism but since our leaders had implanted the wrong idea in people’s minds that secularism was anti-Islam, these individuals were never respected in the community, hence they failed to gain the credibility among Muslims, which was necessary for them to play an effective role.

Now Muslims will have to change their thinking. They must realize that secularism is not anti-Islam or anti-religion, but that it is the best possible principle on which to run a pluralistic society.