Secularisation

The process of secularisation of life and thought consists in the withdrawal and separation of
‘religion’ from other spheres of ‘life and thought’. Its essential principle has been to seek for human
improvement by material means alone, and not supernatural or religious beliefs, practices etc.
Secularisation is a “process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions lose their social
significance”. It denotes triumph of science over religion and reason over faith. The world loses its
sacred character as man and nature becomes the object of rational-causal explanation in which the
supernatural play no part.
‘Secularisation’ is a social process and ‘secularism’ is a socio-political ideology. Secularism is a
product of, and, in turn, strengthen the process of secularisation.
The term “secularisation” is defined by Bryan Wilson as the process where "the various social
institutions gradually become distinct from one another and increasingly free of the matrix of
religious assumptions that had earlier informed…inspired and dominated their operation”.
In a secularised society, people turn to science for explanations to natural phenomena, understanding
of world and even for emotional support.
The word “secularism” was coined by Gorge Jacob Holyoake in 1851. G.J Holyoake used the term
secularism to define an ideology, wherein social and industrial morality hitherto determined by
reference to the transcending principles of religion, were now to be determined by reason, and firmly
anchored to the good of man in this life.
Secularism of Holyoake affirmed concern for life in this world, worldly existence, independence of
scientific knowledge and human happiness.
The development of secularism as an ideology was partly an outcome of the process of secularisation
in Europe. And in many modern states it has been adopted as a state policy, without really going
through a historical process which was in evidence in Europe at the time of the emergence of the
phenomenon of secularism
Secularism in India
We are aware by now, that the historical process of secularisation has not occi~rred in India quite the
way it did in Europe. But Indian situation generated its own conditions which made our national
leaders feel a need for a secular ideology.
The major difference between secularism in India and Europe is that secularism in the Indian tradition
was not the opposition of religion but was related to communalism. India did not experience
renaissance as west did. In Europe, there was a struggle between the Christian civil society as Europe
was a mono-religious society and the church whereas in India, struggle was between one religious
community and the other. Therefore, Indian secularism drew its strength from pluralism.
Thus, the concept of secularism in India emerged in the context of religious pluralism, as against
religious authoritarianism in the West.
Secularism, as a concept was introduced in India through British education, which reached only a few.
It was introduced through common criminal code, secular laws. In a political sense, it came to be used
the congress 1885 onwards to allay the apprehensions of religious minorities, particularly Muslims.
None of our political leaders thought of challenging any religious authority, Hindu, or Muslim. On the
contrary, these leaders held out repeated assurances that both Hindus and Muslims would be free to
profess and practice their respective religions both in an individual and a collective sense. Later, we
were to see parallel movements in India, one, that united people on the lines of the anti-colonial
struggle (behind the ideology of secularism) and the other that divided people in the name of religion
(by politicising it).
Secularism and Indian National Movement
The nationalist leaders very soon realised that they had to fight two enemies simultaneously – one, the
British imperialist power and second, communalism within India. They saw in secularism an ideology
that could serve both their purposes, that is fight or controvert communalism and provide a basis for a
united Indian nation, which, in turn, would strengthen the nationalist movement for India’s
independence. This would also ensure Sarva Dharma Sambhava (Equality of all faiths).
A nation can survive only when all sections of the populace share a sense of common nationality and
to that extent transcend their limited, regional, ethnic, linguistic, or religious identities.
For the founders of Congress, national identity and the interests of the nation were all-inclusive and
transcended the differences of religion, caste, language etc.
Moderates of congress were gradually replaced by ‘Extremists’ like Lala Lajpat rai, Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, B.C. Pal. They were strong nationalists and had a religious tinge to their speeches and actions,
such as the idealisation of Shivaji and rana Pratap, popularisation of the religious festivals associated
with Durga and Ganesh. This was due to the compulsion of mass politics.
However nationalism of congress leaders was very different from that of Hindu and Muslim
chauvinists. Their concept of nation was territorial, that included all inhabitants of india, irrespective
of religious creed or any other difference. Gandhi repeatedly affirmed “India cannot cease to be one
nation because people belonging to different religions live in it.
Another basic difference between Indian nationalism and the so-called “Hindu and Muslim
nationalisms” lies in their respective attitudes towards religion. While the latter made religion the
basis of both the individual’s and community’s identity and all their secular interests, Indian
nationalism firmly asserted the irrelevance of religion for India’s nationhood.
This approach implied a total rejection of communalism, but frankly accepted the desirability and
importance of religion in a person’s life.
Thus, Indian nationalism was based on the perception that a nation is constituted by a people who
share common everyday problems, and endeavour together to achieve common goals of freedom,
democratic rights and a just social order.
The entire concept of Indian secularism was developed in the process of attempting to weld together a
rather heterogeneous populace, divided on communal lines, into a modern nation. This required a total
rejection of communalism and the affirmation of the need to separate politics and other secular
institutions from religion. “The alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism”, said
Nehru, is the most dangerous and yields the most abnormal kind of illegitimate brood.
The Indian leadership continued to hold fast to this normative principle despite the fact that the
country was partitioned ostensibly in the name of religion. Given the deep polarisation of Indian
society and given the massive massacres and the brutality that marked the partition of the country, the
leadership could easily have swung in the direction of majoritarianism. But it refused to be swayed
and remained true to its commitment that all religions in post-independent India would be treated
equally by the state.
In India, where two new nations had materialised out of a blood drenched partition, i.e., India and
Pakistan, the need was to forget that people who shared the same historical consciousness, the same
language and the same folklore for centuries had split over religion. The need was to integrate these
divided people on new ideologies, new perspectives, new issues. This issue could only be solved
through secularism that gave due recognition to religious identities and yet attempted to transcend
them as far as the public sphere was concerned.
After Independence, Nehru took upon himself the task of modernising the country through the spread
and application of science and technology for the removal of ignorance, ill health and poverty. Nehru
was not against religion, but he was aware of how harmful religion could be to India. Hence, he lost
no time in enshrining the secular ideal in the Constitution. Religion was not debarred from public life
but was distanced from the State. Undoubtedly, constitutionally, and legally we are a secular nation.
We find that secular nationalism is a concept that we adopted from the West in the face of British
Colonialism. The dire necessity of that time was to fight the British on a united front. Secular ideal
was adopted to unite the various pluralities in the nation. And a semblance of nationalism was forged
and the British were ousted.
Pointed out to this kind of nationalism, Sudipta Kaviraj feels that "as long as the national movement
faced the British, this urgency in political discourse in constantly spelling, naming, repeating the
making of the nation was evident. After independence was achieved, this urgency was allowed to
lapse" (Kaviraj, 1990 : 198).
He further adds that our leaders who inherited this nation failed to see a situation where later
generations may not take this nation for granted. The State with its elitist leaders failed to form a
dialogue with various vernacular cultures to achieve this ideal of secularism. It remained aloof from
the masses. However, it needs to be pointed out that the masses are steeped in religion with its myths,
legends and folklore. As such secularism would take time to fully influence social process in India,
where there is a plurality of religions.
Apart from this neglect, we are faced with contradictions present in a liberal democratic systems like
ours, where there is a great deal of uneven economic development. With this arose a feeling of
injustice and deprivation which finds expression in various ways. Mobilising one's own community
on religious and ethnic I lines is very often the practice. The State/political parties on the other hand
address communities to gain support. This only reinforces the primordial identities of community I
and religion. And they know that the only + way to bring about pressure on the authorities is to
mobilise on criteria like language, ethnicity and religion. So, as we can see in a multi-religious, multi-
ethnic country, secularism even with best intentions is difficult to achieve.
Constitution and Secularism
Indian Constitution is a creative blend between state secularism and religiosity of the civil society.
Article 14, 15, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Article 25-to 30-guarantee freedom of religion, of culture and
language.
We see the words secular and secularism remain undefined in the Indian Constitution. ‘Secularism’ in
the Indian Constitution connotes that:
1) the state, by itself, shall not espouse or establish or practice any religion,
2) public revenues will not be used to promote any religion,
3) the state shall have the power to regulate any “economic, financial or other secular activity”
associated with religious practice (Article 25(2) (a) of the constitution);
4) the state shall have the power through the law to provide for “social welfare and reform or the
throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of public character too all classes and sections of
Hindus” (Article 25 (2) (b) of the constitution);
5) the practice of untouchability (in-so-far as it may be justified by Hindu religion) is constitutionally
outlawed by Article 17);
6) every individual person will have, in that order, an equal right to freedom of conscience and
religion;
7) these rights are, however, subject to the power of the state through law to impose restrictions on the
ground of “public order, morality and health”;
8) these rights are furthermore subject to other fundamental rights in Part III; and
9) the courts, auspiciously the Supreme Court, shall have the ‘say’ on adjudging state action as valid
or otherwise under the above principles.
The Constitution has undoubtedly erected a ‘wall of separation’ between the State and religion. While
there are no doors opening from the side of religion into the State, there are, however, several doors
opening from side of the State into religion.
Thus the constitution contemplates and compels the supremacy of secular authority and secular
interest over religious authority and religious interest.

Secularisation within Religion

-allowing women to become priests
-influencing the content of religious beliefs
-increase in attention to public issues
-secular or profane activities becoming important. Example, Religious sponsored colleges, hospitals,
and philanthropic activities.
The Secularisation process
Secularisation has occurred throughout history. Though uneven, it was discernible from the very early
times. In primitive societies it was often seen that supernaturalist apprehensions and explanations
were intermingled with empirical knowledge and rational techniques. Magical means were mixed
with pragmatic procedures. Slowly, the process which Max Weber phrased as the 'disenchantment of
the world' removed the natural phenomena of their magico-religious meaning as mean acquired more
matter of fact and empirical and rationalistic orientations
To unravel the complex factors and agencies contributing to the process of secularisation is difficult.
In Western history (European history), the dissociation of religion and politics - seen in the separation
of the Church and the state implies secularisation.
The social context of Secularisation process
-Renaissance
-Growth of Science
-Expansion of Trade and Commerce
-Reformation movement

Pluralism existed in India during the medieval times as well but the challenge to pluralism in our
times is different. In medieval times hierarchy, and not equality, was the norm. Hence, the diverse
religions and cultures had to find their place in the social hierarchy. In modern times, all seek equal
rights and no one would like to exercise them as a courtesy showered on them after bowing to the
power of some dominant cultural group. Hence, there is a demand that the rights of people be equal
and that they be engraved in law formulated by popular vote.
The European marvel of secularism hinged on Renaissance thought and industrial capitalism. The
Indian secular experience is different from the European marvel due to colonialism. Colonialism had a
debilitating impact on both the development of Renaissance-like thought and industrial capitalism in
India.
In the various versions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc there has been no one clerical figure vested
with the kind of power and authority that the pope excersised over domains now assumed within the
modern state. So, we cannot assume that the lack of secularisation within these societies is due to
some "lateness" on their part. They did not secularise in the way that Europe did because they did not
need to. Branding them as backward was part of a colonial project.
Secularism and Religion
In the context of secularisation, there has been a considerable debate about the suitability of the
concept and practice of secularism in India.
T.N. Madan in his ‘Secularism in its Place’ makes a guarded attack on modernization. He says that
secularism and Indian culture are mismatched due to two reasons. He said the mainstream
Enlightenment view was that religion is irrational. If secularism wants to remove religion from Indian
public life and culture, this will not happen. Secondly, Madan says that no religion would go away on
eviction. In fact, there will be a strong cultural resistance if religion is forcibly evicted.
To counter bigotry and intolerance, Madan offers two incompatible proposals. First, he wants that
nobody should demand the removal of religion from public life. He wants the resources of every
religion to be used for spreading tolerance and fighting fanaticism. Second, Madan wants the
available versions of secularism to be rejected and, in their place, he would like to have ‘a modern
secularism appropriate to the cultural context of India’.
Ashish Nandy has made a flamboyant and sweeping attack on Modernization. He distinguishes
religion as faith from religion as ideology. Religion as faith is ‘a way of life, a tradition which is
definitionally non-monolithic and operationally plural.’ Religion as ideology, on the other hand, is a
‘subnational, national, or cross-national identifier of populations contesting for or protecting non-
religious, usually political or socio-economic, interests’. Modernization produces religion as ideology
and then generates secularism to meet its challenge. Nandy says modern scientific nationalist
secularism is in crisis. He says that in places where religion has immense importance it is not possible
to make religion a matter of private preference. Religion inevitably enters public life through the back
door, and this leads to communalization of politics. On the other hand, Nandy observed, secularism
has turned into an intolerant ideology with modernization, development, scientific growth and nation-
building as its allies or constituents. This secularism alienates believers and breeds both old and new
kinds of violence.
Like Madan, Nandy also wants the rejection of secularism and inclusion of notions of tolerance
existing in different faiths of India. Nandy says that there exist two notions of secularism. One is the
standard Western one which keeps religion out of politics. The second alternative, non-Western
secularism must have space for continuous dialogue among religious traditions and among the
religious and the secular. This Nandy felt might lead each of the major faiths in the region to include
within it an in-house version of other faiths which in turn will encourage internal criticisms and
remind one of the diversities in the theories of transcendence.
Madan and Nandy make an effective critique of hysterical anti-religiosity and the hyper-substantive
secularism which excludes religion from public life. They would not like to privatize religion and
rationalize politics. They criticize secularism for being invalid in circumstances where religion is of
immense importance to people.
Gandhiji was a deeply religious man. In his My Experiments with Truth he wrote, ‘My devotion to
Truth has drawn me into the field of politics… those who say that religion has nothing to do with
politics, do not know what religion means.’ He even called the non-cooperation movement ‘a
religious, purifying movement’ and ‘a religious effort’. Politics cannot be divorced from religion as he
wanted religion to pervade every action of human beings. However, after witnessing the blood
drenched partition riots, in his later years, he too reaffirmed separating religion from state and that
religion should remain a personal affair.
Nehru, on the other hand, was without religious faith but not without religious feelings. He
appreciated the values of religious epics in the life and culture of India.