Kashmiri Pandit
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BJP's game
We celebrated the Constitution Day last week. There were heated debates around the word 'secular' and values enshrined in the Constitution. We spoke to sociologist Ashis Nandy on secularism, tolerance and the Hindu religion to help understand the undercurrents behind the debate:
SM: The word 'secular' is under scrutiny of parliamentarians. Apart from calling it the most misused word today, Home Minister Rajnath Singh made a point about how secular should be interpreted as panthnirapeksh, not dharm nirapeksh. What do the two terms mean?
AN: Secularism as a concept doesn't make sense to most Indians. It's a mere slogan. In Sanskrit it translates to dharm nirapekshita, which means you are neutral towards all ethics.
It is interesting that Rajnath Singh says secularism should be associated with panth nirapekshita. (LK) Advani is also known to have said this earlier. By using this term the BJP is implying that they are the genuine secularists and not pseudo-secularists. That's a little hard to gulp.
Panth nirapekshita is 'sect-independent'. It means you are equidistant from all belief systems. Dharm is what you consider to be your ethical conduct. You cannot be neutral to a course of conduct. Some course are not acceptable to you while some are.
A Gandhian once told me that only a demonic being can be dharmnirapeksh. Even animals have their own ethics, known as their swadharm. A snake's swadharm might be to bite, a tiger's to kill.
Swadharm is culture-independent, group-independent and person-independent. All beings have different ethics and we have to live with that.
But I, as a State, cannot be nirapeksh (neutral) when it comes to thedharm of my subjects. That's not my swadharm. I will have to take a stance.
Governments, too, have their course of conduct, called rashtra dharm.
So in this instance, I'll have to agree with Rajnath Singh. Panthnirapeksh is closer to defining secularism than dharm nirapeksh.
SM: Since dharm is a deeply personal sense of duty, this could easily be a philosophy used to justify any act of violence against another.
It is said Nazi leader Himmler always carried a leather-bound copy of the 'Bhagawad Gita'. He interpreted dharm as the need to rise above your own likes and dislikes to perform your duty towards your nation. Unfortunately, that duty meant perpetrating a genocide.
In the philosophy of dharm who is there to tell you this is wrong?
AN: Yes, that was nasty dharm! The kind that found much support globally, even from Sangh Parivar. Bal Thackrey supported it and so did many others. They failed to recognize that that was a nasty dharm.
Dharm is one of the most difficult concepts to explain. I'm only giving you a sliver of the immensity of what it means. There is really no way to translate it accurately. The decider of one's dharm is only oneself. A Jain person's dharm is not to kill. One cannot force him to kill.
Religion is far more narrow. It presumes ethics will be more or less the same for everybody.
Dharm as introduced by religion is a relatively new concept, dating back to merely 19th century.
Indians didn't initially have a religion. The concept of religion in its present sense is derived from protestant Christianity. The Indus valley civilization was a way of life and to live with our diversity is an old lesson we learnt as a civilization. It has nothing to do with Hinduism.
The need for religion came as a result of colonialism. In my enquiries I've found that in Japanese, Chinese and a huge number of cultures the word, religion was a relatively new word coined in the 19th century. We had to grapple with this new concept.
Secularism claims that religion should not interfere in public life. Each one to his own.
But no religion can stay out. All religions talks about the theory of life. So they cannot say that the public sphere is outside of their scope.
In Latin America the liberation theology has spread across the nation. It's the Christian intervention in public life on grounds of Christianity.
SM: Why do Hindus believe theirs to be the most tolerant religion?
AN: All religions claim they are tolerant. Hinduism is tolerant up to a limit. It doesn't tolerate non Hindus eating beef. Hindus could tolerate beef-eating English rulers, but not really the Muslims. Everybody has a limit to tolerance.
SM: Modi is known to have said tolerance indicates living with something you're uncomfortable with and Hindus have always practiced acceptance which is in some sense a higher truth.
AN: In some sense he isn't wrong. But acceptance isn't a Hindu trait. It is the trait of all Indus Valley cultures whether it is Indian Islam or Jainism or Buddhism. I call it radical diversity. The Indus valley cultures had the tremendous ability to accept radical diversity. We learnt to live with our differences.
Indus valley cultures had tremendous ability to accept radical diversity
Jews in Israel are known to be very intolerant but not so in India. The Indian Jews were known to be very close to Muslims, whether in Kochi or in Maharashtra.
That being said it's hard to separate religion from culture. Where Indian culture ends and where Hinduism begins is very hard to say.
SM: In your paper the Anti-secularist Manifesto you begin with the sentence about Gandhi that he believed himself to be a secularist but thought poorly of those who wanted to separate religion from politics. Why is it impossible to separate religion from politics in India even today?
AN: That's because of religion systems which dictate how one leads their public life, how to choose one's leader and with what morality to make Acts.
Gandhi, being a believer himself, was underlining that politics also has morality. People may not agree with that. Lies, for instance, are permitted in election campaigning. But that was not what Gandhi thought. Gandhi thought that politics and religion had to meet.
People vote on religious grounds despite a deep political knowledge and a rising literacy. We've been studying this since 1960, so we know that political knowledge in our rural folks and the poorest of the poor was very high.
- Ashis Nandy agrees with Rajnath Singh on the definition of secularism
- The BJP is trying to appear secular, thinks the sociologist
- Dharm means ethics; every being has its own nature
- Religion is a relatively new concept that India has had to grapple with
- How every religion has death with differences
- Why is it so difficult to separate religion and politics
We celebrated the Constitution Day last week. There were heated debates around the word 'secular' and values enshrined in the Constitution. We spoke to sociologist Ashis Nandy on secularism, tolerance and the Hindu religion to help understand the undercurrents behind the debate:
SM: The word 'secular' is under scrutiny of parliamentarians. Apart from calling it the most misused word today, Home Minister Rajnath Singh made a point about how secular should be interpreted as panthnirapeksh, not dharm nirapeksh. What do the two terms mean?
AN: Secularism as a concept doesn't make sense to most Indians. It's a mere slogan. In Sanskrit it translates to dharm nirapekshita, which means you are neutral towards all ethics.
It is interesting that Rajnath Singh says secularism should be associated with panth nirapekshita. (LK) Advani is also known to have said this earlier. By using this term the BJP is implying that they are the genuine secularists and not pseudo-secularists. That's a little hard to gulp.
Panth nirapekshita is 'sect-independent'. It means you are equidistant from all belief systems. Dharm is what you consider to be your ethical conduct. You cannot be neutral to a course of conduct. Some course are not acceptable to you while some are.
A Gandhian once told me that only a demonic being can be dharmnirapeksh. Even animals have their own ethics, known as their swadharm. A snake's swadharm might be to bite, a tiger's to kill.
Swadharm is culture-independent, group-independent and person-independent. All beings have different ethics and we have to live with that.
But I, as a State, cannot be nirapeksh (neutral) when it comes to thedharm of my subjects. That's not my swadharm. I will have to take a stance.
Governments, too, have their course of conduct, called rashtra dharm.
So in this instance, I'll have to agree with Rajnath Singh. Panthnirapeksh is closer to defining secularism than dharm nirapeksh.
SM: Since dharm is a deeply personal sense of duty, this could easily be a philosophy used to justify any act of violence against another.
It is said Nazi leader Himmler always carried a leather-bound copy of the 'Bhagawad Gita'. He interpreted dharm as the need to rise above your own likes and dislikes to perform your duty towards your nation. Unfortunately, that duty meant perpetrating a genocide.
In the philosophy of dharm who is there to tell you this is wrong?
AN: Yes, that was nasty dharm! The kind that found much support globally, even from Sangh Parivar. Bal Thackrey supported it and so did many others. They failed to recognize that that was a nasty dharm.
Dharm is one of the most difficult concepts to explain. I'm only giving you a sliver of the immensity of what it means. There is really no way to translate it accurately. The decider of one's dharm is only oneself. A Jain person's dharm is not to kill. One cannot force him to kill.
Religion is far more narrow. It presumes ethics will be more or less the same for everybody.
Dharm as introduced by religion is a relatively new concept, dating back to merely 19th century.
Indians didn't initially have a religion. The concept of religion in its present sense is derived from protestant Christianity. The Indus valley civilization was a way of life and to live with our diversity is an old lesson we learnt as a civilization. It has nothing to do with Hinduism.
The need for religion came as a result of colonialism. In my enquiries I've found that in Japanese, Chinese and a huge number of cultures the word, religion was a relatively new word coined in the 19th century. We had to grapple with this new concept.
Secularism claims that religion should not interfere in public life. Each one to his own.
But no religion can stay out. All religions talks about the theory of life. So they cannot say that the public sphere is outside of their scope.
In Latin America the liberation theology has spread across the nation. It's the Christian intervention in public life on grounds of Christianity.
SM: Why do Hindus believe theirs to be the most tolerant religion?
AN: All religions claim they are tolerant. Hinduism is tolerant up to a limit. It doesn't tolerate non Hindus eating beef. Hindus could tolerate beef-eating English rulers, but not really the Muslims. Everybody has a limit to tolerance.
SM: Modi is known to have said tolerance indicates living with something you're uncomfortable with and Hindus have always practiced acceptance which is in some sense a higher truth.
AN: In some sense he isn't wrong. But acceptance isn't a Hindu trait. It is the trait of all Indus Valley cultures whether it is Indian Islam or Jainism or Buddhism. I call it radical diversity. The Indus valley cultures had the tremendous ability to accept radical diversity. We learnt to live with our differences.
Indus valley cultures had tremendous ability to accept radical diversity
Jews in Israel are known to be very intolerant but not so in India. The Indian Jews were known to be very close to Muslims, whether in Kochi or in Maharashtra.
That being said it's hard to separate religion from culture. Where Indian culture ends and where Hinduism begins is very hard to say.
SM: In your paper the Anti-secularist Manifesto you begin with the sentence about Gandhi that he believed himself to be a secularist but thought poorly of those who wanted to separate religion from politics. Why is it impossible to separate religion from politics in India even today?
AN: That's because of religion systems which dictate how one leads their public life, how to choose one's leader and with what morality to make Acts.
Gandhi, being a believer himself, was underlining that politics also has morality. People may not agree with that. Lies, for instance, are permitted in election campaigning. But that was not what Gandhi thought. Gandhi thought that politics and religion had to meet.
People vote on religious grounds despite a deep political knowledge and a rising literacy. We've been studying this since 1960, so we know that political knowledge in our rural folks and the poorest of the poor was very high.
