SECULARISM in India has very different meaning and implications. India is a country where religion is very central to the life of people. India's age-old philosophy as expounded in Hindu scriptures called Upanishad is sarva dharma samabhava, which means equal respect for all religions. The reason behind this approach is the fact that India has never been a mono-religious country. Even before the Aryan invasion India was not a mono-religious country.

There existed before Aryan invasion numerous tribal cults from north-western India to Kanya Kumari most of whom happened to be Dravidians. Aryans brought new religion based on Vedas and Brahmins dominated intellectual life of north India.

Christianity and Islam added more religious traditions to existing Indian traditions. Thus it would be correct to say that India is bewilderingly diverse country in every respect - religious, cultural, ethnic and caste.

India is one country where caste rigidity and concept of untouchability evolved and still plays a major role in religious, social and cultural matters. Caste dynamics in Indian life, even in Christian and Islamic societies, plays larger than life role. Since most of the conversions to Christianity and Islam took place from lower caste Hindus, these two world religions also developed caste structure. There are lower caste churches and mosques in several places.

Under feudal system there was no competition between different religious traditions as authority resided in sword and generally there were no inter-religious tensions among the people of different religions. They co-existed in peace and harmony though at times inter-religious controversies

did arise. However, there never took place bloodshed in the name of religion.

There was also tradition of tolerance between religions due to state policies of Ashoka and Akbar. Also, India had Sufi and Bhakti traditions in Islam and Hinduism respectively. The poorer and lower caste Hindus and Muslims were greatly influenced by these traditions.

Differences between Hindu and Muslim elite began to emerge for various reasons - socio-cultural, economic and political. The British rulers adopted the policy of divide and rule, distorted medieval Indian history to make Muslim rulers appear as tyrants to the Hindu elite. Also there developed economic and political competition between Hindu and Muslim elite leading to communal tensions. The Muslim ruling elite resisted new secular education system and also could not take to commerce and industry. The orthodox Ulama, however, vehemently opposed modern secular education and declared Syed Ahmad Khan as kafir (unbeliever) as he was supporting modern secular education.

Initially Hindu and Muslim elite cooperated with each other and Syed Ahmad Khan always emphasised Hindu-Muslim unity but the competitive nature of political and economic power drove wedge between the two elites and communal tensions began to emerge. When Indian National Congress was formed in 1885, it adopted secularism as its anchor sheet in view of the multireligious nature of Indian society.

India could not head towards Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) as India was not merely a Hindu country. Muslim elite felt less secure and they hitched their wagon with the British rulers. The Indian National Congress adopted secularism, not as this worldly philosophy but more as a political arrangement between different

religious communities. As powersharing arrangement could not be satisfactorily worked out between the Hindu and Muslim elite the country was divided into two independent states of India and Pakistan, Muslim majority areas of North-West going to Pakistan.

After independence and partition a large body of Muslims were left in India and hence the leaders like Gandhi and Nehru preferred to keep India secular in the sense that Indian state will have no religion though people of India will be free both in individual

and corporate sense to follow any religion of their birth or adoption. Thus India remained politically secular but otherwise its people continued to be deeply religious.

In India, right from the British period, the main contradiction was not between the religious and the secular but between the secular and the communal. In the western world the main struggle was between the church and the state and the church and civil society, but in India neither Hinduism nor Islam had any church-like structure and hence there never

was any such struggle between secular and religious power structure.

The main struggle was between secularism and communalism. The communal forces from among Hindus and Muslims mainly fought for share in power though they used their respective religions for their struggle for power.

Even after partition communal problems did not die. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh), which is the mainspring of the Hindu right remained in existence and at its instance a new

political outfit, which was communal in nature came into existence called Jan Sangh. In independent India the Jan Sangh was the mainspring of the communal problem and it kept on denouncing secularism as a western concept alien to the Indian ethos.

Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, was a great champion of secularism and secular politics. Theoretically speaking the Congress Party was also committed to secularism. However, the Congress Party

consisted of several members and leaders whose secularism was in doubt. Secularism in India, as pointed out before, meant equal respect for all religions and cultures and non-interference of religion in the government affairs. Similarly all citizens of India irrespective of ones religion, caste or gender have right to vote. According to them there should be Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) in India and Muslims and Sikhs should be secondary citizens without any political right.

Since the BJP is a political party it cannot say so openly and publicly. It also describes the Congress and other secular parties as indulging in 'pseudo-secularism.'

The RSS and BJP, also known as the Sangh Parivar, not only reject secularism but provoke violence against minorities. Since independence several major communal riots have taken pace in India. The first such riot took place in Jabalpur in Central India and last major riot took place in Gujarat in 2002 in which more than 2000 Muslims were killed and several women were raped. The BJP was directly involved in high pitch propaganda against the historic mosque called Babri Mosque and ultimately demolished it claiming it to be a birth -place of Lord Ram.

SECULAR AND UNSECULAR PEOPLE

Now question arises how many Indian people are secular and how many unsecular? On the contrary, in the Indian context what it means is how many people are against people of minority religions like Islam and Christianity and how many people respect them.

In fact in India an overwhelming majority of people are religious but tolerant and respect other religions and are thus 'secular' in the Indian context. Even Sufis and Bhakti saints are considered quite secular

in that sense. India has remained secular and democratic for its entire post-independence period (more than 58 years).

There is no doubt India has witnessed much communal violence but only due to involvement of RSS and BJP and occasionally the Congress in some places. Communal forces are actively working spreading communal poison round the year whereas secular forces become active only after communal violence and once peace is established they become nonchalant. It is their nonchalance which benefits communal forces.

The communal forces thus came to power through false propaganda but were exposed during their five-year rule and were voted out of power, as they were perceived to be behind communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002. This confession on the part of ex-Prime Minister of BJP itself clearly establishes that people of India are by and large secular and do not like killing of others just because they are not Hindus. The BJP is today being deserted by its former allies as they realised that the people of India does not approve association with communal dispensation.

Tolerance in India among people of all religions is widely prevalent. As the ancient Hindu doctrine leads to inclusiveness and peaceful coexistence so does the Sufi doctrine. Sufism left deep influence on Hindu masses as much as on Muslim masses.

Thus the real spirit of secularism in India is all inclusiveness, religious pluralism and peaceful co-existence. However, it is politics, and not religion, which proved to be divisive. In a multi-religious society, if politics is not based on issues but on identities, it can prove highly divisive. The medieval society in India was thus more religiously tolerant as it was non-competitive.

The author is with the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, India.