[nukkad] Secularism

["Mahesh chandra gupta" <>]

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 What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to 
participate in it.
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Shree Joshi wrote:

Guptaji, What is this secularism ? Please define that first.
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1. Secularism is a western concept. There is no probably word in 
Indian languages that approximates the meaning of secularism as 
usd in English.

2. In the west, there was repressive dominance of the Church over 
political, social and academic life. [Refer: Galileo's persecution 
and prosecution for saying that earth revolves around the sun]. 
This continued till the renaissance. At that time, the concept 
gained ground that the Church and the religion should play only a 
peripheral role in the lives of individuals and the nations, with 
there being freedom of thought and action without inhibitions 
imposed by the Church. This concept was called secularism. It 
meant that the state should have nothing to do with religion.

3. Indian scene has been diferent. there has never been societal 
and governmental slavery to religion. As a matter of fact, there 
has not been a Hindu religion as such, but, rather, a Hindu 
philosophy. This deep philosophy has been of a scolarly level, 
permitting intense academic discussions of divergent thoughts, a 
uniform thread in all these diverse streams [vaisnavism, shaivism, 
shakti cult, Buddhism, Jainism etc.] being deep sense of 
spirituality. In India, even there has been no term for religion 
as understood in the west.  Dharma, often used as equivalent to 
religion, has, in fact, a sense of rules and regulations and a 
code of conduct which, using the modern legal terminology, might 
be somewhat akin to natural law. In India, there has been a long 
tradition of believing that the ultimate goal is spiritual 
salvation, the means to attain which may be different such as 
jewism, christianity, islam, hinduism etc. Thus Hindus do not see 
islam or christianity as radically different from Hinduism. India 
is the only country in the world where all major religions thrive 
and are practised freely by different people.

4. In summary, secularism might have two meanings. The first is 
non-indulgence by the state in religion. This is the western 
concept. The second is equal respect for all religions. This is 
the Indian concept.

5. The western concept is OK for westerners, where Christianity is 
built around love, tolerance, penance and the Holy Trinity. The 
church stiffled society in the west, forcing a reactionary move to 
confine the clergy to the four walls of the church, denying them 
interference in the affairs of the individuals and the state. so, 
it had to be restrained. Such situation never came to pass in 
India.

6. The Indian concept of sarva-dharma-samabhava [equal respect for 
all religions]does not need any constitutional dictates because it 
is already well and deeply ingrained in Indian culture.

7. Summary--- India differs fundamentally from the west in the 
sense that spirituality is a basic part of Indian culture, the 
means to attain which is through hinduism, islam, buddhism, 
jainism, christianity  etc. A government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, has to be alive to the deep aspirations 
and culture of the people. So, in India, the western concept of 
secularism can not be applied in practice. The indian counterpart 
of equal respect for all religions has been part of Indian 
tradition, much before the west ot their common law concepts came 
into being.

MC Gupta


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