Religious commonsense of our times

Religion in supposedly secular America and secular India Adam Ash

The current upswing of intelligent design and theistic science is a reaction against the thinning of the supernatural and the fraying of the two-storied model of accommodating naturalistic science with God. It is a throwback to the old habit of using science in an apologetic mode. In the present context, when the religious conservatives are aggressively seeking political power to enforce their theological views on public policy, there is a great danger of God entering science classrooms where He does not belong.

Indian secularism, too, bears the marks of strategic alliances between secular humanists, and those who derive their view of secularism and democracy from neo-Hinduism. What makes the Indian case interesting is how neo-Hindu reformers have borrowed modern ideals of democracy, secularism and modern science, but claimed—against all known historical facts—that far superior, “holistic” versions of these modern values had always existed in the “Golden Age” of Vedic Hinduism, dating back to the beginning of time itself. For example, the historical fact that original Vedic Hinduism was a religion of caste hierarchy—the very obverse of what we today understand by democracy—is countered by neo-Hindus who insist that the “integral humanism” of the institutions of Varna or caste is a “deeper” form of democracy that avoids the class warfare and alienation of the West.

The objection that Vedic Hinduism, in fact, valued mystical intuition over sensory knowledge—the opposite of empiricism that is the hallmark of modern science—is denied by claiming mysticism to be a “higher” more “holistic” form of empiricism. Thus, while neo-Hindu nationalists have happily borrowed liberal-secular ideas from the West, they have knitted them into the traditional weltanschauung to create a potent myth of Hinduism’s “innate” democratic and pluralistic spirit, and its “inherent” rationality. This cultural habit of strategically laying a priority-claim for “the Vedas” on whatever is considered prestigious in the West is the key to understanding both the success of India’s brand of secularism, and the Hindu chauvinism that it perpetuates.

If a “wall of separation” is the metaphor for the American model of negative secularism, the “wheel of law” is the metaphor for India’s positive secularism. The Indian model allows the state to both censor and promote the many religions of the land, as long as it does not play favourites. It is neutrality and even-handedness—dharma nirpekshta—and not indifference to religion that makes India secular. This principle is literally embossed on the Indian flag in the form of Dharma Chakra, or the wheel of law, which symbolises the idea of sarva dharma sambhava, or “equal respect for all religions.” The idea is that just as a wheel moves because all the spokes are of equal length, the Indian state will be even-handed and impartial toward different religious faiths.

Within this requirement of impartiality, the Indian state is free to rewrite religious laws of all faiths if their social consequences contradict the principles of democracy: the institution of caste, which has religious sanction, for example, was declared unconstitutional at the founding of the republic. On the “positive” side, the Indian government is allowed to provide funds—equally, for all religions—for pilgrimages, maintaining places of worship and running schools and other social-service agencies operated by “faith-based” organisations.

The Indian model was a hybrid product of secular humanism and neo-Hindu revivalism. On the secularist side were democratic socialists like Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar and radical humanists like MN Roy who believed that a rational reform of the Hindu worldview was a prerequisite for social progress. The revivalists were inspired by neo-Hindu ideas of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and others, who believed that a regeneration of the supposedly tolerant and benevolent Vedic “golden age” was a prerequisite for social progress.

The Indian model of secularism has worked, after a fashion. Probably because secularism was presented as part of a Hindu heritage, Hindu religious leaders (to their credit) did not resist the constitution’s disestablishment of the Hindu institution of caste. But the price has been enormous: the Indian state has happily played vote-bank politics with religion. For all the pious professions of neutrality, Hinduism has served as the de facto civil religion of the state.

I believe that a critical engagement with the content and logic of religious metaphysics is a necessary condition for the long-term survival of secular states. As the experience of the world’s largest and oldest democracies shows, democratic elections alone, without a concomitant decline in religiosity, can deliver power to conservative and nationalistic religious movements. In societies like India and America where capitalist technological modernisation has not brought about a corresponding decline of the level and intensity of religiosity, secular public intellectuals and scientists may have a special responsibility to argue on behalf of a secular worldview.

Observers from Alexis de Tocqueville to Samuel Huntington in our own times have noted, to quote Huntington, “countries and individuals who are more religious tend to be more nationalistic.” In conclusion, the future of secular societies depends upon the cultivation of secular culture. Scientists and freethinkers have no choice but to get more deeply engaged with the religious commonsense of our times. posted by Adam Monday, December 12, 2005 @ 10:54 AM