The concept of secularism as we understand in India today was introduced to us by the colonial masters. This brand of secularism meant greater dilution of faith-related ethical and cultural values, rules and customs for efficient rule of the colony. This was not new to India, it was essentially a pragmatist policy that was implemented right from the Mughal emperors like Akbar to colonial British masters.
This brand of secularism is a cynical policy to achieve power or perpetuate rule. The words popularized to define secularism in India are “recognition, acceptance and equal treatment of all religions by the state”. Now if all religions are considered equal and primacy of civilizational connection of state with local dominant ‘religious tradition’ is not appreciated, this situation leads to strange inconsistencies. For example fundamental questions like - how narrow, proselytizing Universalist religions claiming exclusive divine-revealed origin can be equated with ‘religions’ that believe in divine origins and rights of all religions? Won’t it be like equating a parasite with its host? That problem is with societies where exclusivist Universalist religions are in majority. They need mechanism like secularism. Nations where majority follow inherently non-exclusivist religions don’t need such mechanism. But not unpredictably, people who need to follow such policy rarely follow it in letter and spirit and those who already practice it overdo it for political and cultural reasons. Thus the problem of intolerance has escalated over the years and secularism has lost all credibility.
Indian secularism wildly differed from the theory of secularism evolved and practiced in the Europe. It was so because the totalitarian and political role of Church in European history had no counterpart in India, where there was no organized Church and Dharma was essentially self-regulating ethical-moral structure. The colonial rulers understood and appreciated Islam (religion of previous colonial power) better. Europeans were interacting with Islam at different places in world and easily related with it owing to common Abrahamic roots and shared religious history. What confounded them beyond imagination was the dynamic, unorganized, self-regulatory and strongly uniting power of Dharmic tradition. In fact, it was time when western ideologists and their Indian informers classifying and codifying Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism etc. in the Dharmic universe.
The divide and rule policy held responsible for all problems faced by country, by pro-Government and Marxist historians is a mischievous hypothesis as it equates cultural norms and the rights of local rightful inheriting heirs of Dharmic civilization with that of those groups who for religious and cultural reasons owe hold allegiance to external invading powers and traditions. This hypothesis accuse the British rulers for sowing seeds of social disharmony and it very subtly robs the native of their rights in the country and civilization.
[ Next Page :Deconstruction of Dharmic values that were less amenable to the new economic order ]
[ Click : Ganges bridge at Kanpur by Sushobhit Saktawat ]
Deconstruction of Dharmic values that were less amenable to the new economic order
Colonialism means that some external people exploit the colony to send the gains to their native places. Europeans colonialists like the British owing to their racial, cultural and religious roots wanted to loot the wealth of Bharat which was controlling more than 40 percent of world trade for more than 2 millennia. At that time Bharat was under a disintegrating Islamic Mughal empire. The stiff opposition by a complexly interwoven, vast, populous, and very highly civilized nation failed Arabic-Islam mission. Conditions like geographic distance, Iranian state, central Asian tribes and local cultural and political conditions lead to disengagement between the Islamic rulers of India and Arab Ummah. This genuine and unbridgeable gap weakened Arabic-Islam morally-ethically and rendered them unfit for meaningful engagement with other civilizations.
The old richest nations of the East, India and China were civilizations where wealth was accumulated surplus and overall social and cultural hierarchies meant that all products were not for the consumption of oil. There was a sense of moderation built in by the philosophy. The colonialism of Abrahamic tradition that found justification of endless consumption, plunder and control over nature in religious ideas also required a democratic division of plunder. The European was propelled by a lust to conquer and control the world. He possessed almost insatiable appetite for materialist consumption and wanted Gold, Silver, precious stones, fine cotton and silk fabrics, Spices, Ivory, Rosewood, teak, Sandalwood, fragrances and all riches.
When colonial rule started spreading in India the self-reliant and self sufficient village based society was available for large-scale exploitation of natural resources. The villagers often revered trees, shrubs, mountain, rivers and animals. People live contented life with cycles of nature. Such primitive pagans required education that brought people of these superstitions that came in way of development. The native community was also indisposed for development of consumerist market.
The Dharma Shastra code had specific and elaborate rules for polity for promotion of dharmic society. Many Rajahs followed these tenets. These policies and customs were a hurdle in expanding resource base. One policy of British Raj was Anglicization of Indian ruling and urban middle class. Missionary schools and educational institutions were a handy tool in this enterprise. The aim was to modernize the natives with changing times.
[ Next Page : For creation of pro-colonialist socio-political order ]
For creation of pro-colonialist socio-political order
The British worshipped law and order and social peace not for better life of colonial subject. That was a by-product, just as milk is a by-product for the beef industry. Law and order was required for transformation isolated, self reliant independent village society model into a well connected colony for raw material source and market. Only this way they could have developed sustainable economic model for colonial exploitation. Roads, trains, public security, ships all were veins of the God of shopkeeper nation. They also took some populist decisions favoring one community and won long term goodwill.
The greedy, insecure, evolving urban middle-class took better law and order situation as a great relief. Even the rural masses earlier brutalized for centuries by mercenary rulers and plunderers relished Victoria’s rule as nothing less than a miracle.
The Chief Commissioner Sir Henry Lawrence addressed an assembly of Hindu and Muslim sepoys in Lucknow :
“524 Soldiers! Some persons are abroad spreading reports that the Government desires to interfere with the religion of their soldiers; you all know this to be a transparent falsehood. …Alamgeer (Aurangzeb) in former times, and Hyder Ali in later days, forcibly converted thousands of Hindoos, desecrated their fanes [religious places], demolished their temples, and carried ruthless devastation amongst their household gods. Come to our times. Many here present will know that Runjeet Singh never permitted his Mohammedan subjects to call the pious to prayer—never allowed the muezzin to sound from the lofty minarets which adorn Lahore, and remain to this day a monument of their magnificent founders. The year before last a Hindoo could not have dared to build a temple in Lucknow. All this is changed. Now, who is there who would dare to interfere with our Mohammedan or Hindoo subjects…?” (1)
Thus, it won't be wrong to assert that Indian politicians inherited a strong tradition of latent secularism from British rule. Even today, bureaucrats are taught that this is a precondition for ruling such diverse land as India. Possible reasons were: tolerance inherent in dharmic tradition, defeatism acquired during long foreign rule and its promotion by British colonial rule. We here argue that colonial British policy was most critical among all; for if secularism is truly taken from the dharmic tolerance (as is often claimed in popular government supported history) then there would have been no reason for suspecting evolution of majority communalism, by Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru and Patel etc. They would have tried to promote Dharmic tradition. Independence was transfer of power (of state) from the Britishers to new political parties Congress and Muslim league.
Our argument is further strengthened by behavior of Muslim leaders in constitution assembly on UCC debate. In the post partition era when disproportionately high portion was carved out of Bharat by minority Muslim community in form of Pakistan, the moral and political force of Islamic leadership was at the lowest. At such juncture, all Muslim members including progressive ones voted against UCC like some champions of conservative Hindus who obviously saw it as an attempt to further weaken dharmic values.
Thus we conclude that seeds of secularism were first sown by the British Colonialists as an administrative policy for two main reasons, namely, Deconstruction of those Dharmic values that were less amenable to colonial economic order and creation of pro-colonialist socio-political order.
1) Brown RC (1870) “The Punjab and Delhi in 1857”, Atlantic, Delhi
