Minorities
on the Margins: The Practice of Secularism in Independent India
by
Dr.T.K.Oommen, Emeritus Professor,
I
The Republic of India India India whose religion is often a mixture of their
original religion and the one they have been inducted into or converted –
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism; (2) the earliest migrant population,
the Aryans, whose entry to India
There are also five non-Indic
religions present in India India ,
was one of the three areas (the others being Egypt
and Ethiopia North India spanned
between the eight and eighteenth countries and the Indian sub-continent became
the largest Muslim concentration area in the world. Even after the partition of
the sub-continent into India
and Pakistan in 1947 and Pakistan and Bangladesh
in 1972, India India India
It is clear from the above description
that the religious diversity of India
The least problematic category is that
of the migrant religions whose descendents constitute small numbers; the number
of Jews did not exceed 26,000 in India
even at the peak of their growth (Strizower 1971); they did not proselytize and
there is no case of their persecution although most of them left for Israel India ; they did not proselytize and vigorously
participated in the anti-colonial struggle against the British, which rendered
them highly acceptable in India India
Christianity is widely perceived as a
colonial transplant in India ,
the historical fact that pre-colonial Christianity existed in India India
The main reason for insecurity faced
by Christians is conversion activities by Christian missionaries mainly Indian
and a few foreign. Although the constitution of India
Hindu militant attacks on Christians
usually take the following forms: physical attacks on Christian priests, rape
of nuns, destruction and desecration of worship places and burning of Bibles.
The occurrence of such incidents increased drastically since 1997, when BJP was
the ruling party, although they were not totally absent earlier. The then Home
Minister of BJP-led government Shri L. K. Advani admitted in Parliament that
there were 400 attacks on Christian priests, nuns and Churches between 1998 and
2000, which continue since. Thus in May 2007 physical attacks on priests were
reported from 11 out 32 states in India
While conversion to Christianity is
stigmatized as ‘harvesting of souls’, re-conversion to Hinduism is labeled as
ghar wapsi (returning home). Some politicians attempt large=scale mobilizations
for re-conversion. Thus one Member of Parliament claimed that in 1999 alone
165,000 persons were reconverted. The Christian converts are also persecuted
and punished. The illustrate, in the state of Orissa, 157 Christian houses were
set ablaze in one village in 1999; in 2003 seven women converts were tonsured
in another village and 15 Christian homes were burnt in yet another village in 2005 (Mander 2007:12). While such actions
are hailed a ‘natiand ‘patroitic’, the Hindu militants designate conversions to
Christianity as ‘anti-national’ and ‘unpatriotic’.
Muslims constitute the largest
religious minority in India India , Jammu
and Kashmir India
live in four states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra .
In another five states their presence is substantial. In spite of the huge
numbers Muslims in India
First, Muslim emperors and kings ruled
over India for 700 years and when British colonizers replaced them, they
experienced a terrible loss of power. Second, the partition rendered them a
truncated community, divided between India ,
Pakkistan and Bangladesh India
The relations between Hindus and
Muslims are tense which often manifest in what are called ‘communal riots’.
While the communal riots are not confined to Hindus and Muslims the
overwhelming majority of the conflicts are between these two religious
communities. According to the data available from the Ministry of Home Affairs,
Government of India, there were 797,576 riots between 1971-80, which works out
to be 13.07 annual incidents per 100, 000 populations for the decade. For the period 1989-98 there were 792,393
communal riots, which means there were 11.0 incidents per 100,000 populations
during the decade. (see, Oommen 2005). In spite of this free India
The minority communities also express
their dissent and disenchantment through their representation made to the
National Minority Commission (NMC), set up by the Government of India in 1978,
The NMC recognizes six religious
communities as minorities, three of them non-Indic (Muslims, Christians and
Zoroastrains) and three Indic (Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains). The
complaints/representations are received both from individuals and minority
religious organizations. From 1987-88 to 1994-95, that is for a period of six
years, NMC received 2103 complaints which works out to be 350 per year. For the
year 1999-2000 to 2002=03, that is for the period of three years a total of
7874 complaints were received which works out to be 2625 per year, registering
an annual increase of 7.5 times! (The data for the years 1996-97 to 1998-99
were not available). How can one explain this steep increase in complaints/representations?
While it is not possible to provide
any casual explanation for this increase it may be noted that during the first
period under reference the parties in power were those, which endorsed the
Indian principle of secularism (see below). In contrast during the latter
period (1998-2004) the Government was a coalition led by the party, which
believe in establishing a Hindu Rashtra (nation-state). The kind of complaints
were indicative of this bias: non-recognition by the Government of minority
managed institutions, unlawful interference in minority managed institutions,
refusal of Government to establish institutions in areas inhabited
predominantly by minorities constituted one type of complaints.
Discrimination in admissions,
employment, disbursement of loans, allotment of land and houses and similar
other entitlements were another type of complaints. Situations which created
law and order problems such as encroachment of land belonging to worship
places, grave yards, attack on clergy, attack by anti-social elements,
defamation and denigration of minorities, publication of literature offending
religious sentiments constituted a third set. Inadequate and/or different rate
of compensation for riot victims, harassment by police and administration,
denial of legal rights and civil liberties, humiliation and victimization of
Muslim women, formed the fourth set of complaints. Representations relating to
denial of religious and cultural rights such as restriction on freedom of
worship; use of preferred language was yet another type. While, denial of
promotions, arbitrary transfers, non-payment of salaries, adverse confidential
reports were the complaints by employed persons, institutions complained about
restrictions to receive foreign funds.. The complaints/representations relate
to the behaviour of state bureaucracy and/or unruly elements in society. The
conclusion that emerges from this analysis is that if the Government is
indifferent to the welfare of minorities and is not committed to treat them
equally, marginalization will increase.
While much of the tension exists
between militant Hindus and non-Indic religious minorities, particularly Islam
and Christianity, it is not exclusive to them. Of the three Indic minority
religions, two are very small in size – (Jains 0.5%; Buddhists 0.7 %) –
although they existed for 26 centuries in India and are dispersed all over the
country. In contrast, Sikhism, the youngest Indic minority religion accounted
for 1.9 per cent in 2001 and counts nearly 20 million. The fact that Sikhs are
in majority in the Indian state of Punjab
(63%) and that they are a speech community (Punjabi, written in Gurumukhi is
their ecclesiastical language) provides them with enormous political clout,
which emboldened a section of them to initiate a secessionist movement
demanding a separate sovereign Sikh state. However, this is not to suggest that
Sikhs are united in their resolve to separate from India
It is clear from the above analysis
that the co-existence of three major minority religions-Islam, Christianity and
Sikhism-is fare from harmonious with the majority religion of India India India India
Table 1
Distribution
of Religious Communities in India
Majority-Minority
Status ** (1998-99)
|
Communities
|
Majority
|
1st
Minority
|
2nd
Minority
|
|
Hindus
|
26
|
5
|
1
|
|
Muslims
|
2
|
16
|
11
|
|
Christians
|
3
|
6
|
10
|
|
Sikhs
|
1
|
2
|
4
|
|
Buddhists
|
nil
|
2
|
4
|
|
Jains
|
nil
|
nil
|
2
|
|
Zoroastrians
|
nil
|
nil
|
nil
|
* Only six religious
minorities are recognized, the non-recognized
religious minorities are Jews and Baha’is.
** Data
obtained from the National Minority Commission, India
It is necessary to indicate here the
attitude of the organized segment of Hindus, indeed the functional equivalent
of “Church”, which is absent in Hinduism, towards the minority religions. The rationale
of dividing the religious minorities of India territory
of India
The religious minorities of Indian
origin are encapsulated into Hinduism through a process of expansionism, which
dismantles their identity. Thus Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are considered as
Hindus. While the first two protest mildly, the Sikhs are considered as Hindus.
While the first two protest mildly, the Sikhs are vociferous in their protests.
To mollify them the following explanation is put forward: ‘Sikhs are Hindus in
the sense of our definition of Hindutva and not in any religious sense
whatever… We are Sikhs and Hindus and Bharatiyas (Indians). We are all three
put together and none exclusively’ (Savarkar 1929:125) Another RSS ideologue,
on the other hand, insists:
… the foreign races (read, followers of non-Indic religions) in
Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to
respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those
of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of Hindu Nation and
must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in
country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation claiming nothing, deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treatment-not even citizens rights.
(Golwalkar 1939: 47-48) … in this country, Hindus alone are National, and the
Muslims and others (i.e. Christians and followers of other non-Indic
religions), if not actually anti-national, are at least outside the body of the
nation (Golwalkar 1939:53).
The vision of Golwalkar persists to
this day. On Feb.12,2006 K.S. Sudarshan, the then chief of RSS observed:
‘…because we can’t throw out Muslims and Christians
Into the sea, we have to Indianise
them’. On September 18,2006 he warned: ‘Hindus should awaken and search for
their true identity to defeat the evil forces (read Muslims and Christians) who
are trying to annihilate their (Hindu) culture’. Another senior RSS leader said
on February 19th 2007 ‘Our aim is to develop a solid Hindu vote bank
by the 2009 Lok Sabha (Parliamentary) elections. No political party will be
able to ignore Hindus’ concerns. No political party will be able to ignore
Hindus’ concerns if it wants to do well in the elections’. (see Noorani
2007:10). Indeed even ‘secular’ political parties rarely dared to interrogate
these statements, let alone contradict them, in spite of their frequent claim
to be secular. This externalization of fellow citizens of ‘alien; faiths is
absolutely dysfunctional for the co-existence of religious communities within
the secular Indian polity.
The response of the religious
minorities, particularly Muslims, the most numerous and problematic one, too is
not very conducive to co-existence. Thu Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan , observed in 1940: ‘The history of 1200
years has failed to achieve unity and has witnessed, during the ages, India Pakistan
… a Muslim, when he is converted …
becomes an outcaste … (untouchable) and the Hindus cease to have anything to do
with him socially, religiously and culturally… It is more than a thousand years
that the bulk of the Muslims have lived in a different world, in a different
society, in a different society, in a different philosophy and a different
faith (1960:230).
Thus viewed the partition of India
The Hindu Doctrine of Creation divides
the believers into four varnas-Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Shudras – and
places them in a hierarchy based on the principle of ritual purity and
pollution. While the four varnas are ritually pure, although of differing
intensity, those labeled as ‘untouchables’ were placed below the ritual
pollution line and hence were treated as permanently polluted. The theory of
Karma and Reincarnation provides not only the rationale for the vertical
placement of the varnas in the hierarchy but also provides the required escape route
from it. That is, those who adhere to one’s duty according to his varna
It is important to emphasize here that
all religious groups in India India India
II
The Republic of India
Instead of declaring Hinduism as its
official or national religion, the Indian state opted for secularism as its
guiding principle, the meaning of which differ from that in the West. In the
West, secularism is used in three different senses depending upon the context.
They are: one, separating man and society from the transcendal and divine; an
institutional manifestation of which is separation of state and church. Two,
institutionalizing rationality through a process of displacing religiosity; the
claimed onward march of rationality in the West is often cited as a proof of
this. Three, relegating religion to the private realm of human activity;
retreat of religion from the public space is pointed out as an indication of
this. One can argue that none of these ideas can be translated into practice
and/or they are actually not practiced in the West. But that need not detain us
here because the present concern is to highlight the idea of secularism as
enunciated in the Indian Constitution and to understand how far is it helpful
for the co-existence of religions with equity and dignity.
The 1950 Constitution of India India India
There are two sensessubo in which the
term secular is invoked in the Indian Constitution First, the state should give
equal respect to all religions and second, the state should keep equal distance
from all religions, that is, the state should not discriminate based on
religion. (Madan 1997) Given India India
The lack of consensus about the
concept of secularism within the political community and civil society make it
extremely difficult to practice secularism. The idea of equal respect for all
religions is a sentiment, which can be nurtured in civil society, promoted
through the media and internalized through school concept the prospect of
inculcating the value of secularism is bleak. (Oommen 2004:333-54) The advocacy
of the idea of equal respect for all religions even by Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, the ‘Father of the Nation’, did not find universal endorsement. A
democratic state cannot ensure the inculcation of contested sentiments, through
the legislative weapon.
The second Indian interpretation of
secularism that the state should keep equal distance from all religions is a
structural possibility. There are two possible versions of this: one, the state
should not interfere in the internal affairs of religions unless they cause law
and order problems or violate constitutional principles and two, if the state
does intervene, it should do so in the case of all religions. But the Indian
state does not adhere to either of these possible versions. A few illustrations
will help understanding the pattern of state behaviour.
Indian Constitution envisions a
uniform civil code (UCC) for all religious communities. And yet the Hindu Code
Bill (HCB), an instrument of reforms, introduced in the 1950s defined Hindus expansively
to include Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs as I have noted above. But on-Indic
religions-Islam, Christianity, Zorastrians etc. – were excluded from the ambit
of the Bill. The arguments put forward to justify this inclusion and exclusion
were two. First, the state should allow the minority religions to sort out
matters of reform internally, but the argument conveniently forgot that
Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism are also minority religions. The second argument
was that the religions of non-Indic origin resist reforms introduced by the
state. But the conservative elements among Hindus and Sikhs did strongly oppose
the HCB. What is important for the present purpose is to under line the fact
that the Indian state also endorses the division between Indic and non-Indic
religions, even if unwittingly, as Hindu nationalists.
The non-intervention by the state as a
reformer in the case of non-Indic minority religions was /is a political act
which has two aspects. One, possible adverse reactions from those foreign
countries which are predominantly populated by Muslims and Christian. Two, the non-Indic
religious minorities, particularly the conservative elements among Muslims
would have indulged in violent protests, which could not have been easily
controlled. Whatever the reasons alluded to, to intervene as a reformer in the
case of some religions and exclude others from this process, undermines the
constitutional understanding of secularism.
My second illustration relates to the
policy of protective discrimination. Given India
The change of religion did not always
succeed in eliminating castes. He converts carried with them their castes and
occupations to the new religions… to deny them constitutional protection of
reservation solely by reason of change of faith or religion is to endanger the
very concept of secularism…(Supreme Court, 30th November 1992).
The National Commission for Religious
and Linguistic Minorities (NCRLM) appointed by the Government of India came
into force on 22nd February 1978. In 1988 the linguistic communities
were put outside the ambit of the Commission. And, in 1992 statutory status was
conferred on the national commission for religious minorities (NCM). The
Commission submitted its report dated May 21, 2007. It argued for de-linking
Scheduled Caste status from religion and makes it religion neutral. The
Commission observed:
…as the Constitution of India
guarantees freedom of conscience and religious freedom as a Fundamental Right,
once a person has been included in a Scheduled Caste list a willful change of
religion on his part should not affect adversely his or her Scheduled Caste
status as that would in our opinion conflict with the basic constitutional
provisions relating to equality, justice and non-discrimination on religious
ground…
That the Indian state does not adhere
to the constitutional understanding of secularism in spite of the
pronouncements of the Supreme Court of India and NCM is thus amply evident.
As I have noted above the Indian
Constitution provides for the right to propagate one’s religion. Propagation of
religion can and often it does, lead to conversion. It is important to recall
here that the most ancient religion, which expanded through proselytization and
became a world religion, is Buddhism, an Indic religion. And yet conversion is
not looked upon with favour in India India
In contrast, when a few hundred
persons convert to Islam or to Christianity the state intervenes to stop them
usually at the instance of the Hindu militant organizations. The ostensible
reason for such interventions is to maintain law and order. But the state
action puts in jeopardy the constitutional right of professing their faith by
those Indian citizens who belong to non-Indic religions. The sate officials
often entertain the accusation of using fraudulent means into service and these
may not be altogether absent. Although the existing legal provisions provide
for restraining the use of fraudulent means, it is the breakdown of law and
order, which is invariably caused by Hindu militants that occasion state
intervention. In fact, several provincial states in India
The position taken by the Indian state
in the three contexts – the expansionist definition of Hinduism followed in the
Hindu Code Bill, the selective application of the policy of protective
discrimination and intervention to stop conversions – is precariously proximate
to those taken by Hindu nationalists, who draw their ideological orientation
from RSS. Perhaps this pragmatic
approach is a reflection of the fact that Hindus constitute 82 per cent of India
III
I have suggested at the outset that
religious minorities in India
may be broadly categorized into two – India
Given the extremely small size and the
tendency to leave India India
The marginalization of the three Indic
religious minorities follows a different route. They are defined as Hindus for
certain purpose such as the Hindu Code Bill. This constitutional emasculation
of their religious identity is in tune with Hindu expansionism advocated by the
Rasshtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS). On the other hand, the Scheduled Castes
(SCs) among Sikhs and Buddhists are empowered through their inclusion in the
Presidential Order 1950, though amendments in 1954 (to include Mazbhi Sikhs)
and in 1990 (to include Neo-Buddhists). Incidentally there was no opposition
worth the name to these amendments by the representatives of the majority
community neither inside nor outside the Parliament. Thus the state policies of
diffusing the distinct religious identity of India’s religious minorities and
the empowerment of weaker elements (these of SC background) among them are in
consonance with the value-orientation
proferred by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological slant namely
Hindutva enunciated by RSS. Indian
secularism which promises the preservation of identity to religious minorities
is not practiced in its letter and spirit even with regard to Indic religious
minorities.
The other category of minorities which
follows non-Indic religions are Muslims and Christians who are marginalized on
four counts: identity, equality, security and hence dignity. While
constitutional provisions de exist for preservation of identities of these religious communities through
provisions of freedom of worship and conscience, right to establish educational
institutions to inculcate values they uphold and preserve languages exclusive
to them (although the latter is often an invention and not a reality) the
praxiological aberrations are far too many as I have pointed out earlier.
On the other hand, there are no
specific constitutional provisions which provide for equity to the weaker
sessions among these religious minorities. Those who oppose such provisions
argue that they will abet and aggravate communalism, the word used in India
The other source of marginalization, that
of insecurity, is applicable to all Muslims and Christian irrespective of their
class and caste status. Reference has been made to the phenomenon of communal
riots in India India
I have referred to the proclivity on
the part of Indian state and civil society to privilege the strong while
referring to the recognition of Zorastrians as a minority community but denying
the same to the Baha’ is. The same tendency is evident in the treatment of
Muslims and Christians. The numerical advantage of Muslims vis-à-vis Christians
should provide them with higher political clout. The socio-economic deprivation
of some sections of Muslims as compared with Christians should entitle them for
an appropriate share in the context of economic development and social welfare.
But the demographic disadvantage and limited political bargaining capacity of
Christians should not result in their being ignored. However this is precisely
what is happening in India
The Indian Republic India
Let me pose a few questions for your
reflection and action. Is it not an indication of collective marginalization of
Christians from their beloved motherland? Does this not point to the cognitive
blackout to which Christians are subjected to by most of the political parties?
Is it not indicative of the proclivity prevailing in India that only
groups/communities with political striking power figure in the collective
conscience articulated by civil society ad most of the political parties? Is it
not indicative of the failure of inclusive democracy in Indian society which is
culturally heterogeneous? If the answer to any of these questions is in the
affirmative if diminishes the strength and dilute the quality of secularism in India
*This constitutes the text of the 19th
M.A.Thomas Memorial Lecture delivered on 21st July 2012 at Bangalore
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