Secularism, Positive Communalism and the Pluralist State

Re: # 49, Sangeeta,

Sorry to be harsh and impatient. I know you are genuinely interested in locating the real problems but too much obsessed with your professors, camarades and books. Go see, if you can, what camarade Varvar Rao has to say about `principles` and `behaviour` of these intellectuals and camarades. Have some original thinking.

Don`t be disheartened, please.

Samar

Re: # 46, Sangeeta ji,

Thanks for a long post. But sad to tell you, replies were too academic and, as someone suggested, have come from JNU or some elite libraries. Naturally these are contradictory to your article as well as to your earlier posts having come from different books this time.

In (1) you appear to endorse my view that the state must intervene in such cases where basic human rights are violated by the society. In doing so its existence is not threatened against what you have said in your post #30. In India there have been many cases (don`t tell me about laws) where state, particularly with leftists endorsement, not only remained silent spectator but even connived with vested interests to make a mockery of those rights.

In (2) you are clearly going round in a circle.

`If these gram sabhas manipulate power positions and do not mirror the composition of the villages, then only the state can interfere to see that the voice of the people gets a hearing.`

If everyone honestly sticks to the law then the state loses its need to exist. Question of interference comes only when society does something against the law of the land and common good of the people. And what these gram sabhas and panchayats were doing all these years is no secret. They not only got support but rather encouraged by religious authorities to commit murders and got away with those crimes just because state feared to intervene in the religious matters. Rapists could not be arrested on religious grounds.

Much more could be said but it would be senseless because it appears that not only you don`t know much about the complexities of Indian society but even your bookish knowledge is inadequate for you to ponder over the whole scenario.

Samar

Another Ph.D. student!

Chowk, thou shalt not publish anything written by Ph.D. students!

They have no time to think through their arguments. They probably use Chowk to dump their 0th draft on any idea. Why put jus through all this?!

Darn it!


But at least SM interacts. Thanks sincerely for small mercies.

You are just being a stupid Hindu, sangeeta. The kind that hurts all, helps no one.

Sorry, nothing personal. Just call us reactionary, or whatever else worse in return. So you personally don`t feel bad about it.


(Glanced through the article again. Please make that - very stupid and very old-time Hindu)

Hello Samar,

1.When basic human rights are being violated then it is a criminal act . The state is duty-bound to stop this and take the perpetrators to trial and mete out just punishment. Here the apprehended is not a religious person but a criminal.

Articles19 and 25-28 of the Indian Constitution, for me means that the duties mentioned have equal salience as rights in the freedom of conscience and religion. If public order and individual rights are being violated in the name of religion then it is clearly not religious as no religion prescribes this.

2. Your view of the society has just turned the very foundations of Early Rig-Vedic civilization (when the works of Hinduism, unadultered by accretions, were shaped) on its head.

Imposed democracy is highly tenuos. India has had a history of accomodation inspite of repeated attacks on this. After every age of conservatism, reform movements came and these were the works of visionary people from the civil society.

From Mauryan times, village societies were powerful. Lord Ripon gave an institutional shape to the panchayat-type village councils. State cannot bring democracy to the grassroots but facilitate the working of such gram sabhas, which were already there in some form or the other. If these gram sabhas manipulate power positions and do not mirror the composition of the villages, then only the state can interfere to see that the voice of the people gets a hearing. State Election Commission and District civil and police officials have to ensure this.

Thus, for democracy to work, the state has to make its practice meaningful and not just impose it from above and be content that its work is done by thinking that it can force people to follow its tenets. This means what? It means that the state has to be above petty groupisms and must be just in its dealings and perform its welfare and regulatory functions with sincerity. It must allow pluralisms to work but at the same time the pluralisms must observe their duty not to make everything into a zero-sum equation. Further the state must be accountable to the society and the latter (the individuals as citizens) to the state.

The civil society is neither weak nor incapable of rational thought. Rather I consider a few individuals to be reactionary, rabid and hostile to difference and consider any form of difference an existential threat. They should not tar the image of the civil society as a whole. These are rabble rousers who resort to mob violence for vested objectives.

While the standard of our politicians have declined the civil society has become proactive and aware of its role to be part of reform and development. Compulsions of living in a pluralist state makes the society mindful of the need for a democratic set up.

Another aspect of state role : Laws: I would want the laws of the state to be guided by security and well-being concerns of the populace as well as, guided by the principles of the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. The law should not be an instrument by one group to wield control over another group or as a tool to perpetuate relations of privileges or discriminations.

The reason the situation has deteriorated is because of communal politics. In this sense, I abhor state interference to promote narrow interests of its support base by whipping up the communal card.

Again, I repeat, as selective reading and imputations are being employed on this article:

State must not tread into canons of faith but create a climate that fosters a feeling of belonging and security.

But if so-called religious leaders (they are guided by political motive of gains than by religion anyway) do anything that is a deliberately offensive act and hurts the life and livelihood of anyone, the state has to apprehend and punish the culprits. This is within the domain of the state.

3. As for your term of ``pseudo-secularists``, please see the origin of the term before you employ it. It is associated with those who consider themselves to be the only ``true`` Hindus, that is the RSS, VHP and its like, who are against anyone who asks for tolerance and more openness rather than defending Muslims at the cost of Hindus. Similarly their equally reactionary Muslim counterparts use the term ``saffron brigade`` that demeans a particularly holy colour and gives legitimacy to these fake priests who do not represent Hindu values. This is politics of semantics and thinking citizens must not be caught in its virulent web.

I support Secularism in the sense of tolerance and respect for all faiths and I am guided by Humanism. This is what my religion has taught me.

Regards,
SM.

Pl read as:

I still never get it that Congress gave them Pakistan by force and he still hates Congress.

Quite incongruent line!

Samar,

Yasser got his arse scarred on this fight several times & almost lost it but managed to salvage it.

I still never get it that Congress gave them Pakistan by force to Jinnah and he still hates Congress. Quite incongruent line!

Re: # 42, Folio,

Don`t mind Manto. Unfavourable outcome of partition is his favourite topic.

Samar

an independent United Bangladesh in 1947 was vetoed by the Indian National Congress...

Yasser,

Why shud anybody propose such insane idea? Why an United Bengal, WHY NOT a United India?

I know it`s the same PLOY of AIML to knock out land and resources from United India & put them under the command of Muslim majority (even if it`s slender I think it`s under 55% in Bengal)!

Re: # 40, Manto saheb & tolkinin saheb,

Don`t you think all this Bengali, Bihari Muslims, Jinnah, Suhrawary, partition thing is irrelevant to this article. She is discussing secularism, you know. And I hope she is serious about it.

Samar

Re: # 28

I find this a rather strange and sad spin on the facts of partition really. Now it is about some ``double`` whammy about Bengali Muslims and Indian Muslims.

Ironically... an independent United Bangladesh in 1947 was vetoed by the Indian National Congress... even though it had the support of Bengal Congress as well as Suhrawardy and Jinnah.

One should look at all events in entirety instead of repeating myths that have long been discredited.

Re: # 37, harimau,

It is good for Hindoos that the state is interfering with Hindoo dogmas. In fact the state is conspiring with the mullahs to keep the large Muslim population backward, ignorant and dogmatic. In my opinion the state seems more inclined towards the wellbeing of Hindoos by making them see reason, by making progressive laws for them to abide by, trying to do away with many old practices like child marriages etc. That is why I call these parties and their crony intellectuals who are ruling the Indian state secular communalists.

If Sangeeta is genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of common Muslims she will answer my queries or, if she doesn`t know the answers she will at least raise these questions at a suitable forum.

Samar

Re: # 37


Haramimau,
I had thrown you a challenge in #23 above. But you ran away with your tail tucked in neatly.

Be a man. Answer those questions....

Ref samar1982 #36

[Re: # 30, Sangeeta ji,

I have some simple questions for you.

`A state that interferes in religion digs its own grave.`

Shouldn`t the state interfere when the religious leaders clearly violate basic human rights or when they are seen to be oppressive to the innocent people of the same religion. Do you think such interference would lead the state to the grave?]

Before she comes with her weasel-worded answers out of a textbook written by JNU professors, let me give you her answer in plain English.

It is okay to interfere in the practice of Hindu religion by mandating an executive authority over their places of worship as has been done with the Hindu Religious and Charitable Establishment (HRCE) Act in Tamil Nadu.

It is equally okay to interfere in the judicial process by passing a new law called Muslim Women`s Protection Act which NULLIFIES alimony for divorced Muslim women granted by the Indian judicial system.

People like Yasser Latif Hamdani don`t know whether to condemn the latter or not. His wife Ayesha has the same dilemma. But then they will blame it all on Gandhi.

Zeena, Zeemax, etc., will outright support both actions of the Indian government; after all, anything that denigrates the Hindu religion and anything that reinforces 7th century Arab thought ought to be supported. This would put them in the same group as Sangeetha Mahapatra, the frigging idiots (both professors and students) of JNU, the Congresswallahs, the Rationalist Thinkers of Tamil Nadu, Communists, Socialists, and pseudo-secularists.

Re: # 30, Sangeeta ji,

I have some simple questions for you.

`A state that interferes in religion digs its own grave.`

Shouldn`t the state interfere when the religious leaders clearly violate basic human rights or when they are seen to be oppressive to the innocent people of the same religion. Do you think such interference would lead the state to the grave?

`Societies came before states and there needs to be a modus vivendi between the two, especially in a state that claims to be democratic and is true to its plural heritage.`

This statement itself underlines the need for the state to take proactive steps to bring democracy to the grass roots. Because the society is older it is inherently reactionary and there might be many aspects which need change and which need interference of the state particularly if it is genuinely democratic and works for the larger interest of the common people. So, shouldn`t the state interfere even when the societies impose regressive and undemocratic practices on the common people?

You may pease read my post #10 to see what I wish to impress upon you.

Samar

Dear GT...

I want to echo what Sangeeta said. If you read closely what I am saying, I am divorcing state/citizenship from nationalism/ideology/identity ... the latter being important but the former being responsible for a level playing field.

In a way both Sangeeta and I are rejecting nationalism as the basis for the state which should be an impartial arbiter.