Secularism and Liberal Democracy

Sorry came in late, was travelling the depths of continental Europe. Thanks to all for the compliments, I hope you understand if I cannot thank each individually. Some immediate thoughts

#3 HP
Secularism as a goal is important for states, as I mentioned, if you have heterogeneous populations, that`s the only potential way to get rid of this ticking bomb of religion. A constitution by itself doesnt make a country secular or good, the country has to buy into it, as have India, USA and many other liberal democracies. Russia (and its predecessors) regularly turned over their constitution, and if I may put it, Pakistan as well. If you dont believe in a man-made framework, then only divine frameworks will do, and then the quarrel begins. We dont want that. Is India really secular? Secularity isnt an absolute amount, but I believe its further along the secular end than on the other end. As for defining a Hindu, given the litigious nature of Indians, and the sheer impossibility of defining what a Hindu is, I am not surprised that its there. Let me ask you, HP, I know where I would like to live in, an imperfect secular country is far better than one which is not. Are you saying that you dont want to live in a secular country?

#16 afsand
We dont just wake up one day and think killing is bad, this is part of human evolution and civilisation, and for good/bad, religions have been our biggest moral compass. But nowadays, morality has transcended religion, see the UNHRC as a major example. Those moral precepts are now universal. There is only one God, but I prefer to see many. Fortunately, my lovely little religion allows me to define what my religion and gods are without blind reference and following scripture :), strangely liberating, mate. :)

#28 pmishra2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ten_Commandments_Monument.jpg
that will give you the relevant ten commandments, Mishraji. For example, ``just one God, and no other god``, a ton of legal cases have been lodged on this issue. Graven Images, etc. etc. I have a paper somewhere knocking around which traced these 10 commandments to the US legal system, will try to dig it out.

#38 dost-mittar
Well, I can see why you say that having a religiously oriented personal civil code is a weakness, but I would like to see that as a pragmatic decision. Yes, Nehru and Bhim could have been more ``secular`` but given the explosive environment around independence, I dont think being strongly secular would have helped. All that pseudo - secular palaver is now raising its head, and 60 years on, I think its time for a re-check, but softly softly catchee monkey.

#69 by rsridhar
Jinnah`s quote is relevant, the words make sense. That`s the reason why I put it in there. Its an ideal. The fact that the progeny of British India are at different levels to achieve that ideal just shows how far we have to go yet.

#81 by beady

“Secularism as a goal is important for states, as I mentioned, if you have heterogeneous populations, that`s the only potential way to get rid of this ticking bomb of religion.”

“an imperfect secular country is far better than one which is not. Are you saying that you dont want to live in a secular country?”

You are basically debating it from an emotional point of view. As I posted in #3, I personally support secularism and would prefer to live in a secular country but the point that I made and you sidestepped it is why secularism is important in state affairs. When I bring in State affairs I am asking that why a state has to categorically declare that its goal is to establish a secular society? Then the question was the vehicle that a state would use to manifestly declare itself secular. And that would be a country’s constitution. I agree that constitutions change and imo, it is better to have a living and breathing constitution rather than a dead constitution that we have in Pakistan.

Your claiming the ticking bomb of religion is the reason for having secularism as a goal may be good for India but may not be convincing enough for other countries.

Every state has its own peculiar circumstances. In the US or France, it is not really important to explicitly declare themselves secular as the foremost reason for being secular did not exist in the US of 1776 or the France of the last century, there were no contending religions to explicitly address this issue.

For India, secularism has to be explicitly declared a goal for the state but that is because of existing situation in India. In Pakistan, there really is no point in declaring that country secular in the constitution as it would not serve any purpose. The right course in Pakistan would be to just remove the references to religion from the constitution and all of sudden Pakistan is a secular country… like the US or France, there are no conflicting religions in Pakistan. It is primarily a one religion country.

Precisely in this contest that I brought up the issue of Indian constitution defining who is a Hindu. It is similar to Pakistani constitution defining who is a Muslims and when any constitution explicitly defines a religious entity imo, it ceases to be a secular constitution. The Indian constitution went a step further and it went on to define that Sikh, Buddhist and Jains are not separate religions but are part of Hindu religion.

Qoute Article 25, explanation II : “In sub-clause (b) of clause (2), the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.”

Now how is it different-conceptually- than Pakistani constitution calling Ahmadi non-muslim?

The contradiction in the Indian constitution begs the question whether India is truly a secular country. Now I want to remind you that the Indian constitution defined Hindu before it added the word secular to the constitution. The reason the word secularism was added was that secularism had to gain legitimacy from the constitution or any non secular political party or even the judiciary could have easily declared India a Hindu state.

Now the every day aspect of secularism that you referred to in your question “Are you saying that you don’t want to live in a secular country?”

Imo, in every country about ten percent of the urban population is extremist/fanatic or religious zealot. Pakistan has its ten percent and India too has its own ten percent.

There is no compulsion in Pakistan for anyone to go to a mosque five times a day, there is no religious police and there is no requirement to not to trim the beard. It is similar to India where there is no state enforcement of religion. Pakistani ten percent try and bring religion in to everyday life and Indian fanatics are not far behind in this regard. But generally both countries in their everyday life are secular. So my living in Pakistan does not reduce the quality of life for me despite the fact that Pakistan is an Islamic republic.

“As for defining a Hindu, given the litigious nature of Indians, and the sheer impossibility of defining what a Hindu is”

This, I am afraid, is really lame. If the issue was the litigious nature then the Indian Supreme Court was the place to define this issue not the constitution.

My thinking is that defining Hindu in the constitution came by way of following the British colonial laws. (I can be wrong here. I will look this up or someone else can step in here.)

HP`s # 82 and Pardesi`s # 80 together bring out an important and intelligent point that, unfortunately, is anathema to the politically correct Indians: In most cases, constitutional secularity is no big deal, and in some cases, it is extremely unwise.

It leaves one shaking one`s head to see well-intentioned Indians make a big deal of ``Sikh`` PM, Chief of Army etc. Why should it be a big deal? Some aberrations and stupidities aside, have Hindus ever been kept away from power in Punjab? Or Sikhs in the rest of India? Does anyone know of lots of others among both Hindus and Sikhs, except for extremist nuts originating-in-not-too-distant-a-past, who disparaged, or asked people to vote against candidates, based on their Hindu or Sikh religions? And would we jump up and down in pride if tomorrow a Buddhist, or a Jain becomes our Prime Minister?

One hopes not, because that would be very stupid, extremely condescending, and totally unfair to ourselves. Despite all our follies, one hopes that we have not thoroughly internalized that semitic mindset.

On the other hand, were a Muslim to become a Prime Minister or a Chief of Army etc...that would be an achievement of the people (not just of the constitution).

The key point, as made by HP, is the amount of deep-seated religious
conflict and incompatilibity (including power wielded by groups belonging to these incompatible and conflictual religious systems) that makes `secularism` really meaningful. IMO, also unwise, but that is a different subject.

HP#82:

``My thinking is that defining Hindu in the constitution came by way of following the British colonial laws. (I can be wrong here. I will look this up or someone else can step in here.)``

You are close!
The constitution does not give an all-purpose definition of Hindu. What it does is define to whom the Hindu Law is applicable. That law is applicable to all religions that took birth in India. In other places in the constitution, sikhs and others are clearly defined as religous minorities, for example, for control of their religious and educational institutions. This is why Sikhs have complete control over their gurudwaras whereas major Hindu temples are managed by the government. This is also why some Hindu groups like Ramakrishna mission have gone to court to be classified as Non-Hindus.



Beaty#81:
``Yes, Nehru and Bhim could have been more ``secular`` but given the explosive environment around independence, I dont think being strongly secular would have helped.``

Emplosive environment had nothing to do with it. If it were so, the Hindus and Sikhs would have been the most difficult in making radical changes in their civil laws. Muslims at that time had zero political clout in India and were feeling very frightened in the new political set up. In fact, Muslim laws were untouched partly to give a sense of security to the frightened community.

To address the one arguments the author makes -

``If I was truly religious, I would prefer to live within a secular state``

No state ought to shape its constitution based on what I would like for myself. If I am a thief, I would like the state constitution to include a ban on all locks and mandatory unemployment of all police officers.

To address the one arguments the author makes -

``If I was truly religious, I would prefer to live within a secular state``

No state ought to shape its constitution based on what I would like for myself. If I am a thief, I would like the state constitution to include a ban on all locks and mandatory unemployment of all police officers.

#82 my impression is that the defining of hindu is for purpose of differing civil code. in civil law, (i am told) their is concept that it must be bought by the populance it supports. the hindu civil law was what was more or less practiced by those defined as hindus, and after some debates were ok with the civil code (e.g. one wife, undivided trust). muslims (various sects) had various needs and they were addressed. its different than the admedi thingy.

jang,
Dost mittar,

Yes! I agree with that.
In Pakistan often we had to study the Hindu joint family laws and it was defined in some details. So basically the definition of Hindu in the constitution is not religious but legal and that is secular.

someone can correct me, but if a hindu gets a court marriage, the hindu law is no more applicable for warisdari etc, irrespective of religion of the person (hindu or sikh or jain, who are termed as hindus for civil law purpose).

The Indian state`s involvement of in the ``definition`` of a Hindu has a curious history. Most often it has been done to establish its `secular` credentials.

The records of the proceedings of India`s Constituent Assembly make for fascinating and comic reading. India`s secularist founding fathers were pictures of boldness and courage when confronting orthodox Hindu religious leaders, but found themselves too pusillanimous to look orthodox minority religious leaders in the eye. Consequently, they set about creating two constitutions, one for Hindus and others whom they could browbeat, the other for rest, who apparently in eyes of our founding fathers, had to be bought off in exchange for their patriotism and loyalty.

From there arose the constant need to keep defining a Hindu. In most cases, because given the beauties of India`s constitution, nobody engaged in a legal case in India, would like to be a Hindu.

I believe even the RamKrishna Mission folks once submitted to the courts that they were not ``Hindus`` and should not be treated as such. :)

HP#88:

Just curious! Is the civil law for Hindus in Pakistan the same as during the British - for example, can a hindu/sikh in Pakistan have as many wives as he wants? Is a hindu/sikh wife not allowed to divorce her husband?

jang#87:

This was not the case. There was strong and vociferous opposition to the Hindu Code Bill. Even the President of India, Rajendra Prasad, was against it and refused to sign the bill at first. It would have most probably been defeated if a vote was taken on it in the general public. But the reformists were motivated and no one had the courage to oppose Nehru. This is one thing for which Hindus can thank Nehru.

The framers of the constitution were quite aware of the need to reform Muslim law, but they thought that a change so soon after independence might be traumatic for the community; however, in the directive principles, they did ask the state to move towards a uniform civil code. These directive principles are not binding.

re:#75 by Mantolives
Why am i a hindu fanatic (the name is a misnomer really; there are hardliners but no fanatics;certainly not of the variety Islam produces) when all i have done is to post a brilliant article by a sensible writer.
May be you should take a leaf out of Ayaz Amir (my father loves to read his articles even if some of them do not make sense) and try to be more objective.
Anyway, Ayaz amir asks a pertinent question: what partition was all about if it has not changed the lives of majority of muslims in Paksitan and left the teeming millions in India more vulnerable post-partition than pre?
Sridhar

re:#80 by Pardesi
I was repudiating the sentiments expressed by HP when he brought the subject of sikhs.
However i agree with the spirit of your post.
sridhar

#91 by dost-mittar

I have some stale info on that…It may be irrelevant now but I will post it anyway.

Pakistani civil laws as for as I know them, have no limits on marriage and it is the same for any religion; Hindu or Muslims, Sikh or Christian. But Pakistan women won a great right in 1962-63 and a law was enacted by Ayub Khan. It is called Family Law or Aily Qanoon(not oily).

This law says that Muslims male can marry one time and basically makes it illegal to marry more than once. But like many other buts in laws like that…A man can marry again if he can show permission from his first wife. This causes enormous problems but there are lots of instances when women refused the permission and even more instances where the permission was coerced.

This law is not applicable to any other religion and they are basically governed by the civil laws. There is a strong tradition in Sindhi Hindus to not marry again. But I know some Hindus had more than one mistress so they flaunt whatever their tradition says in this regards.

It is common in Sindhi and Punjab for well to do landowners’ males to have more than one wife.

#92 by dost-mittar

i agree that there was dissent during constitutional debates. what i mean is there was no ``hinduism khatarein mein hain`` outcry against the civil law. in hiduism (or sikh or jain), monogamy is considered a good thing, comes from the hadith of Ramayana, and therefore its easy to enact that law. giving inheritance to girls OTOH was a more difficult thing and it got enacted later. For muslims, multiple wives comes from hadith, and threfore a civil law for single wife, especially in the backdrop of jinnah successful demand of a homeland for muslim persecution by hindus would be ``islam khatrein mein hain``.

so, rajendra prasad and othodoxy notwithstandig, the hindu civil law had wide-spread MORAL acceptance; i.e. hindus (and sikhs and jains) did not consider the law against their mores. It was not as if the hindus were capitulating against the grain of their nature for the sake of a modern nation building (rolling eye icon).

powerful men according to hindu hadith offcourse are afforded many wives (e.g. arjun, krishna, good to spread good genes far and wide). so important men in the village had mistresses, and or multiple wives, and continue to have them now.