India that is ‘Bharat’ was born as a Nation in 1947 out of the ghastly Partition of undivided India on the line of Hindu-Muslim division of Bharatavarsha at the behest of British colonial power. India formally started it’s national journey with the effect of its Constitution on 26th January 1950 as a 'Sovereign Democratic Republic'. But subsequently with the Constitutional Amendment in 1976, India is now a 'Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic'.
Although India is now a Constitutional entity, Indian society is at least five thousand years old. Indian society i.e. Bharatiya Samaj has been a continuous entity from time immemorial with its myriad differences and diversities. But the moot question is: Why this social entity continues with its cultural and civilisational legacy despite its differentiations and contradictions? The answer probably lies in ‘Dharma’ and it’s innumerable deep-rooted ramifications on the lives of people of India. Dharma as a word has its origination in this land of Bharat. Dharma is an ongoing social reality in the Land of Bharat.
As a nation, India is a secular state. But the question is: How far India follow the tenets and characteristics of secularism as practiced in European society? Of course, European society is not a monolithic entity and different European nations follow different versions of secularism as their state policy. But as a whole European secularism follows the main principle of separation between the Church and the State, following the humanistic values of the Renaissance and the ‘rationality’ of social activities as visualised in the Age of Enlightment in the 18th century. Secularism in European society relates to ‘this’ worldly life, not the ‘other’ worldly life as envisaged in Christian monotheistic faith. European society follows either ‘hard’ secularism without any scope for religious interventions in the affairs of the administration of the state, or ‘soft’ secularism with a degree of tolerance towards religious values. With the process of secularisation, European society becomes more individualistic and more democratised in religious faiths as individual choice. At the same time European society is being characterised by less religiosity and diminished collective conscience. Secularisation thus becomes a historical process in European society which makes ‘cultural shifts' in society.
So, secularism which is translated as Dharmanirapeksheta in Indian context demands a thorough critical analysis as whether secularism in European sense has any relevance in Indian society. And, if not, how the Indian society conceive and practice the tenets of secularism in its own way?
As we know that every word/sentence has at least two dimensions, meaning and point, every word/sentence is a ‘cultural construct', constituting a language, which is again an important part of way of life of any community. As Sanskrit is a liturgical language of Indian subcontinent, the Sanskritic terms indicate a unique life way of Indians.
In that sense, ‘Dharma’ doesn’t imply what ‘Religion’ means to the Western people. In Indic culture, dharma means ‘right way of living’ and ‘path of rightness’. Dharma is an aspect of ‘Rta’ referring to the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything in it. So, dharma applies to everything and everybeing including human social beings. As a path of rightness, dharma is entangled with Satya – the Truth and a virtue for being truthful in one's thought, speech and action in life. Again, as a right way of living, dharma entails ‘Ahimsa’ - non-violence to other beings and 'Anrishansata'- non-cruelty to other beings. With the passage of time, dharma became more and more nuanced, and inclusive in nature in the Land of Bharat with different connotations in the lives of the people. That is why we find no equivalent single word translation for dharma in western languages.
Now, the question is: What do religion and secular mean to the European society? Religion specifically refers to the “to reconnect” to God and “respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods”. That is why religion is related to the ‘other’ worldly life, not ‘this’ worldly life as God is presumed to be out of ‘this’ life. In that sense, secular is what is not religious, what is ‘temporal’ and ‘this-worldly’ things with it's emphasis on nature, reason, science and development. The British writer George Jacob Holyoake first used the term “secularism” in 1851 to describe his views of promoting a social order separate from religion, not necessarily dismissing or criticising religious beliefs. In that sense secularism first appeared in the West in the ancient Greece in its classical philosophy and politics, but disappeared for a millennium and half, and resurfaced in the Renaissance and the Reformation in the Age of Enlightment in Europe.
So, religion and secularism in the West have been more or less antithetical in nature. A religious person can’t be a secular and vice versa. The fundamental premise is that the religious life is based on the monotheistic faith and belief system, which consider that the Divine is ‘One and Only One’ and there is only ‘One Truth' having only ‘One Form/Formless’ and only ‘One type' of worship system. So there can’t be 'areligion', 'antireligion' or 'irreligion' as opposite of religion. Then the opposite of religion is secular in that there remains watertight compartments between religious life and secular life. So, secularisation in Western society demands “privatisation” of religion and separation between private and public life as if religious life is antithetical to public morality and humanity. And in that manner an atheist must be a secular.
Herein comes the basic difference between dharma and religion regarding the nature of reality. While dharma is an all-inclusive concept for all-things and all-beings, religion is so specific in monotheistic nature that religious life demands a very specific worldview of a religious person, who considers only a specific version of life and reality. The reality of truth as perceived in India is: 'Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti' – That which exists is One, sages call it by different names. The Truth is ‘One' but appears as ‘Many’ as per the perceptions of perceivers/observers. This proposition appears more consistent with modern scientific knowledge of Quantum Mechanics. From that viewpoint, dharma ‘not only tolerates but also accepts’ different aspects of truth, reality and life. As per dharmic viewpoint, life is a continuum between ‘this' and ‘other’ world, and dharma beholds all human lives in a meaningful way to both this worldly society and other worldly divinity. A dharmic person doesn’t differentiate between this life and other life, and considers both lives as the ‘two faces' of the same ‘reality'! Then no dharmic person can be dharma-neutral, because each and every person is basically ‘dharmic’ in the sense that dharma is an essential property and characteristics of human being, not related essentially to divinity. Then dharma signifies broadly to humaneness! So, simply put, dharma is not religion! Just like ‘Guru' is not a ‘Mentor’. So it is not appropriate to use religion as synonym of dharma to non-Western cultures. The use of religion in Indian society is a colonial imposition like so many other terms and concepts.
In the same manner, the term secularism as conceived in the Western society cannot be mechanically applied in the dharmic land of Bharat. Secularism has been conceptualised and operationalized against the monolithic and monotheistic Christian worldview which considered and accepted no other view of life and reality. The same is true for other monotheistic religious belief systems of Judaism and Islamism. So the monotheistic lands of the West couldn’t think of ‘accepting’ multiple religious faiths ‘co-existing’ side by side through generations. But the land of Bharat has been characterised by ‘peaceful acceptance and co-existence' of different faiths and practices thereof, at least before the Islamic invasion in India. So there is no point to use the term religion as the synonym of dharma and secularism as the synonymous word for dharmanirapeksheta. Instead we may use ‘dharmavishwas' for the term religion and ‘Vishwas-nirapekshata’ as synonymous term for secularism. Because, anyone can behave in ‘adharmic’ way and show ‘inhumaneness’, but nobody can be ‘dharma-nirapeksha’ or dharma-neutral as per the dharmic worldviews! Let us use dharma in general way and religion in a specific way as a faith of a person, and vishwas-nirapekshata as secularism in our national life.
@ Sujit Roy
07.06.2019
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