The Law and Other Things discusses a judgement by the Gujarat High Court, which has held that performance of religious ceremonies such as bhumi pujan which are for the benefit of the whole society cannot be regarded as being against the principles of secularism. The PIL challenging participation of constitutional functionaries in bhumi pujan and performance of bhumi pujan in respect of government projects was dismissed with exemplary costs.
Scholars have argued that this is one the methods in which majoritarianism is colouring the definition of secularism as understood in the Constitution of India.
K.N. Panikkar, an eminent historian, in anarticle published in The Outlook, highlights through an incident in Newman College, a minority Christian institution in Thodupuzha in Kerala, the increasing religious fundamentalism in educational institutions. Th article highlights, how in an act of retribution, the palm of a lecturer was chopped off, allegedly by members of a fundamentalist group on the charge that the paper framed by him offended the religious sentiments of the Muslim students. Panikkar is particularly critical of the college authorities who endorsed this gory act of a fundamentalist group taking law into their own hand by suspending the ‘delinquent' teacher and consequently dismissing him from service after an enquiry, despite having not found any previous record of communal bias the lecturer. The entire episode shows how the college authorities played to the gallery for fundamentalist forces instead of acting responsibly and thus ultimately, harmed the cause of secularism, religious toleration and free speech.
The writer rues the shrinking of academic space and freedom of speech and expression, increase in violent incidents, indifferent and selfish attitude of management and lack of response from the public, which have combined to contribute to the steady rise of religious fundamentalism in academic institutions. He concludes, "Religious fundamentalists are on the rise among Muslims and Hindus. Permitting them to influence the practices of education has long-term implications. The most dangerous possibility is the state of social and political consciousness such compromises would produce. Compromising with religious fundamentalism, as the authorities of Newman College have done, is likely to lead the country to Talibanism."
It is a dangerous sign for future that the values of toleration and moderation, which form the basis of the 'idea of India' championed by the Constitution of India are being sorely tested and challenged by such loathsome incidents with increasing frequency. In addition to the self- interest of management private educational institutions post-liberalisation which had opened the door for rich economic returns, and hence makes them casually ignore trampling of individual rights for monetary benefits and stability rather than stand up to powerful extremist opposition, the state inaction should also share the blame for t the increase in religious intolerance. The state has repeatedly failed to live up to its duty for maintaining law and order and the watchdog for protection of fundamental rights. It has withdrawn from the public activity and left over a large space for frantic communal activity, which in fact rightfully belongs to the state acting in the name of its citizens. As a consequence, the vulnerable space has been usurped by the right wing groups, which play the communal card for legitimizing their existence. This results in their wider social acceptability in the long run, severely damaging the secular fabric of the society.
An earlier post had discussed the rise of communal frenzy in old Hyderabad for similar reasons of state inaction.
In a recent article published in Economic & Political Weekly which is available for reading by clicking here, Ananya Jahanara Kabir has presented an interesting perspective on the issue of burqa, based on her experiences in Bengal (India) in post Babri-demolition India. In the backdrop of broad identity issues, Ananya has underscored the position of that there are various versions of Islams and many colors of Muslims - there cannot be a single benchmark for what constitutes a Muslim.
On a connected note, todays Hindustan Times (Mumbai Edition) carries a book review of the book "Love in a Headscarf". It appears that this work of fiction also attempts to open portals of thinking, on the points discussed above. (TMV has not read the book)
Rekha Chowdhary (Professor, Political Science, Jammu University) in an article in May 8, 2010 issue of EPW, discusses the intersection of the regional and communal identity of politics that characterizes the two Bills introduced in the recently concluded budget session of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Legislature. She writes that both the Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill, 2010 that seeks to disqualify the J&K women from their permanent residential status if they marry outside the state and the Inter-District Recruitment Bill, which aims to ban the inter-district recruitment, are not simplistic or homogeneous issues with singular nature. The debate on both issues, instead of revolving around the effect of such change on the substantive rights of the parties that come under their purview, has been hijacked by the competitive politics of regional/religious identity, which has come to define the J&K political discourse.
The PR Disqualification bill has received support in Kashmir cutting across party lines, both from the mainstream politicians as well as separatists. The opposition has come from Jammu where it has been opposed not as being discriminatory in general but as ‘anti- Jammu’ and ‘anti-Hindu’. The debate, riding on emotive examples, has been on ‘dangerous regional and communal lines’ and has completely sidelined the ‘rights of women’. Similarly, the discourse on the Inter-District Recruitment Bill has centred on communal and regional identities where Kashmir has been pitted against Jammu. The demand was initially raised to preserve the interests of the backward districts of the state to ban ‘outsiders’ from usurping employment opportunities, but got pitted against the backward communities who have the benefit of reservation. The political parties in Kashmir, displaying regional favouritism, went on to demand the withdrawal of reservation for Dalits as Kashmir being predominantly Muslim does not have any Scheduled Case (SC) population. On the other hand, the Jammu based parties who were initially at the forefront, demanding a Bill banning the inter-district recruitment started called it ‘anti- Jammu’ and against Hindus.
The author puts these two issues in the backdrop of the increasingly ‘regional polarized response’, even from Kashmir. Unlike Jammu, this is uncharacteristic of Kashmiri politics, where the response to public issues has historically been articulated with the Kashmir’s reference to India. But now a regional aspect of ‘discrimination vis-à-vis Jammu has also been added to the earlier dimension. She attributes this high-pitched, regionally and communally polarized politics as a ‘fallout of the increasing relevance of the politics of governance and the intensity of competition’; and with parties ‘competing for the same political space, they tend to radicalize the politics and in the process increase sensitivities about identity’.
Taking an even more vicious turn, the region-based politics has not remained exclusively limited to the cries of ‘discrimination or ‘dangers of demographic change’ that diverts ‘all political energies to divisive positions and reduces substantial issues to simplistic notions of regional discrimination’ , but has also acquired communal overtones where the regional identity is often used interchangeably with religious connotations. Kashmir gets equated with Muslims and Jammu with Hindus. The arguments about the regional discrimination transcend to religion and are employed by the politicians to ‘stoke barely camouflaged communal sentiments.’ The outcome is that identity politics starts getting defined on the basis of the religious character and hence the ‘need to preserve it’.
The intersection and seamless transition of the divisive nature of the indentity politics based on regional and religious divisiveness from one form to another on any issue not only diverts attention from concerns of good governance, but also undermines the unity and integrity of the state, and does great harm to cherished cultural, plural and secular values, one example being Amarnath agitation of 2008. To quote Chowdhary, “For a socially and culturally diverse state like J&K, there is a fundamental danger in the deepening of identity politics polarized along regional and communal lines. It will not merely weaken the secular basis and plural ethos of the state, but also endanger the very integrity of the state by fracturing the relations between its constitutive regions and communities.”
In a presentation titled "Individual Rights in India: A perspective from the Supreme Court" (April 3-6, 2009) at the International Roundtable Conference’ University of Georgia, Mr. K.G. Balakrishnan, the Chief Justice of India , provides an elaborate view of the protection provided to individual rights by the Constitution of India and how they have come to be interpreted by the Supreme Court of India over the last sixty years. He concedes that it is not possible to present a complete understanding of individual rights in all spheres of public law.
He mainly focuses on the evolution of ‘religious freedom’, the interplay between individual rights, groups and governmental interests and the need to balance them. He dwells upon the ‘seemingly existential question’ ofwhether the guarantees provided by Articles 25-30 of the Constitution are veered towards ‘No Concern Secularism’ or ‘Equal Respect Secularism’ and the conflicting notions of secularism that were propounded and debates upon by the members of the Constituent Assembly . He also mentions how the Indianised version of secularism i.e. 'Equal Respect Secularism’ recorded a significant victory, though certain concerns of ‘No Concern Secularism’ were also accommodated. The allowing of religious instructions in private and partially aided educational institutions is the result of the compromise between the competing strands.
He also discusses in detail the nexus between the protection of minority rights and the exercise of ‘religious liberty’ which have been further complicated by debates on interference with personal laws of the religious minorities and the feasibility of Uniform Civil Code for them. He points out that ‘personal laws’ were not included in definition of law under Article 13 of the Constitution and hence cannot be scrutinized on the basis of constitutional principles.The clash between the ‘group rights of religious minorities’ and ‘the individual rights of the members of the minority groups’ is clearly reflected in the difficulty posed in reconciling the competing interests of ‘non-interference with customary practices’ as they are regarded as an essential condition for protecting the group rights of religious minorities and the duty of the State to bring an end to those customs that have the effect of continuing gender-discriminatory practices.
Among other issues, the presentation also deals with the ideal of ‘state neutrality’ and how its practice by the Indian state has been repeatedly questioned in the recent past. The CJI suggests that the codification of a Uniform Civil Code presents a ‘litmus test for legislative interference and codification as a strategy of social reform.’ He takes a stand that the religious freedom impedes the pursuit of constitutional objectives of strengthening democracy, minority rights and rule of law. To quote him, “It has also been argued that these western notions of secularism are unsuitable for the Indian cultural setting, but unfortunately those who have argued for an indigenous notion of privileging religious autonomy have also tended to support religious extremism. In this respect the onus has been on the Supreme Court to show the way.”
The shaping up of secularism and minority rights in Constitutional Assembly Debates has been also dwelt upon by Rochana Bajpai (Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) in an article published in May 27, 2000 issue of Economic and Political Weekly.
