Arguably the most contested idea in contemporary Indian public life today is secularism. This is the subject of the newest episode discussion series on the state of the republic of Karwan e Mohabbat, called Yeh Daag Daag Ujala.
In this episode, author and peace worker Harsh Mander tries to delve deep into the idea and practice of secularism with two leading voices in India’s intellectual life – feminist activist and writer Syeda Hameed and philosopher Rajeev Bhargava.
What emerges is a discussion of wisdom, care, pain and hope.
The participants note that the idea of Indian secularism is modern but is distinct from various western models. It moves away from the model of secularism developed in the context of a country with a single dominant religion to one relevant to a multi-religious country in which no one religious group has the right to dominate the others.
Rajeev Bhargava speaks of “principled distance” of the state from religion, of “critical respect” of all religions, and of “ethically sensitive” engagement with the religious beliefs and practices of all people.
Syeda Hameed reflects on how the practice of secularism worked on the ground in the early decades after Independence. She shares her memories of the early decades of relative idealism and hope, when the country and its people were building the new free India.
Rajeev Bhargava responds to a critique we increasingly hear from some quarters in India today, that the word “secularism” was not included anywhere is the draft of the Constitution written and approved by the Constituent Assembly. According to this view, secularism is not an essential feature of the Indian Constitution.
He underlines that though the word secularism may not have been included in the first text of Constitution, it was central to its morality and imagination.
Syeda Hameed, as an Indian, a woman and a Muslim, evaluates the practice of secularism in today’s India. She talks about both the practice of secularism by the Indian state, what Bhargava calls “political secularism”, but also the secularism of society, of the way that ordinary people of diverse faiths and identities relate to each other, how they deal with difference.
In the end, all found hope most in the practice of secularism of ordinary Indian citizens.
The name of Karwan e Mohabbat’s Yeh Daag Daag Ujala series is a tribute to the iconic poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
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