Secularism and Multiculturalism in India: Some Reflections

What role does secularism have in the governance of religious diversity in an age marked by the assertion of religio-cultural identities across the world? India, with its long history of religious pluralism, a state ideology of secularism, and the ascendancy of Hindu nationalism, is a key site for examining the disposition of secularism towards religious identities and diversity. Secularism and multiculturalism are often seen as opposed in political debates involving religious minorities, notably the well-known French headscarf case. Several scholars have suggested that religious traditions offer better resources for toleration than modern secularism (for India, see, for example, Madan 1998: 316; Nandy 1998:336–7). Others, more sympathetic to secularism, have also suggested that it may be deficient in the normative resources required for the accommodation of religious practices, particularly in the case of minorities (Mahajan, this volume; Modood 2010).

Secularism as Proto-Multiculturalism: The Case of Australia

Political secularism was the West’s first attempt at multiculturalism. It was a political innovation that responded to pluralism by making room for it. Historically, the origins of secularism lie in a pragmatic response to the bloody religious wars of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The aim was to fi nd away in which different faith communities could co-exist amicably (Hunter 2008). Of course, applying the late-twentieth-century development of ‘multiculturalism’ to the advent of secularism is anachronistic and there are two features associated with the latter that distinguish it from the former. First, secularism developed from the idea of religious toleration, specifically, from a change in attitude to heresy and heretics (Zagorin 2003). Freedom of conscience then progressively became associated with a principle of equal respect towards citizens and state neutrality (Maclure and Taylor 2011). Multiculturalism typically entails a more respectful posture towards difference than mere forbearance or toleration and an affirmatively interventionist state rather than ‘hands-off’ neutrality or benign neglect. Second, as Locke (1963) made clear, religious toleration implied a certain separation between religious and political authority for the sake of both. Each could best execute its respective mission if it did not trespass on the other.

Secularism as a Double-Edged Sword? State Regulation of Religion in Turkey

Briefly defined, secularism is a political principle that aims to guarantee citizens the right to freedom of ‘conscience and religion’, as spelled out in international human rights documents (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18; European Convention on Human Rights, Article 9). Although only implicit in these documents, this right also includes freedom from religion. Secularism, then, entails the existence of a political space separate from and independent of religions for the purpose of negotiating common issues and areas of concern, so that the social and political needs of all religious and irreligious members of society may be met. This is a normative definition of a principle designed to maintain and promote peace in a diverse society. A variety of institutional arrangements may protect this principle. Within Europe alone we see several different models, as we do in other parts of the world (Madeley and Enyedi 2003; Bhargava 2005). Alongside this definition there is also another one, in which secularism indicates religion’s subordination to the temporal power of the state.

The Governance of Religious Diversity in the Public Space: Indonesia in Comparative Perspective

This chapter investigates whether there should be more or less secularism in Indonesia and particularly, since religions can be neither wholly privatised nor allowed to dominate political life, what are the best ways of accommodating it in a democratic society, in line with this volume’s overall focus. Indeed, it should be pointed out that Indonesia lived under a military dictatorship from 1965 till 1998 so the question needs to be addressed first by asking if Indonesia is a democracy now; and if it is, what types of accommodations about religion Indonesians have made and why. I come at these questions as a specialist in subjects such as authoritarian regimes, military governments, the breakdown of democracies, failed and successful democratic transitions, and recently the role of religion and politics. My writing is normally comparative, and has often been based on field research in Brazil, Chile, Spain, India, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Senegal and Indonesia.

Secularism: Public Space and Visible Diversity

Secularism is in crisis, or at least it has been ‘destabilised’, to put it in Tariq Modood’s words (Modood 2012: 145). At least, we should acknowledge there is a profound tension stemming from our diverse and contradictory understandings of the ultimate objectives of the ‘secular project’. We are no longer clear about what we mean when we speak of ‘secularism’ or, in French, laïcité. Many studies with equally numerous interpretations and even contradictory conclusions have been produced over the last two generations. The outstanding contributions of scholars such as John Rawls (1971), Jürgen Habermas (1997), Charles Taylor (2007), Bhikhu Parekh (2000), Tariq Modood (2011) and, in the French tradition, Jean Baubérot (2004) or Olivier Roy (2007) to name but a few, have been contested at several levels: philosophical, legal and religious. Secularism, from the outset, has been a disputed notion but the passionate debate about its very meaning and significance has become more and more polarised as Muslims have settled in the West and have become increasingly visible. It is as if their presence has laid down a challenge not only to secularism but also to the identity of Western societies themselves.

The Governance of Religious Diversity in Malaysia: Islam in a Secular State or Secularism in an Islamic State?

The end of World War II in 1945 heralded a bipolar world order in which the United States of America (USA)-led Western and Soviet Union-led Eastern blocs became competing pivots for global political and economic power. Notwithstanding their ideological division, which had global ramifications as both blocs endeavoured to expand their spheres of influence directly or indirectly, they were epistemologically united in the belief that the progress of modern civilisation, as palpably manifested in scientific and technological advancements that exponentially raised humans’ standard of living, would be accompanied by a de-emphasis of religion in the formal decision making of the upper echelons of the power structure. Secularisation – the term most commonly used to explain such a phenomenon – was considered to be an essential component of the modernisation ethos, if not all the more desirable as a catalyst for development. The magnitude of such peripheralisation of religion differed across the West, but has been most pronounced in Europe for the past forty years or so.

Freedom of Religion in Europe: Finding the Golden Mean between Too Little and Too Much Protection

Over the course of the past two decades, countless articles, monographs and collective volumes have been devoted to the return of religion to the forefront in contemporary secular democracies. Religion is ‘back in town’, so to speak. This ‘return’ raises the question, among others, of how to govern this new religious diversity, and more particularly whether the existing normative frameworks put into place – whether international, constitutional/domestic or otherwise – are still capable of appropriately addressing some of the intricacies that come with increasing religious diversity and with the unavoidable risk of clashes it entails.

Multiculturalism and Moderate Secularism1

The ‘post-secular’ or a ‘crisis of secularism’ is, in Western Europe, crucially to do with the reality of multiculturalism. Not just the fact of new ethno-religious diversity but the presence of a multiculturalist approach to this diversity, namely: the idea that equality must be extended from uniformity of treatment to include respect for difference; recognition of public/private interdependence; recognition and institutional accommodation of minorities; reversal of marginalisation and a remaking of national citizenship so that all can have a sense of belonging to it. Equality requires that this ethno-cultural multiculturalism should be extended to include state-religion connexions in Western Europe, which I characterise as ‘moderate secularism’, based on the idea that political authority should not be subordinated to religious authority yet religion can be a public good which the state should assist in realising or utilising. I discuss here three multiculturalist approaches that contend this multiculturalising of moderate secularism is not the way forward. One excludes religious groups and secularism from the scope of multiculturalism (Kymlicka); another largely limits itself to opposing the ‘othering’ of groups such as Jews and Muslims (Jansen); and the third argues that moderate secularism is the problem not the solution (Bhargava).

Rethinking Secularism1

Reading the essays in this collection, one is struck by the variety of ways in which different societies across the globe manage their diversity, especially the religious. Some do so confidently and with success. Some others do so diffidently, nervously, not quite sure where it would all end. While almost all of them take secularism in some form as their desired goal, they feel uneasy about some aspects of it and seek to redefine it, sometimes explicitly, sometimes by stealth. In this afterword I make a few brief remarks about the nature and limits of secularism as well as why and how it can be made more hospitable to the religious sensibility.

Nation and Religion: Dangerous Liaisons

This chapter discusses two contrasted processes that take plce in Europe today: On one hand, religion is perceived as a main dimension that organises social and political life at the global level, and, on the other hand, national identity and the nation-state is re-emerging as the main community of allegiance and belonging in a post-industrial society. I am arguing that actually both processes find their roots in the re-organisation of the political and symbolic world order that took place in 1989 with the collapse of Communism. They are of course conveniently supported and fuelled by the recent socio-economic crisis in Europe, which has intensified inequalities both within and between countries making citizens increasingly worried about their future.