Professional Documents
Culture Documents
-For the leftists or the liberal historians, the story is about the precolonial
golden age of Hindu Muslim Amity. They talk about a composite cultural
tradition, especially in art, music and architecture. There is no conflict
between the two communities.
1. Historical Antecedents
There exist two contradictory perspectives on the basic conflict between the
religious traditions in India.
ii) those whose relationship with the dominant Hindu tradition was marked by
confrontation and whose adherents are tolerated but not accepted. For
example-Islam and Christianity.
·2 honorific names
There is also evidence in the Sanskrit literary sources that when words like
tajika,saka,yavana,mleccha, which later came to be interpreted as denoting a
hateful and externalised representation of Muslims, came to be used, they did
not carry the impression of the emergence of a single, common enemy.
Rather, they are represented as one among many claimants in a situation of
intense and constant competition.
By the 13th century the modes of representation on the Muslim side begin to
change just as they did on the Hindus side. The great diffuseness of
representations which characterised the early mediaeval period slowly begin
to collapse under the weight of the growing contest over power and
sovereignty. Clearly, these changes in representations and self-perceptions
took place as a result of the social upheaval precipitated by the shifts in
sovereignty and power relations.
2. Firstly, there did not exist within Hinduism a well worked out theory or
practice. The culture of the low castes incorporated forms of worship in
practice different from that of the high castes, leading to a
fundamental dichotomy between notions of Sanskritic and popular
Hinduism.
b. In case of Islam, apart from the fact that it had put up the staunchest
resistance and thus was intolerant and aggressively political, other
arguments put forward were:-
One could believe that the colonialists were responsible for driving a wedge
between Muslims and Hindus when in reality such a wedge among them had
not historically existed. And there is a long tradition in the Indian historical
writings that says so. They give examples of a variety of administrative and
legal measures-classification of people into communities in the census,
separate electorates based on religion and enactment of legislations which
sought to freeze cultures and communities as seamless, ahistorical essences.
These measures did contribute to the consolidation of the religious
communities, but it would be wrong to ignore the fact that the initiative for
these measures to be adopted or legislated came actually from the social
actors within the principal religious communities. Also there were factors such
as unfolding of a distinct historical trajectory of modernity and modern
political institutions, the discourse of Indological and Islamic orientalist
thought, and the construction and transformation of contesting religious
identities greatly facilitated by the on set of new means and modes of
communication in a particular social historical context.
There are two ways of looking at the urge for the recognition of religious
identities in colonial India:-
Main feature of religious traditions and cultures has always been that they
have stood still and yet been responsive to change. A religious tradition and
culture is a living thing, a process involving communication and cross-
fertilisation. Therefore, a cultural or religious group is never a uniform entity
but breaks down instead into different cultural subunits that are themselves
undergoing change. Thus, although the fact is being different is at the heart
of every group's identity, on the other hand every group contains individuals
who share many points of resemblance with people in other groups. The
distinctions between one's own and others' identity often becomes a matter
of degree or place in the same continuum.
·14 put names to ourselves and others, so we are able to form some idea
of who we are and what the people are
·15 asserting the place we occupy along with other people in the society.
One way of understanding the readiness with which the colonial and
orientalist constructions of Hinduism and Islam came to enjoy widespread
acceptance is to see that those constructions could be harnessed for the
purpose of creating solidary political communities in a context where
contestations over power were becoming central.
·17 Once Muslim rule had collapsed and British rule had been firmly
established in India, elite sections among Hindus and Muslims
considered each other as the reference group, and not the British who
were regarded as a distal superior group with a positive social identity
and therefore not comparable.
·19 Power hungry leaders on both sides drew upon the colonial
constructions of religious traditions to change perceptions, stereotypes
and consolidate communal identities to turn the reservoir of potentially
explosive energy to their advantage and exploit it for their purpose by
appealing to such mystical concepts as patriotism, religion and
religious identity.
"in spite of the fact that the British Raj was economically exploitative,
funnelling wealth out of the country, whereas during the Muslim rule wealth
stayed within, the latter evokes hostility not due to the former. Political
subjugation and economic exploitation played less of a role in determining
the Hindu reaction because the hindu collective identity was crystallised
around shared religious symbols rather than based on political or economic
structures. Muslims were perceived to be outragers of Hindu religious
sentiments and mockers of their faith whereas the British(read Christians)
were indifferent. Granted that the British too ate beef but that they were too
few and carried out their private lives hold up in bungalows and barracks
which were shielded from public scrutiny by high walls and thick hedges. In
contrast, the Muslim lived cheek by jowl with the Hindu. The proximity
created potential for the emergence of new cultural and social forms but also
occasioned simmering resentment and fiction".
Secularism was adopted after independence as a policy frame for future India
in order to tide over the deep religious and communitarian animosities and to
create a common civic space for everyone to coexist as equal citizens of a
modern nationstate.
It was precisely because secularism had no roots in Indian social history that
a basis had to be found for it when nationalist sentiment started emerging in
the country. This basis was discovered in the tradition of tolerance and
accommodation which had always been a feature of Indian social life. It could
also be claimed to have a contingent linkage with secularism as it evolved in
Europe. One contingent feature of European social order after secularism
became established was tolerance. It is this feature of secularism that could
be linked to the Indian historical experience to claim that secularism had its
roots in Indian social history and culture. Otherwise, any claim that
secularism was rooted in India could not be sustained.
After India achieved independence, Indian leaders bega proclaiming that the
edifice of the Indian state would be raised on the principle of secularism. This
could have meant two things:-
·22 it could have meant that the state would start restructuring indian
society in a manner that the secular principle established in the
European context would be translated into Indian social life.
·23 It could have meant that the state would be run along the principle of
tolerance which long political experience had established to be a good
principle of governance.
Which of the two paths would India choose during the process of
development was never clarified. Why?
·25 Taking the first path would have been strategically wrong or would
have been rejected right at the start.
·26 on the traditionalist and religious fundamental side, the critics have
claimed that the secular idea as enshrined in the Constitution
undermines religion or negates its positive role in ordering life.
·27 On the secular liberal side, the critics have been inclined to fault
secularism for its foreignness to the distinctively indigenous genius
which rejects the dichotomy of the religious and the secular or
encompasses both within a common framework for life.
Both sets of criticisms are off the mark in that they take the European
conception of secularism and foist it on the Indian soil merely in order
to attack it. The criticism would have been justified if political
leadership had explicitly outlined that it was the European conception
of secularism that they were adopting. Under the circumstances, the
mounting criticism of secularism on the grounds of its foreignness to
the Indian genius or its negation of the positive dimensions of religion
amount to shadow boxing, where what is attacked does not even exist.
·29 Muslims and a few other groups were initially quite sceptical.
Later they rejected it claiming that it carried the potential to
deny them basis for the preservation of their cultural
distinctiveness and religious integrity. Finally, they recognised
the positive role of secularism and accepted it with a view to
using it to their advantage wherever possible. Muslims are
enthusiastic and demanding that the state and others act in a
secular fashion but are reluctant to insist that secularism be
adhered to when members of the own community act in ways
that seem to undermine secularism. There is no clear
recognition among Muslims that the claims of the secular state
and society impose limits and they cannot simply take it as
given but have a responsibility to play a role to strengthen it.
What meaning is finally given to secularism in India holds the key to its
future viability as a nation. Therefore let us outline the direction along
which the search for meaning might proceed.
9. on the one hand, there are vast rural masses and urban poor as
well as middle classes who go through the rituals of performing
their daily prayers and invoking divine intervention whenever
they are hit by crises. Large crowds found at religious gatherings
are clear evidence that religion still enjoys a tight hold over
people. At the same time however, the number of those who
indulge in daily prayers and invoke divine intervention is also
slowly shrinking. Further, religious rituals are being transformed
into acts that make at best an instrumental use of religion for
this worldly purposes.
Conclusion:_