Secularism–Its Effect On Society

1. The word secular as applied to the state in our constitution means only non-communal and not non-religious or anti-religious. In fact, our present brand of secularism, as a remedy to communalism or religious fanaticism, is worse than the disease.

2. It was a great misfortune for our nation that after our independence, the term secular state was translated into Hindi as Dharma-nirapeksa-rastra; it should have been mata-nirpeksa-rastra; for there can not be any society or nation without the nourishment of Dharma. We must imbibe and encourage today this age-old Indian wisdom and cast off whatever age-old follies we have inherited from the past or have acquired in the modern period, as we have to leave a better India for our children.

3. The meaning of words change according to time and circumstances. Today, secularism stands as an open license for amorality, immorality and opportunism.

4. The very notion of ‘Secularism’ as it originated in the West in not relevant to our country. It was born as a reaction to the theocratic hegemony of the Pope. But today secularism has come to mean intolerance to the faith of the majority.

5. The present phase of strident Hinduism is the backlash and reaction against constant Hindu bashing and vilification in the name of secularism. Negative and iconoclastic attempts to reform always end in undesired results. Today, secularism has become another kind of fanaticism; a horrible type of tyranny.

6. Our politicians are systematically trying to undermine the faith of our people in religion and spirituality in the name of secularism. Today, it has become a political gimmick to fool the people and make mischief and nuisance in the society.

7. All communal conflicts in India are caused not by religion but by politics and politicians.

8. We are witnessing a strange phenomenon in our country today. The real and positive concept of our nationalism is being dubbed as communal, reactionary, parochial and so on and the unscientific, reactionary and harmful ideas of territorial nationalism are being paraded as ‘Secular’ and progressive by our present breed of political leaders.

9. Actually, communalism is that which tends to aggravate the differences on the issues of castes, creeds, languages or religions and which fans mutual hatred to achieve political or other narrow ends. So long as this political type of communalism exists, it is impossible to eradicate any other form of communalism.

10. Secularism is the reaction of the people against the fight between different religions and factions of the same religion. When people got tired by inter-religious and intra-religious fights, their faith in God diminished and they tended to become secular and placed their faith in man below instead of a God above. Unfortunately, the two world wars with their devastations and brutalities profoundly shook their faith even in man in the West, as ‘the thirty years war’ earlier had destroyed their faith in God; bereft and disillusioned of both (faith in God and in man) they opted for a crude type of materialism for satisfaction of their sensual cravings during the short span of their physical life. This has resulted in inner-tensions, privations and psychic-distortions. Secularism has made them crudely materialistic, worldly and unethical and mentally unhealthy; but that can be made humanly oriented by injecting into it spiritual and ethical values and the motivations of dedication and service.

11. India is and has been always a country of free religious thoughts. Its sprit of toleration cannot die; it will never die. Though the social life of the people in India might have been bounded by rigorous caste laws, individuals were always free to have their own opinions in religious matters. That is why the heretics, skeptics, non-believers, rationalists, free-thinkers, materialists and hedonists can all live together in India without any social antipathy against one another. This is enough proof of the tolerance and acceptability of the Indian mind in the domain of inner-truths and social activities.

12. The Hindu is a born secular. He accepts the truth that different religions are different paths of coming to the same goal i.e. realization of the ‘Godhead’. To him different religions are, “like the different rivers, taking their start from different mountains, running straight or crooked at last coming into the ocean; similarly the different paths people take through different tendencies, various though they appear, all lead to thee.”

13. Religious persecution was never known to India before the Mohammedan invasion of the country; they were the first to introduce it here.

14. We are proud to belong to a religion whose watchword is not even tolerance but universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions to be true, as sometimes, toleration is deemed to mean that though you are wrong but still I am allowing you to live. Is it not blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live?

15. Many people admit that all the religions of the world are true, but they do not show any practical way to enable each of them to maintain its individuality in the conflux. That plan alone is practical which does not destroy the individuality of any man in religion, at the same time shows him a point of union with all others.

16. In our philosophy, we do not find any unbridgeable gap between the secular and the religious. Life is seen in its totality, in its wholeness. We all start with the secular and continuing our onward march enter the spiritual and discover that the secular is the earlier phase of the spiritual.

17. All true religions believe in the harmony of all religions and oneness of souls. We, Hindus do not only tolerate but unite ourselves with every religion. We gather all these flowers and stringing them together with the cord of love make them into a wonderful bouquet of worship.

18. “This religion (Hinduism) accepts the right of each soul to choose its own path, to seek God in its own way. No army then, carries the banner of so wide an Empire as that of Hinduism. Though its spiritual goal is to find God, yet her spiritual rule is – perfect freedom to every soul to choose its own way.”