A River called Religion
On Religion, Identity, Politics and State
John Samuel
The ongoing discussions and debates on issues related to secularism, pluralism and diversity need to be understood in the context of the emergence of an exclusive sectarianism, the homogenization trends of globalization and the ongoing efforts to subjugate and demolish shades of cultural, religious and political diversity. The discussions on secularism and pluralism need to be situated not only in the context of the present predominance of `Hindutva’ discourse but also in terms of the profound shift in the communicative, political and economic paradigms both at the global and community level.
While a rethinking on the ideas and institutions related to religion, identity, politics and state should be rooted in the social, historical and cultural context, it is all the more important to envision the future not merely as an ideal but as a justful tomorrow, organically growing out of today’s reality.
Power and communication are two significant factors implied in various arenas of religion, identity, politics and the state. We will discuss the notion of secularism in the context of globalization and an exclusive hegemonic sectarianism in the form of a majoritarian Hindutva ideology.
Religion is all about power, a power to communicate; a communication of power between individuals and the divine, between present and the eternity, and between helplessness and hope. Identity is also all about shades of power; and consistently to communicate those shades within communities and society at large. Politics is an interplay or dynamics of power relationships in a given time and space. There is no eternal politics. If at all there is one, it is in the arena of religion. State is the institutional manifestation of power for governance. The way power and communication is negotiated in these entirely different arenas is determined by history as well as socioeconomic context. Hence, time and place play a very important role in the way we perceive this phenomenon. The various `perceptions’ are very important to understand the interplay of power in these arenas.
The notion of secular actually emerged from the notion of time and place/context. The word secular comes from the Latin root `saeculam’, meaning a great span of time, spirit of age, belonging to time, etc. In the Indian sense, we can call it kalaatmak. The idea of saeculam was contrasted with the idea of eternity and to the idea of the other world. In other words, the idea of secularism emerged from the binary distinction between this world and the other world, present time and eternity. While the custodians of the other world and eternity were the religious institutions and hierarchies, the affairs of this world and contemporaneity is being perceived as the secular. Hence, the distinction between secular and sacred, secular and religious, and secular and divine emerged as the major points of demarcation to understand the interplay between the divinity and reality.
In the real sense of the word we need to take secular as an understanding of the here and now of power, communication, identities and perceptions. The problem begins when the notion of secular itself is being projected as an idealized abstract. Such idealized notion emerged out of the debris of enlightenment and the project of modernism.
During the enlightenment, secular and secularization were partly a reaction to the highly institutionalized Catholic Church and a mercantile state, subservient to the church. It was also very much a part of the discourse on individualism, free market capitalism and the shrinking of religious authority from the social sphere. Like many of the enlightenment concepts, such as civil society and culture, the notion of secular and secularism also ended up as a contesting ground for ideological debates. Such ideological assumptions made these concepts inherently ambivalent. Hence, secularism for the rightists is different from that of the leftists. Both talk about these concepts, from totally different perspectives.
The context of secularism is substantially different in the South Asia from that of the Western Europe. The character and the socio-cultural role of religion in South Asia are different. The process institutionalization and the character of ideological manipulation in the religious arenas in South Asia emerge from a different socio-historic and cultural stream. South Asia in one of the most heterogeneous regions in the world, in terms of linguistic, religious, racial and cultural diversity. This leads to a complex web of multiple identities that are negotiated and bridged by some commonly shared sense of socio-cultural belonging. There seems to be a perennial struggle to negotiate and renegotiate multiple identities, in terms of religion, region, ethnicity and politics. Such struggles of contesting and negotiating identities form the major under current in the politics of the region. In multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cast and multi-racial social spectrum, the idea of secularism derives validity only in the context of pluralism and diversity. This means “secularism” is not merely a political doctrine to separate or disengage the institutions and symbols of religion and that of the state. In such a situation “secularism” can be seen as a moral principal necessary to synergies our society and cultural streams in an inclusive manner. Such an approach will not only resist “exclusive hegemonic sectarianism’ and homogenisation, but also build up inclusive reformist paradigms that integrate various ethical traditions within Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikh, Jainism and Christianity.
In India itself there are at least five major streams of thinking on secularism. The stream of leftist rationalists’ stresses secularism primarily to denote the complete separation between the State and religion. The Nehruvian rationalists see secularism as Dharma Nirapeksata or the equal distance of the State from all religions. The Gandhian approach of Sarva -Dharma –Sambahava understands secularism as the co-existence of and tolerance between all religions. The two recent debates and discussions emerge from positive secularists and anti-secularists. Positive secularists are the proponents of Hindutva ideology – they talk secularism “as justice to all and appeasement to none.” Such a position emerged from the perspective of majoritinism and the so-called cultural nationalism, devoid of any sense of social justice. Anti secularists are critics of modernism and enlightenment. They question the very validity of the concept of secularism out of the context of Western civilization. Primarily lead by scholar activists like Ashish Nandy and T.N. Madan, anti-secularists question, the idea of separation between state and religion. This stream can also be seen as the post modernist interpretations of the Gandhian legacy.
The idea of secularism and secularization cannot be understood without understanding of the idea, context and function of religion. G.L. Holyoake a British Scholar proposed the term secularism in the 19th century. By secularism he meant an ideology and a movement wherein social and individual moralities are primarily determined by reason and not by religious doctrines and sanctions. Though Holyoake was agnostic (i.e. Indifferent to religion) , the torchbearer of his legacy Charles Bradlaugh was an atheist, who adopted a more confrontational approach towards religions. Thus secularism began to be seen as anti religion; anti-religious establishment and anti-religious doctrine. Later on this resulted in the complete negation of religion from the public sphere and from political arena, primarily in the authoritarian communist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe. History has shown that theocracy as well as dogmatic secularism (negation and rejection of religion) both proved to be counter- productive for any kind social transformation.
Hence we need to reemphasize the notion of secular as Kalaatmak, as the spirit of age based on the principles of inclusiveness, diversity and equal respect for various ethical and spiritual traditions. The problem is the very spirit of this age is perplexed in the postmodern condition. There is a tendency to homogenize the world using economic and political coercion and cultural consent by the predominantly Western countries. This process of homogenization makes a large majority of people economically and politically vulnerable. As they feel more and more threatened by the impact of globalization, the large majority of people get solace in the traditional symbols and doctrines of religious identity. And the reaction to globalization and homogenization get expressed in terms of retaliatory violence against the immediate “other.”
Such a reaction of vulnerable societies and countries result in a sort of exclusive and oppressive sectarianism. Such sectarianism takes various forms such as Islamic Taliban, neo Nazis, Christian fundamentalism or Hindu fanaticism. In our context, Hindu fanaticism gets expressed in the liberal language of cultural nationalism but also in a more confrontational language of destructive sectarianism.
The term communalism is the discovery of the British in the early 20th century basically to describe the relations between Hindu and Muslim communities in the colonies. A response to exclusive sectarianism needs to both at the level of critiquing and changing the contours of globalization and at the level of building up solidarity of people across communities, religions caste and creed. In the Indian context what is important is not the negation of religion but the rediscovery of the liberating ethical traditions in each religion and reinforcement of such ethical traditions in a positive and harmonious way. It is much more than tolerance – it is a positive appreciation and a creative dialogue between religions and communities in search of peace, justice and rights. As moral principal secularism can be seen as Kaalatmaka dharma , ethical principles relevant to this time and context.
Religion is like a river. It brings various streams from various terrains; it has whirlpools of illusion, cleansing ethical streams, muddy waters of pollution, and ripples of change and waves of transformation. We can’t mistake water for river.
There is not just one kind of water in the river; there are different kinds of water, changing its contours from terrain to terrain. It has a social function of transforming the barren lands of existence into fertile soil of belonging, of relationships and of meaning. Identities, both positive and negative, bloom on the banks of the river called religion. Religion is not only a river of symbols; it is a river of meaning .It is a river of perennial search. It is a river that connects a small stream to the ocean. In other words, river of religion symbolizes the eternal search for shrishti, (creation), sthiti (sustenance) and samhara (destruction).
When religious institutions make dams across the river to channel water for few, it displaces so many people on the banks of the river. While religious institutions are in the business of making dams and displacing people, communities live with a symbiotic relationship with the multifarious manifestations of the river of religion.
The party politics take water from the river of religion and process it for capturing the state power and eject the polluted residues back to the river. This is precisely what is happening in India and elsewhere. To capture political power the symbols and images of religion are used to create an illusion and a sense of security and chivalry amongst people. Such cynical capitalization of people’s identity crisis and socio-economic insecurity by using religious symbols are at the root of exclusive sectarian discourse. The two-nation theory propounded by exclusive sectarianists, the Sangh Parivar and Muslim League, represented deep-seated insecurity and identity crisis of a society at the receiving end of political manipulations by the colonial masters.
Religion is both rhetoric and a reality in India. While the rhetoric of religion is being hijacked by the political class, both the Congress and BJP, the reality of religion is more and more subjugated to socio-economic tensions at the community level.
In India, the rupture in the process of socialization influences the negotiation between religion, identity politics and state. The primary socialization that happens at the level of family and intimate circle are very much enmeshed in symbols, meaning and rituals of religion. Thus the food habits (e.g. vegetarianism), the kinship ties and perceptions about the other are primarily molded in the arena of family. The secondary socialization, which happens in the society at the level of interrelationship between members of other communities and people, are primarily driven by principles of coexistence, sharing of social space and contesting perceptions. The tertiary socialization at the level of intellect in identifying with ideology and ideas happens at a much more micro level of historical and the global arena. In the Indian context, the three levels of socialization are based on often contesting ethical principal.
Hence, the organic linkage between primary, secondary and tertiary levels of socialization is lacking. As a result of such a “rupture” in socialization, the same individual who is very progressive and radical in public sphere or parliament can be very conservative and sectarian within the “safe” walls of family. Hence, we have sectarian-liberals, conservative-liberals, mock liberals, feudalistic-radicals and communal-secularists in our social and political leadership. This tension is primarily because of the way India negotiated with modernism, English language and multiple identities. This also shows the superficial character of the process of secularization in the Indian society. The world view and perspective of the urban middle class is almost like the salad-like or chutney-like languages used by the urban middle class; the Zee TV language of mixed-up semantics (neither Hindi nor English nor Marathi) and the fragmented symbols and language of the V channel. Indian middle class is in the flux of bewildering contradictions that create identity crisis and political paranoia.
The Indian Constitution is a typical product of the tertiary socialization of the intellectual class wherein their secondary and primary socialization are not in congruence with the ideals of the constitution. So we have a secular socialist Constitution and a highly religious and feudal civil society. The State is being sandwiched between the ideal Constitution and contradicting and contesting forces within the civil society. On the one hand the Indian State is a reflection of the ongoing contradictions and sectarian contests. And on the other hand it is the terrain that is being torn between an ideal Constitution and opportunistic political alliance.
Hence we need to trace back the liberative streams in various religious practices and history rather than creating hegemony through oppressive symbols and religious institutions. The institutions of religions often fossilize beliefs and faiths into doctrinal dogmas to provide semblance of emotional and spiritual security to people. Dogmas are authoritarian doctrines, devoid of the authenticity of real life experience. There has always been a creative dissent outside the institutions of religions, which sought to reform society and thinking. In India, such creative dissent for reform emerged through the legacy of the Buddha, Lokayata and Charvarka tradition, Bhakti and Sufi movements, and the legacy of Kabir, Dara Shukoh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan,Raja Ram Mohanroy, Vivekananda, Mahatma Phule, Narayana Guru, Pandita Rambai, and Gandhi. Such a liberative and reformist streak found an expression in various movements for socio-religious reforms.
The efforts of Dr. Sebastian Kappan and Dr. M. M.Thomas in developing a Christian liberation theology relevant to India; the ongoing efforts of Asghar Ali Engineer to discover the liberative and reformative streaks in Islam and the efforts of Swami Nitya Chaitanya Yathi, a disciple of Shri Narayana Guru, Swami Agnivesh and others to promote a liberative discourse within the Hindu tradition need to be emphasized in the ongoing discussion on secularism and pluralism in India.
We need to strive for building up new social solidarity by integrating liberative streaks of various religious and ethical traditions to build up a new ethic for social change. When Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people” he was talking of religion as an ideology of oppression and delusion. But Marx also said that religion is “the expression of real distressed, the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of the heartless world, and the spirit of a spiritless situation.” It is the second statement of Karl Marx that needs to be connected with the search for a liberation theology and a liberative ethics. Hence we need to celebrate the idea of pluralism and diversity from the perspective of secularism as a contemporary ethics, kalaatmak dharma, relevant to the present context. Such a liberative ethics should guide our journey towards a more just and humane co existence, irrespective of religion, region, caste and creed.
On Religion, Identity, Politics and State
John Samuel
The ongoing discussions and debates on issues related to secularism, pluralism and diversity need to be understood in the context of the emergence of an exclusive sectarianism, the homogenization trends of globalization and the ongoing efforts to subjugate and demolish shades of cultural, religious and political diversity. The discussions on secularism and pluralism need to be situated not only in the context of the present predominance of `Hindutva’ discourse but also in terms of the profound shift in the communicative, political and economic paradigms both at the global and community level.
While a rethinking on the ideas and institutions related to religion, identity, politics and state should be rooted in the social, historical and cultural context, it is all the more important to envision the future not merely as an ideal but as a justful tomorrow, organically growing out of today’s reality.
Power and communication are two significant factors implied in various arenas of religion, identity, politics and the state. We will discuss the notion of secularism in the context of globalization and an exclusive hegemonic sectarianism in the form of a majoritarian Hindutva ideology.
Religion is all about power, a power to communicate; a communication of power between individuals and the divine, between present and the eternity, and between helplessness and hope. Identity is also all about shades of power; and consistently to communicate those shades within communities and society at large. Politics is an interplay or dynamics of power relationships in a given time and space. There is no eternal politics. If at all there is one, it is in the arena of religion. State is the institutional manifestation of power for governance. The way power and communication is negotiated in these entirely different arenas is determined by history as well as socioeconomic context. Hence, time and place play a very important role in the way we perceive this phenomenon. The various `perceptions’ are very important to understand the interplay of power in these arenas.
The notion of secular actually emerged from the notion of time and place/context. The word secular comes from the Latin root `saeculam’, meaning a great span of time, spirit of age, belonging to time, etc. In the Indian sense, we can call it kalaatmak. The idea of saeculam was contrasted with the idea of eternity and to the idea of the other world. In other words, the idea of secularism emerged from the binary distinction between this world and the other world, present time and eternity. While the custodians of the other world and eternity were the religious institutions and hierarchies, the affairs of this world and contemporaneity is being perceived as the secular. Hence, the distinction between secular and sacred, secular and religious, and secular and divine emerged as the major points of demarcation to understand the interplay between the divinity and reality.
In the real sense of the word we need to take secular as an understanding of the here and now of power, communication, identities and perceptions. The problem begins when the notion of secular itself is being projected as an idealized abstract. Such idealized notion emerged out of the debris of enlightenment and the project of modernism.
During the enlightenment, secular and secularization were partly a reaction to the highly institutionalized Catholic Church and a mercantile state, subservient to the church. It was also very much a part of the discourse on individualism, free market capitalism and the shrinking of religious authority from the social sphere. Like many of the enlightenment concepts, such as civil society and culture, the notion of secular and secularism also ended up as a contesting ground for ideological debates. Such ideological assumptions made these concepts inherently ambivalent. Hence, secularism for the rightists is different from that of the leftists. Both talk about these concepts, from totally different perspectives.
The context of secularism is substantially different in the South Asia from that of the Western Europe. The character and the socio-cultural role of religion in South Asia are different. The process institutionalization and the character of ideological manipulation in the religious arenas in South Asia emerge from a different socio-historic and cultural stream. South Asia in one of the most heterogeneous regions in the world, in terms of linguistic, religious, racial and cultural diversity. This leads to a complex web of multiple identities that are negotiated and bridged by some commonly shared sense of socio-cultural belonging. There seems to be a perennial struggle to negotiate and renegotiate multiple identities, in terms of religion, region, ethnicity and politics. Such struggles of contesting and negotiating identities form the major under current in the politics of the region. In multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-cast and multi-racial social spectrum, the idea of secularism derives validity only in the context of pluralism and diversity. This means “secularism” is not merely a political doctrine to separate or disengage the institutions and symbols of religion and that of the state. In such a situation “secularism” can be seen as a moral principal necessary to synergies our society and cultural streams in an inclusive manner. Such an approach will not only resist “exclusive hegemonic sectarianism’ and homogenisation, but also build up inclusive reformist paradigms that integrate various ethical traditions within Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikh, Jainism and Christianity.
In India itself there are at least five major streams of thinking on secularism. The stream of leftist rationalists’ stresses secularism primarily to denote the complete separation between the State and religion. The Nehruvian rationalists see secularism as Dharma Nirapeksata or the equal distance of the State from all religions. The Gandhian approach of Sarva -Dharma –Sambahava understands secularism as the co-existence of and tolerance between all religions. The two recent debates and discussions emerge from positive secularists and anti-secularists. Positive secularists are the proponents of Hindutva ideology – they talk secularism “as justice to all and appeasement to none.” Such a position emerged from the perspective of majoritinism and the so-called cultural nationalism, devoid of any sense of social justice. Anti secularists are critics of modernism and enlightenment. They question the very validity of the concept of secularism out of the context of Western civilization. Primarily lead by scholar activists like Ashish Nandy and T.N. Madan, anti-secularists question, the idea of separation between state and religion. This stream can also be seen as the post modernist interpretations of the Gandhian legacy.
The idea of secularism and secularization cannot be understood without understanding of the idea, context and function of religion. G.L. Holyoake a British Scholar proposed the term secularism in the 19th century. By secularism he meant an ideology and a movement wherein social and individual moralities are primarily determined by reason and not by religious doctrines and sanctions. Though Holyoake was agnostic (i.e. Indifferent to religion) , the torchbearer of his legacy Charles Bradlaugh was an atheist, who adopted a more confrontational approach towards religions. Thus secularism began to be seen as anti religion; anti-religious establishment and anti-religious doctrine. Later on this resulted in the complete negation of religion from the public sphere and from political arena, primarily in the authoritarian communist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe. History has shown that theocracy as well as dogmatic secularism (negation and rejection of religion) both proved to be counter- productive for any kind social transformation.
Hence we need to reemphasize the notion of secular as Kalaatmak, as the spirit of age based on the principles of inclusiveness, diversity and equal respect for various ethical and spiritual traditions. The problem is the very spirit of this age is perplexed in the postmodern condition. There is a tendency to homogenize the world using economic and political coercion and cultural consent by the predominantly Western countries. This process of homogenization makes a large majority of people economically and politically vulnerable. As they feel more and more threatened by the impact of globalization, the large majority of people get solace in the traditional symbols and doctrines of religious identity. And the reaction to globalization and homogenization get expressed in terms of retaliatory violence against the immediate “other.”
Such a reaction of vulnerable societies and countries result in a sort of exclusive and oppressive sectarianism. Such sectarianism takes various forms such as Islamic Taliban, neo Nazis, Christian fundamentalism or Hindu fanaticism. In our context, Hindu fanaticism gets expressed in the liberal language of cultural nationalism but also in a more confrontational language of destructive sectarianism.
The term communalism is the discovery of the British in the early 20th century basically to describe the relations between Hindu and Muslim communities in the colonies. A response to exclusive sectarianism needs to both at the level of critiquing and changing the contours of globalization and at the level of building up solidarity of people across communities, religions caste and creed. In the Indian context what is important is not the negation of religion but the rediscovery of the liberating ethical traditions in each religion and reinforcement of such ethical traditions in a positive and harmonious way. It is much more than tolerance – it is a positive appreciation and a creative dialogue between religions and communities in search of peace, justice and rights. As moral principal secularism can be seen as Kaalatmaka dharma , ethical principles relevant to this time and context.
Religion is like a river. It brings various streams from various terrains; it has whirlpools of illusion, cleansing ethical streams, muddy waters of pollution, and ripples of change and waves of transformation. We can’t mistake water for river.
There is not just one kind of water in the river; there are different kinds of water, changing its contours from terrain to terrain. It has a social function of transforming the barren lands of existence into fertile soil of belonging, of relationships and of meaning. Identities, both positive and negative, bloom on the banks of the river called religion. Religion is not only a river of symbols; it is a river of meaning .It is a river of perennial search. It is a river that connects a small stream to the ocean. In other words, river of religion symbolizes the eternal search for shrishti, (creation), sthiti (sustenance) and samhara (destruction).
When religious institutions make dams across the river to channel water for few, it displaces so many people on the banks of the river. While religious institutions are in the business of making dams and displacing people, communities live with a symbiotic relationship with the multifarious manifestations of the river of religion.
The party politics take water from the river of religion and process it for capturing the state power and eject the polluted residues back to the river. This is precisely what is happening in India and elsewhere. To capture political power the symbols and images of religion are used to create an illusion and a sense of security and chivalry amongst people. Such cynical capitalization of people’s identity crisis and socio-economic insecurity by using religious symbols are at the root of exclusive sectarian discourse. The two-nation theory propounded by exclusive sectarianists, the Sangh Parivar and Muslim League, represented deep-seated insecurity and identity crisis of a society at the receiving end of political manipulations by the colonial masters.
Religion is both rhetoric and a reality in India. While the rhetoric of religion is being hijacked by the political class, both the Congress and BJP, the reality of religion is more and more subjugated to socio-economic tensions at the community level.
In India, the rupture in the process of socialization influences the negotiation between religion, identity politics and state. The primary socialization that happens at the level of family and intimate circle are very much enmeshed in symbols, meaning and rituals of religion. Thus the food habits (e.g. vegetarianism), the kinship ties and perceptions about the other are primarily molded in the arena of family. The secondary socialization, which happens in the society at the level of interrelationship between members of other communities and people, are primarily driven by principles of coexistence, sharing of social space and contesting perceptions. The tertiary socialization at the level of intellect in identifying with ideology and ideas happens at a much more micro level of historical and the global arena. In the Indian context, the three levels of socialization are based on often contesting ethical principal.
Hence, the organic linkage between primary, secondary and tertiary levels of socialization is lacking. As a result of such a “rupture” in socialization, the same individual who is very progressive and radical in public sphere or parliament can be very conservative and sectarian within the “safe” walls of family. Hence, we have sectarian-liberals, conservative-liberals, mock liberals, feudalistic-radicals and communal-secularists in our social and political leadership. This tension is primarily because of the way India negotiated with modernism, English language and multiple identities. This also shows the superficial character of the process of secularization in the Indian society. The world view and perspective of the urban middle class is almost like the salad-like or chutney-like languages used by the urban middle class; the Zee TV language of mixed-up semantics (neither Hindi nor English nor Marathi) and the fragmented symbols and language of the V channel. Indian middle class is in the flux of bewildering contradictions that create identity crisis and political paranoia.
The Indian Constitution is a typical product of the tertiary socialization of the intellectual class wherein their secondary and primary socialization are not in congruence with the ideals of the constitution. So we have a secular socialist Constitution and a highly religious and feudal civil society. The State is being sandwiched between the ideal Constitution and contradicting and contesting forces within the civil society. On the one hand the Indian State is a reflection of the ongoing contradictions and sectarian contests. And on the other hand it is the terrain that is being torn between an ideal Constitution and opportunistic political alliance.
Hence we need to trace back the liberative streams in various religious practices and history rather than creating hegemony through oppressive symbols and religious institutions. The institutions of religions often fossilize beliefs and faiths into doctrinal dogmas to provide semblance of emotional and spiritual security to people. Dogmas are authoritarian doctrines, devoid of the authenticity of real life experience. There has always been a creative dissent outside the institutions of religions, which sought to reform society and thinking. In India, such creative dissent for reform emerged through the legacy of the Buddha, Lokayata and Charvarka tradition, Bhakti and Sufi movements, and the legacy of Kabir, Dara Shukoh, Sayyid Ahmad Khan,Raja Ram Mohanroy, Vivekananda, Mahatma Phule, Narayana Guru, Pandita Rambai, and Gandhi. Such a liberative and reformist streak found an expression in various movements for socio-religious reforms.
The efforts of Dr. Sebastian Kappan and Dr. M. M.Thomas in developing a Christian liberation theology relevant to India; the ongoing efforts of Asghar Ali Engineer to discover the liberative and reformative streaks in Islam and the efforts of Swami Nitya Chaitanya Yathi, a disciple of Shri Narayana Guru, Swami Agnivesh and others to promote a liberative discourse within the Hindu tradition need to be emphasized in the ongoing discussion on secularism and pluralism in India.
We need to strive for building up new social solidarity by integrating liberative streaks of various religious and ethical traditions to build up a new ethic for social change. When Marx said, “Religion is the opium of the people” he was talking of religion as an ideology of oppression and delusion. But Marx also said that religion is “the expression of real distressed, the sigh of the oppressed creatures, the heart of the heartless world, and the spirit of a spiritless situation.” It is the second statement of Karl Marx that needs to be connected with the search for a liberation theology and a liberative ethics. Hence we need to celebrate the idea of pluralism and diversity from the perspective of secularism as a contemporary ethics, kalaatmak dharma, relevant to the present context. Such a liberative ethics should guide our journey towards a more just and humane co existence, irrespective of religion, region, caste and creed.
2 comments:
All religions originate as liberation movements of one kind or another. I wonder if they can retain their liberationist character after they become establishmentalized.
A good analysis of the concept of religion in the context of other aspects of communication between individuals, living and non-living organisms of the globe, globalization, homogenization, diversity &plurality, secularism and Marxian philosophies by taking the example of a river. 'Globalization' is not 'homogenization' but 'unity in diversity' or 'vasudaiva kudumbakam' . What we need is 'inclusion' & not 'exclusion' and the 'sanadhana dharma' in religion and politics. Religion & politics are also not 'exclusive' but 'inclusive'. The notion of 'togetherness' or 'respecting plurality', 'respecting or giving equal importance to minority opinion' is significant in this context.
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