Religious bigots are making a mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic philosophical traditions; they must be challenged.
A French journalist who read the manuscript of my book, Cultures & Vultures, wondered how my atheist beliefs and Sikh religion could coexist with “spiritual India.”
My atheism is not unrelated to the Sikh religion, which was originally based on Hindu philosophy. I referred to the weekly Gita lectures by S. Radhakrishnan as Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University. Students gasped upon learning from the philosopher that most classical systems of Hindu philosophy, with the exception of Uttara Mimansa, also called Vedanta, do not acknowledge the existence of god. He stated that Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and the earlier beliefs, Brihaspati's Charvaka, Mahavira's Jainism, and Theravada Buddhism were all agnostic. Gautama Siddhartha the Buddha (c. 563-483 BC) touched the Earth as the witness of his Enlightenment.
Romila Thapar reiterated this at a meeting held to revise UNESCO's History of Mankind. The eminent historian said the Charvakas were the earliest exponents of atheist materialism in “spiritual India.” They rejected as absurd all super-sensible things as “destiny,” “soul,” or “after-life.” Ajita Keshakambalin, a contemporary of the Buddha, proclaimed that humans go from dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth to earth, and “there is no other world than this one.” He termed the authors of the Vedas “buffoons, knaves, and demons.”
It is amazing how Keshakambalin's notions transcended 25 centuries, and in our own time was invoked by E.V. Ramasamy, an atheist and a bitter critic of the Vedas. He led thousands of men and women in street processions to parody Hindu gods and goddesses. UNESCO awarded him with an unprecedented citation: “The prophet of the new age, the Socrates of South Asia, father of social reform movement and arch enemy of ignorance, superstitions, meaningless customs and base manners.” Until his death in 1973, people in India were freely able to speak their mind. Dalits could publicly condemn the Manusmriti without being branded “anti-national.” People would laugh at Aubrey Menen's Ramayana, in which he speculated that Sita was not abducted but eloped with Ravana, the handsome Lankan king. The former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, an atheist, pooh-poohed the theory that monkeys built the Rama Sethu bridge across the Gulf of Mannar. He asked: “What Ram? Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did Ram graduate?”
Vote banks
The Hindutva political agenda rejected the traditional agnostic philosophical systems of Hinduism, beginning with atheism. Targeting vote banks, they accused my friend M.F. Husain of painting “obscene” images of Hindu goddesses — traditionally depicted naked in temples and shrines. The Hindu Personal Law Board offered Rs.51 crore as reward to anyone who would behead the great artist. Activists of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad vandalised his Mumbai home and offered money, even gold bricks, to anyone who would blind Husain and cut off his hands — as in some Koranic verses that call on Muslims “to kill infidels and chop off their heads and fingers.”
The Islamic “fling stones” (from those who stone ‘infidels' during the Haj pilgrimage) jumped on to the communal bandwagon of the Sangh Parivar “fundoos” (as nicknamed by the writer Githa Hariharan). The All India Ulema Council protested against the screening of Husain's Meenaxi, in which a song lauds a woman's beauty using words that occur in an Islamic hymn that defines the persona of Prophet Mohammad. Thus threatened, the film was withdrawn from cinemas.
It was against this backdrop that I picked up cudgels against Taqi Raza Khan, head of the All-India Ibtehad Council, which wanted Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen deported from India for criticising Shariah laws that violate women's rights. He offered Rs.5 lakh to anyone who would behead (qatal) her. She had been granted a residence permit in 2005 to live and work in Kolkata, a city that she loves for its cultural environment. Taslima had won the 2004 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence.
Taqi Raza Khan found unexpected allies during the 2007 West Bengal local body elections when some Congress workers looking for Muslim votes provoked a demonstration against her along with the CPI(M). On November 22, the police escorted her out of Kolkata. She was flown to Jaipur and on the same day taken to Delhi and kept in ‘solitary confinement.' Outraged by the human rights violation, I contacted a number of government officials, and for weeks engaged in correspondence with political leaders including Jyoti Basu. When all those efforts, including a threat to go on a hunger strike, failed, I wrote to Manmohan Singh pleading that Taslima's expulsion from Kolkata was contrary to India's cultural tradition. I drew his attention to the 5th century Ajanta painting of the king of the Sibis, who saved a dove by giving an equal weight of his own flesh to the hawk that wanted to kill it.
The Prime Minister invariably acknowledges my communications, but the transparent sincerity and poignancy of his two-page letter dated April 4, 2008 was unprecedented. The concluding paragraph reaffirmed India's secular ideals and respect for human rights and dignity. He wrote: “India's glorious traditions of welcoming people irrespective of caste and creed, community and religion will continue, whatever be the odds. The atmosphere of hate being perpetrated by a small segment within the country will not prevent us from persisting with this tradition. We recognise Taslima Nasreen's right to remain in a country of her choice, viz., India in this case. She should also have the option to choose whichever city or state she chooses.” Taslima was delighted as it would enable her to stay on as my guest in New Delhi for as long as she wishes.
A farce
My optimism that the letter had finally snuffed out the political farce of hurt religious feeling was belied when Taslima's book Nirbasan (Exile) was barred from the Kolkata Book Fair. Before that, Deoband members prevented Salman Rushdie from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival. The bigots replayed the ludicrous drama, and took the initiative to file cases against four delegates for their “intention” to read out from The Satanic Verses, pushing Indian jurisprudence into the quagmire of endless interpretation of the freedom of expression under Article 19(2).
The courts cannot break the stranglehold of religious bigotry so long as the fundoos and fling stones define the communal terms of reference and ignore India's agnostic civilisation, the source of our secular Constitution. I inherited my secular ideals from my mother Sumitra Kaur, who died on March 18, 1987. On top of the packet containing the Sikh Adi Granth was a photograph of Swami Vivekananda addressing university students in the United States; a hand-drawn sketch of the ‘Mother' of the Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry; and a miniature painting of the Sufi sage Mian Mir who laid the foundation stone of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The Sikh holy book contains verses of both Hindu and Muslim saints — Kabir, Namdev, Sheikh Farid and other devotees of a God whom they were unwilling and unable to delimit by means of a sectarian description.
Guru Nanak's Sikhism was inspired by India's multicultural civilisation that reflected the norms of India's traditional agnostic philosophy. He decried the caste system, empty religious ritual, pilgrimages and miracles. With his two life-long disciples, Bala, a Hindu, and Mardana, a Muslim rabab player, he built the religious edifice, as it were with “Hindu bricks and Muslim mortar of Sufi Islam,” as Khushwant Singh wrote in The History of the Sikhs.
My secular and atheist sentiments are deeply offended. I am consulting advocates on the possibility of moving against the bigots for making a mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic philosophy.
(UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh is the founder of the South Asia Foundation.)
Keywords: M.F. Husain, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, freedom of expression, free speech, human rights
I am in agreement with your basic point but I have a fundamental problem with the constant reference you make to an "agnostic philosophy" that India apparently has. The Constitution on paper might be secular but after 65 years of independence there are numerous instances which make it more than evident that the Indian state is definitely biased towards the majority community. This is true of every party which has been in power. It is also true that the inherent prejudice towards minority communities in the eyes of the Hindu common man is not by any standards unnoticeable. It is high time that this fact is also accepted and analysed
Religion without philosophy is simply a blind faith and philosophy without religion is simply speculation. Nowadays although claiming themselves religious people hardly cares of reading scriptures like Gita or Quran and taking the advantage of this these so called scholars speculates and just speculates.
I sincerely object many things here. As a mathematician, I would like to point out some things. For example if you take set theory. U = { A, A'}; if U is a universal set it should be combined with A and A', Which means whole set A and and which doesn't fall under A. Then only it becomes universal. The same logic could be applied here. There are beliefs, as well as there should be non-belief's. Whatever atheists are saying couldn't be true. There could be true evidence falling aside with non-atheists too. If you think, religious extremists are propagating their agenda, its totally absurd. Whole world is full of religious prayer halls, mosques, churches, temples etc. Even if you go to some remote tribal areas,they still have their own methods. Tribes don't have any thing specific as such civilised society constructed prayer halls.Still they have their own belief. How religious extremists could build such a belief among the people.They can't.In that case intellectuals can propagate better
As a Youth & Community Worker in Bradford circa 1989, I witnessed
at first hand the effect of Rushdie's carefully contrived
"epistle" to vilify the faith of a billion plus people.
A flock of reporters homed in to bribe gullible hot headed youths
to stage ad hoc gatherings threatening death to Rushdie. This was
then televised or written about. The Cold War was coming to its
end, the war on Islam been prepared to replace it. Rushdie
collaborated in this effort, receiving a hefty advance fee. His
novel, the catalyst. The effects, will reverberate, as "the war on
terror", into infinity. One should get off one's high horse and
sip the chai at ground level with the not so privileged
multitudes. Mr Singh, strange that your last paragraphs are full
of praise for sikhism as if it is flawless and ts followers set on
the true path. I can site many occasions when sikhs can be as
rabid. For a UNESCO rep how come such biased attitude. Is it
because it is also conniving with the "new world order"
Where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise. Freedom of expression is often stifled by fear of the unknown. Enlightenment in the true sense is confined to a minority of population and the authorities often are aprehensive of violent consequences leading to anarchy and resort to ultra caution in dealing with personalities who are outspoken. In a multi lingual and cultural country like ours knowledge should cut across all barriers and be available in all languages. It is not enough if only the English knowing populace are enlightened enough to value freedom of expression. Unfortunately Sir Salman Rushdie is in a minority in this world of ours who is outspoken in his thought process and writings. Whether one is a believer or non believer is a personal choice. Expression couched in civilized mode is the need of the hour. Most of urban India is now apathetic to religious beliefs and is more concerned about their well being in the ethical sense. This universe needs to be enlarged.
The author isn't saying that agnosticism is, or was, the central theme of Hinduism, just that it too formed one strand among many other theistic strands of beliefs that have been woven together into the tapestry that is our shared, loosely 'Hindu' culture. I dont think the majority of Indians realize this and they often like to think of agnosticism and atheism, and indeed secularism, as a western concept imported into our culture. Anyway, it really does not matter whether our society was once pluralistic and secular, nor does it matter if these are western ideas. Secularism is as much as of a western or Christian idea as general relativity or the theory of evolution. Sure, the Einstein and Darwin were Christians living in a Christian society, but their ideas weren't derived from their Christianity. In a similar way, we can just take secularism as a universal idea and resist the temptation to posit some 'eastern' version of secularism just to overcome an inferiority complex.
An excellent article! Thank you for publishing it, I cannot imagine
any other national daily running such a piece. As a student of Indian
history, I am confused and outraged in equal measure, by the narrow
and myopic understanding of religion being propagated by religious
extremists. What we need is a more nuanced and informed discussion
about religion and its role in national public life, for that will
determine the kind of polity we end up with - a liberal, secular
nation envisaged by the Constitution or a narrow, bigoted one mired in
religious conflict.
The author emphasis on atheistic and agnostic traditions as the real Indian tradition makes him no different from those who claim only Vedas as true Indian tradition.I don't know what constitute Indian civilization but one thing i am sure emphasis on one thing and rejecting the other doesn't constitute Indian civilization which the author is deliberating doing it....
Thanks for publishing this thought provoking article and all the secular people of this country would support his move to act legally.Thanks for The Hindu remaining a strong bastion of secular journalism in these times of fanatics.
India has always been agnostic, and no fundamentalist will deny
that. But the author forgets that along with all the different
schools vaisheshika, nyaya etc vedanta is also one. And nobody has a
higher claim. An atheist or agnostic should be equally respected as a hardcore fundamentalist. Although India has seen extreme bitterness between factions (say shaiva/vaishnava) everybody has accepted the relevance of every schools of thought. The lack of understanding has crept in because of the present day pseudo-seculars claiming to be the torch bearers of equality. Every school of thought has existed in parallel, it is the degradation of intellect among masses in the past 500 years that has blurred their existence. The western understanding of religion/secular/caste is constricted.
'The Indian Constitution borrowed its secular ideals from Europe not
from Indian agnostic thoughts' - fully endorse with this view.
The applied side of this ideology is that it is secular in concept but
communal in nature. "Man created Religions, religion created
Gods,Man,Religion and Gods divided the soil(earth)- divided the human
conscience too" - indebted to Vayalar Rama Varma the great poet.
Excellent , at least fortunatly on the other side of the divide ,there is still a greater space where one can have the right to express his /her thoughts and voice for the defence of the pristine ideals of secular values . Sorry sir , on this side of the divide( Pakistan ) we are doomed for ever on all accounts .
I would like to draw the attention of the readers to a scholarly work, "Indian Atheism" by Debiparsad Chattopadhyaya, published by Manisha, Kolkata. Surprisingly, it has not got the publicity it rightly deserves. The author deals with the Sankhya, Buddhist, Jain, Mimamsa and Nyaya-Vaiseshika schools of philosophy and convincingly shows that all these are fundamentally atheistic. He also exposes the myth of Indian spiritualism. This is a book that every Indian should read with an open mind and one that every library in the country should have on its shelf.
@Bhavya Ketan,
Granted that Euro Secular ideals and the words translated from such ideas has found place in our constitution. But does that mean those ideals were self discovered in Europe ? No. Rennaisance itself was fired up in Europe from the texts of the Orient Travellers. Scientific thought and practices needed inspiration from someplace after the Dark Ages of Europe. !
Indian thoughts and civilizations would have practiced such secular ideals when our European brothers were still in a hardboiled state.
So your sentence is only partially right.
These are issues when moderates and sensible people of all
religions must unite against extremism. As a Hindu or a Muslim or
whatever, you might have disagreements with other religions and
with atheists and agnostics over theology, the origins of the
cosmos, about what's important to humanity, about how to organize
a society etc. But we must not discount that there is one thing
that unites all moderates against the extremists, and this is the
belief that no matter what the disagreement, we only ever use the
weapon of words. The nastiest weapon any of us moderates are
likely to ever deploy is sarcasm and mockery. But this is exactly
divides all of us moderates from the extremists and
fundamentalists, who believe that in order to settle debates they
must physically shut the opponent up, threaten and perpetrate
violence. I would therefore beseech all moderates - know thy
enemy. When criticizing the crazies of your religion, criticize
them unequivocally, without adding a "..but..".
A third rate article, full of lies and falsehoods that can find space only in newspapers like the Hindu whose editorial policy is decided by casteist and communists who benefit from Hinduism and yet abuse it. (Lie no 1)This self-proclaimed "secular atheist" proclaims that "images of Hindu goddesses (are)traditionally depicted naked in temples and shrines". In which temple/shrine sir? Kindly let the nation know. (Lie no 2) "Hindu Personal Law Board offered..." Is there such a board? where Sir?
I don't think Hinduism is agnostic in any manner. Vedanta is based on the practice of Upanishads, not Vedas, so it is supposed to be liberal. Most conservative is Brahmanism, against which Jainism and Buddhism rose, both of which are not Hindu religion at all.
Brilliant Article!
What we need is more tolerance in public life. As a nation, we are becoming more intolerant and hypocrtical.Our one and only great PM , Nehru was famously agnostic. We havent got to a point where our would-be candiates have to reaffirm their faith in religion as would be expected out of people running for the office in the US. Question everything, ever religion and the authority of god, nothing is sacrosanct.And at last lets us stop representing god in the world, humans are too wicked to represent him and leave the job to animals which are much more noble.
When have we ever succeeded to truly understand ourselves. Yet, we speak of agnostic ideas and thoughts and also fight for superstitious beliefs which are still rampant in India. The question of God has become a mockery to us now. An object of financial gratification at the least. However, the vedas and other puranic scriptures are not be sidelined as they hold deep within thousands of years of knowledge which at that time was considered precious. With the changing times one may argue that the vedas may lose their sheen, but it is ignorance that will cause this not the changing times.
We must introspect on our behaviour rather than throw a stone at a glass house and enjoy the show. The above article is right in upholding the secular ideals of India which is home to innumerable religions, beliefs and faiths. There is no one religion, one belief.. but there is one nation which is India.
I strongly condemn this distortion of history by the columnist. As early as 1926, Islamic fundamentalists had killed Swami Shraddhanad, soon to be followed by the killing of the author of Rangeela Rasool in 1929. But as the author of the column himself notes, it was quite possible to openly take a dig at hindu Gods until 1973. In fact, even today, Mr. M Karunanidhi would do it with glee.
By reversing the order of the emergence of such intolerance, Hindu is openly encouraging such blatant distortion. What is the need for such a skewed view?
The Indian Constitution borrowed its secular ideals from Europe not from Indian agnostic thoughts.
[India's agnostic civilisation] Yet another self-serving essentialist who wants to reduce the "true nature" of Indian civilization to his own list of personal favourites. In fact, Indian civilization is no less positively theist than agnostic (quite the contrary, actually). But no one really wants pluralism.
[both Hindu and Muslim saints] Both of whom, as an atheist, you presumably despise, like your hero Ramasamy? Only when it is convenient, I suppose. This is the typical hypocrisy of the multi-culti leftist, who through the contradictions of a confused patchwork ideology ludicrously finds himself obliged to be our time's greatest defender of faiths he doesn't believe in and seceretly despises, often on the same page that he tries to exalt them.
" I am consulting advocates on the possibility of moving against the bigots for making a
mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic philosophy."
That's great news. The only way to hit back at the extremists and fundamentalists is to
challenge these illeberal book-bannings and religious fatwas against freedom, by taking
these cases to the Supreme Court and see how they rule. Sadly, that remains the only
institution that can be trusted to uphold the rights of every citizen as guaranteed in our
Constitution. The buck, after all, stops with them. All the best to you, Sir, I'm with you on this.
The column cites S. Radhakrishnan’s notion that most classical systems of Hindu philosophy, barring Vedanta, do not acknowledge the existence of god. Max Planck said “the way we look at things, changes things we look at.” In his preface to BHAGAVADGITA, Radhakrishnan said “The chief problem facing us today is the reconciliation of mankind. The Gita is specially suited for the purpose, as it attempts to reconcile varied and apparently antithetical forms of the religious consciousness and emphasizes the root conceptions of religion which are neither ancient nor modern but eternal and belong to the very flesh of humanity, past, present and future.” Furthermore, on the eighteenth verse, he quotes: ”God discloses His nature. His graciousness and love and eagerness to take us back to Him.” True, at times we are pained to see the extreme reactions on social issues perpetrated by certain elements because of their lack of faith in fellow human beings. Sectarian views fail us see and hear Him.
Dear Madanjeet,
You have beautifully described the urgency of action on the part of
real secularists, to come up against likes of those who claimed head
of Rushdie or Hussain. Whereas one's belief should not be subjected to
judgement of the society, there is clearly malice in hearts of those
who prefer to be hurt when its their religion and seek to invoke
freedom of speech when it is someone else's. This injustice is perhaps
what hurt the secular orientation of people in South Asia, eg Imraan
Khan of Pakistan and is also greatest threat to free and fair India.
Much against the popular belief, the West (with predominantly
Christian values), in my opinion, does not have better lessons on
secularism and India has to be its own role model and follow the
secularism as Vajpayee once put ,sarv-dharm-sambhav (equal respect to
all religions) rather than mere separation of religious bodies from
government.
The writer ought to concede that "secular and atheist sentiments" are
alive and kicking in India only because India remains in spirit a Hindu
nation. It is this spirit that constitutes Hindutva. If she is
consulting advocates on the possibility of moving "against the bigots
for making a mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic
philosophy", those bigots ought to be clearly identified as those who
believe that their religion is the only true religion and all other
religions are false.
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