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Roundtable Sessions II: “Rethinking secularism”
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In the course of three sessions some of the central problems related to secularism in
The secularism-fundamentalism framework dominates the current interpretations of the twentieth-century debate on religious conversion and of the contemporary success of anti-conversion legislation in India. The classical account tells us that this debate results from the clash between Hindu fundamentalist groups (defending Hindu interests) and the secular forces in Indian society (aiming to safeguard religious freedom for all Indians). The classical framework of secularism faces a number of puzzles, which will be scrutinised during this session: (a) Both champions and opponents of religious conversion claim to be the true defenders of the freedom of religion. However, they have mutually exclusive interpretations of what “freedom of religion” means: according to the first it is “an inalienable human right, necessarily including the freedom to convert”; according to the second it is “freedom from external interference in one’s traditions and practices.” How can we explain that these two interpretations that co-exist in the Indian debate? (b) M.K. Gandhi and many Indian intellectuals of the early twentieth century were very much opposed to conversion. In the classical framework, one can only come to the conclusion that these people were Hindu fundamentalists, but this interpretation does violence to the views of these “moderate Hindus.” How can we account for the attitude of some of India’s great thinkers and leaders without making them into religious fundamentalists? (c) A central problem of the principle of religious freedom that has emerged in the recent debates in the U.S.A. and India is that it is completely unclear what is and what is not religion. In the absence of a secular scientific theory of religion or a consensual definition of “religion,” how can we ever come to a consistent interpretation of the principle of religious freedom? Expert speakers:
One of the heated debates in the recent historiography of India has been that about the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). This theory describes the coming into being of the Indian culture and religion as the result of the interactions between two people: the conquering or immigrant Aryan people who brought along Sanskrit, Vedism and the Brahmin priests on the one hand and the indigenous Dravidians with their own languages and religions on the other hand. The debate that is being held about the AIT today revolves around the question of the geographical origin of the Aryans. One side of the debate argues that the Aryans entered India around 1500 BCE, the other side claims that the Aryans have always been indigenous to India. Scholars who challenge the standard version of the AIT are most often branded as Hindutva; while the standard version of the AIT is dismissed by many scholars on the basis of its colonial origin and its supposed relation to colonial motives. A scholarly debate about the cognitive value of this theory or its alternatives seems to be impossible. At the same time it has become increasingly unclear as to what the controversy is actually about. What is so controversial about the fact that some of the Indian languages originally came from a geographical region outside of the current boundaries of India? Or, what is so controversial about the claim that the Indian culture came into being as a result of the interactions between different groups of people, coming from different regions and speaking different languages over a period of thousands of years? These questions seem to be entirely absent in the current debate. This session will examine the theoretical framework in which both the defenders and the opponents of the AIT make their claims, against the background of the following questions: (a) Is there any conclusive evidence for the existence of an Aryan Sanskrit-speaking people and its Vedic religion as opposed to Dravidian peoples with their own religions? (b) Is the framework of discussion still determined by western Christian theology and the biblical chronology? (c) Where does the presupposition of a link between nation, language and religion come from? Expert speakers:
In the classical framework of liberal secularism, religious fundamentalism is viewed as its opposite to which it is the necessary antidote. Recently, this view has been challenged. Several authors point out that fundamentalism and secularism are not self-contained opposites, but are intertwined in significant ways. In India, this not only takes the form of suggesting a causal link between the elitist and statist imposition of secularism and the rise of the Hindu right, but has also given rise to historical analysis of the relation between colonial secularism and native fanaticism. Neither conceptually nor historically, the advocates of secularism argue, has satisfactory evidence been provided for the claim that secularism and fundamentalism are two faces of the same coin. The rising Hindu-Muslim conflict in India could have many other causes, independent of the workings of the liberal secular state. It may as well be blamed on the failure of the Indian state to be truly secular and neutral. A genuine liberal secularism in India would still lead to the decline of religious revivalism and fundamentalism. This session will examine the hypotheses and arguments on this relation between liberal secularism and religious fundamentalism: (a) Are they cultural and political opposites or are they really two faces of the same coin? (b) Do liberal secularism and religious fundamentalism feed on each other, or do they neutralize each other? (c) What is the historical and conceptual evidence for both positions? Expert speakers:
Chair
Naomi Goldenberg (Department of Classics and Religious Studies,
Permanent panel of respondents
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