Are secularists secular?

Every thinking person knows that the secular-liberal space is shrinking. It is shrinking not only in India, but in the whole subcontinent, and possibly all over the world.

Even in the stoutly secular European Union, growing Islamophobia has sharpened religious antagonisms within. This is evidence of the hidden threat to liberalism.

The various anti-terror laws enacted in Europe, the violent responses to the Danish cartoons, the French opposition to the hijab, the German angst about Turkish immigrants’ refusal to integrate, and the subtle Europe-wide opposition to Islamic Turkey’s entry into the EU are signs that a religious divide is opening up on the continent.

It's only a matter of time before liberalism and secularism shrivel under these pressures.
In and around India, various extremisms are taking root. The Taliban have arrived a few miles from our borders in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The Naxals are running riot in a huge north-south corridor from the Nepal border to Maharashtra and AP. The various Hindu senas are raising their ugly heads from Orissa to Karnataka. Muslim zealots are taking to the streets at the slightest provocation, real or imagined.

Where are the secular-liberals in all this? They are ineffective because they are confused and divided. Secular liberalism will take root only when like-minded people from all communities condemn the same things and talk the same language.

As things stand now, liberals defend only half the turf, while maintaining a deadly silence about the other half. In India, they tend to be vociferous in condemning Hindu communalism but look the other way when minority communalism rears its head.

We don't have to look too far for such examples. When the Sri Rama Sene decided to defend its version of 'Hindu culture', the entire liberal establishment pounced on it. A pink chaddi campaign was launched.

Around the time when we liberals were teaching the Sene's cohorts a lesson, an editor in Kolkata was fending off a Muslim mob that took offence over an article written by an atheist religion-baiter.

Thanks to our one-sided secularism, this editor had almost no liberal defenders. He was arrested for disturbing communal harmony before being let off on bail. No secularist thought it fit to send coloured undergarments to that riotous mob outside his office. Is this even-handed secularism?

If the same crime by different communities merits different responses, our secularism is fake. If liberals gather only to attack majority communalism, they are effectively encouraging minority communalism through silent eloquence. They take refuge under the weak argument that majority communalism is more dangerous than its minority counterpart.

Is it? I don't think so. First, the number of communalists among Hindus is very tiny. What we are fighting is a minority in the so-called majority.

Second, every time we raise our voices against Hindu communalism but mute the criticism for minority communalism, Hindu communalists recruit more to their cause. The Sangh Parivar has grown many radical new arms not because the RSS is so powerful but because it is perceived as weak by more and more Hindu youths.

Third, the idea of a Hindu majority is a partial myth. If you take the 25-30% of SC/ST population out of the head count, Hindus are not a clear majority even in India. This is particularly true in the context of efforts to give Dalits a different religious identity under Ambedkarite Buddhism.

We also need to look at Hindu numbers from a subcontinental perspective, given our porous borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan. Large parts of eastern India have already been inundated by Bangladeshis. But liberals don't want to take note.

If you take South Asia's demographics as a whole, upper caste and OBC Hindus — who form the real Hindu core — are merely the largest single minority. So when we talk of majority communalism, we are quite wrong. There is no such thing.

To expand the secular-liberal space in India we have to battle all kinds of communalism. This means liberals from all communities must band together. I find no sense in banners such as Muslims for Secular Democracy. If Muslims are secular, are they really espousing a different type of secularism compared to non-Muslims?

Liberals cannot have dual yardsticks on this. The world is one village, and the concept of majority and minority is a self-limiting one.

If secularism is worth fighting for, it is worth fighting for in all communities. If it is good for India, it is good for Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and China. India cannot be the only liberal-secular island in a sea of communal or autocratic states.

Even as Hindu liberals fight for secularism in India, liberal Muslims must take this idea to all Muslim fora everywhere in the world. It is difficult to rubbish the idea of a Hindu Rashtra when Muslim liberals choose to keep quiet on non-secular societies in our neighbourhood.