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--- Santosh Helekar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Dear Selma,
Being a non-secularist
would be an unenviable thing. Such a person would
not
have a serious commitment to religious tolerance or
to
separation of church and state. Typically, we would
find him to be a pharisaical religious chauvinist.
Cheers,
Santosh
--
Dear Santosh,
Here atlast is a debate I can wrap my arms around. I
never said I'm a non-secularist, I said I'm not an
Indian secularist.
Let me construct a hypothetical example to illustrate
why a true secularist would not have religious
tolerance and separation of church and state on the
same side of the balance sheet.
A and B live on an island. The only other inhabitant
is C, who also acts as general arbitrator of disputes.
The island is home to about 50 armadillos who for
ecological reasons must not be killed. A is fine with
this. B on the other hand believes in ritually killing
atleast 2 armadillos every year to propitiate his God.
A, tired after years of suffering the stench of dead
armadillos calls on C to arbitrate. C says, he has to
be tolerant of B's religious beliefs and cannot do
anything. In time, all the armadillos are dead, A and
B have grown to hate each other, C dies of cholera or
boredom and the island is on the brink of an
ecological disaster.
Now, my example may seem facile and absurd but far
more absurd things are tolerated in the name of
religion, from female circumcision, to polygamy,
denying women their rights, body mutilation,
self-flagellation, denying children education, honour
killings, the list is endless.
It is not the duty of a truly secular state to be
tolerant of religious ideology. The state's primary
responsibility is in continuously creating a society
devoid of religious ideology and one based on
scientific reasoning, the tenets of common law and
commonsense morality.
Yes, I am deeply respectful of people's sensibilities
especially religious ones, be they Hindu, Muslim or
astrologists, but that is not because I am tolerant
of their ideology. It is because I am respectful of
them as human beings who all share the common bond of
DNA, a moral compass and the deeply human ability to
experience pain, suffering, injustice, rebuke and
offense.
There is no difference between Albert denouncing
homosexuality and abortion and inferring the
superiority of Christianity, based on his beliefs, and
a Christian zealot from the bible belt of America, or
a Muslim fundamentalist from Afghanistan, blowing up
clinics, or beheading a homosexual in the name of
Allah. Passivity does not make one's ideology any less
benign and we must, absolutely must denounce it when
it we see it raise its ugly head.
selma
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