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Dear Santosh:
Thank you for your comments:
You say -
1- While this is probably true of Europe and United States, secularism, from
the agnostic, atheistic and pluralistic standpoints has a long tradition in
India extending to more than 2500 years ago. From the atheistic standpoint
Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Greece also have a rich history, which in the
first three cases goes much farther back than in India. But it is true that
unlike religion, which is visceral, secularism is entirely intellectual in
nature. It would be very hard to impress its value upon the minds of all
folk without increasing the level of literacy in society. So it would be
hard to use it as a political trump card with any kind of mass appeal. It
has to be enforced through the courts as a constitutional principle.
Basilio - I agree with you. In fact, when I was writing that point I had in mind
A. Sen's book, The Argumentative Indian. I thought I need not get into
those distinctions given the scope of my essay. However, I would say
that these
atheistic cases did not gain popular currency. The history of antiquity of
Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece is full of religious mythologies. For example the
Egyptian devotion to goddess Isis became the prototype to the devotion of
Mary in the Catholic Church. In Mesopotamia we have the code of Hammurabi
given to him (Hammurabi) by god Shamash - as he claims. He uses this
divine code to regulate relationships, among other things. About China...
I have to do my homework.
2- About your second point – you say:
The Indian brand of secularism would have no problem if religion in
its many forms continued and grew indefinitely. Indeed, pluralism is
enriched by diversification and spread of religious convictions, as
long as there is mutual tolerance. Moreover, the greater the diversity
of religions, the weaker each of them becomes in terms of wielding any
kind of political power because of competing interests. I also do not
believe that a rational concept such as secularism can ever become a
religion because the latter requires certain core ethereal beliefs
that are immutable and are not subject to updating by new knowledge
and change in environment.
Basilio - I agree with most of it. But, I am afraid; the trajectory of
socio-anthropological reality does not neatly follow the way you
describe. By using a mathematical model, your description of the
effects of the religious pluralism sound quite plausible. But in human
nature there are inevitable irrational forces.
When I refer to secularism as the new religion, I look at the missionary
like activism, as one of the telling characteristics of the movement.
Do you think that the beliefs have to be ethereal in order for a
movement to be religion? The cult of reason, although the Greeks
gave prominence to it, remained the province of the elite of the
society. Parthenon in Greece, alongside the existing vestiges of the
temples to various gods and goddesses in Greece and in Italy, are good
reminders of the impregnation of religion in those societies. In
similar way, in these times, I see the cult of secularism.
The thing called religion as a socio-anthropological artifact is
necessary for social order, and to make meaning of larger issues of
life as they present themselves in different times, in different
manifestations. Human beings (necessarily drawn to form a community),
to my mind, will always develop a religion, or replace one with
the other. After all the etymology of religion is re-ligare (Latin)
– to tie together, return to bind; as the word yoga (yuj) in
Sanskrit would mean to yoke together, to come together (in this
case uniting with the cosmic consciousness).
I think there is some kind of metamorphosis about this concept/notion
of religion. This would be a helpful discussion. In any case, I need
to think through a little more on some of the issues you have raised.
Basilio Monteiro
