For some, it is real wonder how India continues to exist in spite of multitude of faiths and millions of gods. When chaos and confusion should be the norm with such diversity, she is a more or less a very peaceful country. Communal tensions and killings, although avoidable, are only exceptions than examples. They are statistically insignificant and bound to exist as long as India is secular. To understand and appreciate the true spirit of Indian secularism, we need to move beyond its mundane definition and our routine desire to be secular.
To be truly secular is to be truly scientific. One may wonder why? The simple reason is this: if one is inquisitive enough to genuinely understand the functioning of this universe, the baggage of religious predispositions would automatically vanish at some point. Assumptions and quest for knowledge are often tangential and at crossroads. A scientist often confronts beliefs and faiths and soon learns to abandon them. To a scientist, science becomes the religion and nature, the God. A genuine scientist would be interested in knowing why things happen than merely accepting how things happen. He would question why India is secular than observing it as being secular. For a scientific mind, the wonders of this world are not because of how they are, but why they are. These wonders can be explained to a certain degree and this knowledge gives, not only the power to discern, but to view them in its extraordinary glory. A scientist appreciates desirable wonders as facts and not merely aspires them as known. In Indian context, a genuine social scientist would appreciate India's secularism not as an aspiration, but as a fact.
To be truly secular is to be truly scientific. One may wonder why? The simple reason is this: if one is inquisitive enough to genuinely understand the functioning of this universe, the baggage of religious predispositions would automatically vanish at some point. Assumptions and quest for knowledge are often tangential and at crossroads. A scientist often confronts beliefs and faiths and soon learns to abandon them. To a scientist, science becomes the religion and nature, the God. A genuine scientist would be interested in knowing why things happen than merely accepting how things happen. He would question why India is secular than observing it as being secular. For a scientific mind, the wonders of this world are not because of how they are, but why they are. These wonders can be explained to a certain degree and this knowledge gives, not only the power to discern, but to view them in its extraordinary glory. A scientist appreciates desirable wonders as facts and not merely aspires them as known. In Indian context, a genuine social scientist would appreciate India's secularism not as an aspiration, but as a fact.
Indian political systems that harp on secularism, at best do so only as an aspiration. The main-stream visual media that has little to do with fact checking yearns for secularism. It is then no wonder we see hue and cry about maintaining secularism when hope and sensationalism dominate over understanding and facts. While one can genuinely appreciate the plurality in India and aspire for its peaceful maintenance, few really understand why it bound to be so. They question, if millennium years of conquest has not crushed the inclusivity in our society, can decades destroy its diversity? This marks the difference between being ordinary and being scientific. Between hope and reason. For some, choosing between the Congress and the BJP.
The prevalent secularity of India cannot be attributed only to the tolerance levels of people towards other faiths. The fundamental reason for India's secularity is the constitutional authority of the Vedas upon which different schools of thoughts are founded. The canonical triad consisting of Upanishads, Brahma Sutra, and the Gita act as the Supreme Court interpreting and guarding this constitution. The predominant religious schools are lower level courts trying to resolve the conflicts to their convenience and logic. Even schools that don't agree with the constitutional authority of the Vedas, like Buddhism and Jainism, are allowed to flourish. Existence of God is at best only an inference, a corollary, rather than an axiom. God exists because Vedas say so. Since Vedas are written by men and women, they are subject to interpretation and as a consequence, the notion of God is subject to interpretation as well. This gives ample scope for anybody to choose any faith or even be an atheist. In fact, several religious schools like the Samkhya founded by Kapila, are atheistic in nature.
Throughout the history of India, religious schools have verbally battled each other on the interpretation of the Vedas. Samkara vehemently argued against (based on the canonical triad) sunyavada to establish monotheism. Ramanuja again using the canonical texts disagreed with Samkara to establish qualified monotheism. Arguments and opposition on religious doctrines are embedded in the very fabric of Indian society that makes us multicultural with tolerant ethos. Since duality is a feature embedded in the Vedas, it extends beyond the individuals and flows into the society. This is the rational explanation to India's secularism and diversity we see today and why it is bound to exist. And this is precisely the reason why the Supreme Court of India described hinduism as a way of life than as a set of religious beliefs. Hinduism is more or less like Unix, an open-source which can be customized to one's liking, Vedas being the kernel.
Unfortunately, politicians, media and ordinary people neither have the time nor the inclination to understand the nuances of philosophies and logic and hence chaos and commotions are an inevitable outcome, especially during an election season. The responsibility is on the individuals to understand and reconcile these philosophical aspects of hinduism with their experience. Doing so they will be able to appreciate India's secularism in a deeper sense which will be intellectually and morally satisfying. Indian philosophy by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan is a good starting point. Lastly, I would like to quote a passage from Nasadiya Sukta (Rg. Veda - 10:129) which reads as follows:
Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe even he does not know
The prevalent secularity of India cannot be attributed only to the tolerance levels of people towards other faiths. The fundamental reason for India's secularity is the constitutional authority of the Vedas upon which different schools of thoughts are founded. The canonical triad consisting of Upanishads, Brahma Sutra, and the Gita act as the Supreme Court interpreting and guarding this constitution. The predominant religious schools are lower level courts trying to resolve the conflicts to their convenience and logic. Even schools that don't agree with the constitutional authority of the Vedas, like Buddhism and Jainism, are allowed to flourish. Existence of God is at best only an inference, a corollary, rather than an axiom. God exists because Vedas say so. Since Vedas are written by men and women, they are subject to interpretation and as a consequence, the notion of God is subject to interpretation as well. This gives ample scope for anybody to choose any faith or even be an atheist. In fact, several religious schools like the Samkhya founded by Kapila, are atheistic in nature.
Throughout the history of India, religious schools have verbally battled each other on the interpretation of the Vedas. Samkara vehemently argued against (based on the canonical triad) sunyavada to establish monotheism. Ramanuja again using the canonical texts disagreed with Samkara to establish qualified monotheism. Arguments and opposition on religious doctrines are embedded in the very fabric of Indian society that makes us multicultural with tolerant ethos. Since duality is a feature embedded in the Vedas, it extends beyond the individuals and flows into the society. This is the rational explanation to India's secularism and diversity we see today and why it is bound to exist. And this is precisely the reason why the Supreme Court of India described hinduism as a way of life than as a set of religious beliefs. Hinduism is more or less like Unix, an open-source which can be customized to one's liking, Vedas being the kernel.
Unfortunately, politicians, media and ordinary people neither have the time nor the inclination to understand the nuances of philosophies and logic and hence chaos and commotions are an inevitable outcome, especially during an election season. The responsibility is on the individuals to understand and reconcile these philosophical aspects of hinduism with their experience. Doing so they will be able to appreciate India's secularism in a deeper sense which will be intellectually and morally satisfying. Indian philosophy by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan is a good starting point. Lastly, I would like to quote a passage from Nasadiya Sukta (Rg. Veda - 10:129) which reads as follows:
Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe even he does not know
These classic verses and especially the last sentence puts forth an agnostic view of the universe with the sense of scientific wonder. This is the spirit we need to entertain and encourage.
