Politics and Religion in India

Author(s): Mani Shankar Aiyar

Source: India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (SUMMER 2007), pp. 42-50
Published by: India International Centre
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23006045
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 Politics and
Religion in
India

it is necessary to begin by recognizing three

When speaking of religion and politics in India

rather special features of our country and
civilization.
The first is that almost 85 per cent of the population of India
belongs to the Hindu religion, which is more or less co-extensive
with our known history and civilization. So Hinduism will continue
to permeate much of our cultural and social life, our thought
processes and deeply influence any philosophical attitudes in the
sphere of religion itself, or in politics. The second significant fact is
the traumatic impact of Partition upon the minds of all Indians and
the manner in which the India-Pakistan relationship affects seriously
the question of religion and politics in India. Thirdly, most countries
in our immediate neighbourhood have little difficulty in accepting
majoritarianism as the basis of their nationhood.

* Adapted from the Lecture 'Politics and Religion in India', delivered at the IIC on 20 February 2007.

By Mani Shankar Aiyar

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 POLITICS AND RELIGION IN INDIA

The question whether India needs to b

to be India is thus at the very root of a
words, the rift valley in Indian politics
Hindu India aiming to become a Hindu ras
be - what the Left would call - a secular India.
I do believe that a secular India needs to make it completely clear
that it is not a Hindu India. This is because if you add up all the
Muslims who live between Iran and Mauritania there are fewer
Muslims in that huge swathe of the world than there are here in
India. Secondly, the Indian subcontinent is the only part of the world
which has neither succumbed to, nor driven out, Islam. Everywhere
else in the world the triumphant message of the Prophet completely
conquered, and sometimes even erased from civilizational memory,
the native religion and culture of the conquered territory. In India,
however, the encounter between Islam and everything that went
before was conditioned by what went before.
We cannot begin to understand the Hindu-Muslim encounter
from 712 AD onwards unless we look to what had happened in the
past before Islam made an entry here. The Rig Veda, considered
the womb of Hinduism, does not believe that every question has
an answer. Contrast this with all the revealed religions of West
Asia where religions, as far as their fundamentals are concerned,
were revealed often in a flash of a moment and are true eternally
thereafter. The great thing about the truth is it cannot be known so
long as you are caught in the illusion of untruth. And this is why,
although the Hindu religion has enormous disagreements between
its various adherents and schools of thinking, it is not bothered
about reconciling these contradictions. Thus there is an inbuilt sense
of eclecticism in Hinduism so that a Hindu is not constrained by his
belief from believing something more or something different.
Most religions in the world allow for this (Islam, for instance, has
a long tradition of Ishtihad where older propositions are reassessed
in terms of newer circumstances). Yet, there is still some kind
of genuflection towards the eternity of the truth spoken earlier.
Although this genuflection is not really required by the Hindu, yet
even when a great revolt took place within Hindu society in the
seventh century BC under Mahavir Jain and Gautama Buddha, they
did not attempt to replace the existing religion with a new religion.
However, the impact of their revolutionary thought was such that

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lie QUARTERLY

their followers established these as separat

adequately asserted to our schoolchildren
in the public consciousness) that for abo
the time of Ashoka - except for a short
and some of their successors - the st
either Buddhism or Jainism. Hinduism
margins of our society - not in absolute n
dominance over our political life.
For nearly a thousand years, Hinduism w
in most parts was convulsed in the kind
Treaty of Westphalia in Europe. However,
the divisions between the Shaivites and
in our intellectual, philosophical and rel
be intellectual arguments rather than the
characterized Europe through its Hund
Years' War. The result was that the very
to resolving issues between Hinduism an
and Jainism, was applied when the enormo
new thought arrived with Islam in the eig
This tradition of being open to interna
Hinduism, and the history of its essentiall
to be fully understood. Sadly, this aspe
deliberately distorted. In 712 AD, or po
711, a 17-year-old nephew of the governor
and find a route to India. His name was
he arrived at the port of Thatta, now in P
Indus, he fairly easily defeated the Rajas w
is hardly surprising, given that similar wa
whole of West Asia, all of North Africa
and arrived at the Pyrenees. It was this
the progress made at a time when the rest
the Islamic sword.
Yet when this story is told by most H
recounted as a moment of national sha
when I included a reference to Moham
which I had written for Rajiv Gandhi,
as the one against another speech write
references he made to Jinnah. Therefor
and discovered that: when Bin Qasim d

Mani Shankar Aiyar

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 POLITICS AND RELIGION IN INDIA

Sind, he immediately made a pronounce

would not interfere in their religion so lo
their taxes, just as they did not interfere
worshippers in their own country. Oddl
of this fact because to celebrate 25 ye
district official of Alor has put up a board
India, which was at Alor. I may add tha
the day when Mohammed Ali Jinnah appa
where Lahore's Shaheed Minar stands t
that the conquerors (led by Bin Qasim) wi
on anybody. The only important point is
must pay their dues else the sword will
This last proclamation is woven into our m
probably did not occur to this junior offi
big board at Alor at the site of the first m
of Mohammed Bin Qasim, may be polit
Pakistanis, too, are caught up in exactly t
After this, Mohammed Bin Qasim, at
months, sailed back to his Khalif car
thought to be great gifts that the Khal
the daughters of Raja of Sind. On the
young ladies conspired among themselv
they were presented to him that they we
Mohammed Bin Qasim as their ravisher. A
that Mohammed Bin Qasim be executed.
Yet the story of Mohammed Bin Qasim is
terms. Most Indians believe that after
sword all the Hindus were cut to pieces if
his religion. The fact is that from 712 till
there was no king with a sword in India c
The next Islamic encounter took place
(971-1030) sacked India's rich temples 1
1026. Although this left an enormous im
yet from 1026-1192, there was again no
Then, in 1192, Raja Jai Singh invited M
him in punishing Prithviraj Chauhan w
Jai Singh's daughter, Samyukta.
Thus, for close to around 580 years
there was no Islamic political rule in the c

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Prophet was spreading through this country

if there were not a philosophical response to
the danger that even without the sword, the
religion and civilization of India would go th
of the Islam-conquered world was going.
That response came in the shape of the
origins lay in the attempts of Acharya Ra
in Sriperumbudur, to resolve the differen
and the Alwars by attempting to teach a for
by an attempt to bridge the differences b
the Vaishnavites in Tamil Nadu. It spread b
by Ramanand in Andhra Pradesh and T
Western India, through Chaitanya and Sha
north-eastern India and through Kabir an
India. Thus a response to Islam and its es
from Hinduism which succeeded in conta
spread of Islam. Essentially, the message o
was: that despite their political and socia
that the Muslim Sultan had the power to cho
wished and actually did, yet when he went t
in exactly the same water as the lowest slave
a religion, society and culture which over
years had evolved a form of society which w
on caste differences and untouchability a
which were intimately tied with water m
material substance, this was a real revolution
Suddenly, those oppressed in India were
life which begins with birth and ends wit
practise equality at least in principle, and als
worship one's god without the presence of a
In doing this after 1192 and up to 1858,
700 years of indubitable Islamic rule, the Mu
was 25 per cent of the total. Somehow Hin
holding its own in that peculiar Hindu wa
the enemy nor by remaining as it had bee
process of synthesis by which a large part of
part and parcel of non-Islamic thought. The
movement is reached by Guru Nanak and
so overtly draws from the beliefs and practi

Mani Shankar Aiyar

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 POLITICS AND RELIGION IN INDIA

asserting that it is a non-Islamic religion,

invited a Pir to lay the foundation stone of t
This ability to absorb from others to change
become different while still remaining esse
to having an identity which never felt confu
without is uniquely Hindu. 1 invite you to
sculptures of the Buddha there, particularl
Buddha. The Buddhist remains of Taxila, unli
mere pieces of stone. They are representative
interwoven into an Indian theme and while the Buddha of Taxila is
unrecognizable if you look at the Buddhas elsewhere in the country,
he is still the Buddha.
So when we look at the trauma of Partition, the answer to that
stems perhaps from what happened to the Muslims at the hands
of the Hindus in Pakistan. Their conviction that to be a Muslim
country they have to be apart from Hindu India does not answer
why - if religion is the basis of nationhood - there should be any
boundary between Pakistan and its Muslim neighbours, such as
Iran and Afghanistan. However, that is a question we can leave to
the Pakistanis to resolve. As far as India is concerned, it is simply
incompatible with this history, this civilization, and this culture that
we should ape the Pakistanis and their Islamic Republic by becoming
a Hindu Republic. It will be a disjunction in the evolution of our
history, our religion, our culture and everything that it represents.
This is why after the trauma of Partition took place, the bulk of
Indians decided, under the leadership of people like Mahatma
Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, to separate religion from politics.
When one reads Gandhiji's views and those of the Khilafat
movement, one is struck by how strongly Gandhiji advocated that
there can be no politics without religion and that his politics was
his religion. Compare this with what the 'secularist' Mohammed
Ali Jinnah did when he converted his movement into a purely
religious one. In 1948, Gandhi insisted that not only should India
be a state without a religion but, more importantly, that there should
be affirmative action in favour of the minorities. This is called in
some circles thushtikaran, which I regard as the noblest aspect of
secularism and it denotes a special regard for minorities.
So the first parameter that we are 85 per cent Hindu should matter
less than the fact that we are 15 per cent non-Hindu; the second

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parameter is that we should learn the right

of Partition. This lesson was taught us by
the time of India's first elections in 1952 when - for the first time
- we had universal adult franchise. In 1945-46, as in 1937, people
with property alone were allowed to vote. I have studied the census
reports and the detailed reports of the elections which are available
at the Nehru Museum to conclude that, of the Muslims of India in
1945-46, only about 13 per cent were involved in that election.
Others have calculated that perhaps just 4-5 per cent of Muslims
of India were involved in that election and they indubitably voted
for Pakistan.
So, as I have written in a detailed article on this elsewhere, the
Muslim elite of India voted with their hands for Pakistan and the
Muslim masses of India voted with their feet to remain exactly where
they were. This is how we have 150 million Muslims in the country
today. They are a small minority in terms of algebraic ratios, but
in terms of absolute numbers they represent a huge number. Since
the elite of the Muslim community decamped as carpetbaggers to
Pakistan, we find an enormous difference between the Muslim
communities of northern and southern India. In my constituency,
for instance, my workers insist on eating only in Muslim houses
because they get biryani there, for the word 'Muslim' is associated
with wealth in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Muslims have traditionally
run the leather business, the tobacco business and their cultural
standards (education, gender differences and so forth) are not
significantly different from those of other communities. One of the
finest women's colleges in Chennai city for at least a hundred years
is run by a Muslim Trust and they are kind enough to allow some
Hindus to come and study there.
The significantly different economic position of the Muslims in
northern India and those in the south has nothing to do with the
religion. It is the result of a political problem because we did not
undertake a sufficiently successful programme for developing a
Muslim middle class in northern India. Therefore, unless we devote
ourselves to the cause of taking together a common India and
distance ourselves from the wrong course, we will always falter.
The question we must ask ourselves is: how far are we willing
to go? When we seek to vanquish the ghosts from our past, we
must remember that asserting that this country should be a Hindu

Mani Shankar Aiyar

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 POLITICS AND RELIGION IN INDIA

country and aim at creating a Hindu ras

being un-Indian, because we have ben
interaction with everyone who has come
It is fascinating to see how in the se
century, Indians recovered their sen
Macaulay assault, essentially by redis
language and culture from translation
had come into India. When they found t
become Christian, they felt they needed
Latin to understand why their attempts
in this country. As a result of what the
were able to access in their own lang
Thus, in the Discovery of India you find
by Jawaharlal Nehru because Goethe said
is full of quotations from Max Mueller.
It was James Princep, a clerk in the Ca
key to deciphering the Brahmi script
our own history. So if we can take fr
be proud about what Goethe or Schill
can marvel at the fact that Indian muslin was such a serious threat
to British industry before the industrial revolution, that much of the
politics of Britain between 1715 and 1730 raged around what are
the taxes to be put on Indian muslin, then I think we need to realize
that religion has a very important space in India. It is part and parcel
of the warp and the woof of our very existence.
An atheist like me will always be a tiny minority in this country.
But it is also equally true that an atheist like me can only live in this
country if he has the utmost respect for every kind of religion. For
many like me, the challenge comes to you in your own home. My
wife wants to go to a temple. Should I be fundamentalist and say,
I don't believe in this temple and so I won't go. No, I go there but
while I see stone, she sees divinity. I do feel hypocritical standing
there, but I respect it. Equally, I respect the right of a Muslim to
go to his mosque and hold different beliefs sc long as their belief
do not adversely impinge upon the life of the modern society. We
need to live together and recognize that religion and religious belief
are always going to have a major cultural, moral impact upon our
political thinking.

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However, the practice of religion or the

belief should be in the private domain. Th
religion of its own but while being respe
should also ensure that no citizen of India
that he does not have a future in this cou
and equal citizen of the country. If the Paki
why should we become a pale imitation of
this civilizational leap towards ensuring one
Today, when the world has been for
multiculturalism, it is time for us to tak
stage and declare proudly that not only d
harmonious co-existence, but also that our
is humankind's only hope for survival. For
not acquire secularism of the kind that In
mass destruction can signal the end of huma
we know it. Also, that there is no way in
proliferation can be stopped without com
vertical proliferation. Those who hold this o
refuse to give it up saying that the godless w
the earth. The result is Christian fundament
towards seats of power in the United States.
We are there because the world needs us and we need to be
ourselves and what we are is a secular country, we are a secular
people and so long as we remain so, India will prevail. The day we
cease to be secular will be the day when India will cease to be the
country of whom we are so proud. Perhaps, then, it won't deserve
to last.

Mani Shankar Aiyar

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