[Reader-list] secularism

[asad abbasi]

Dear Bipin (and all)

I think your provocation to define secularism is quite interesting. I wonder why is it that you want to cling to this word?

 I can understand the importance is word has in the Indian context but don't you think that there cannot be a single definition of this word or any word ever which is  universally binding. You see for so long as we as human beings can see, hear, think, feel, perceive, comprehend and articulate, we will continue to keep up making words, naming things and defining them. 

You suggest secularism. 

I think this is a remarkable word. But before I put forth what I am able to conjecture from this word please allow me to suggest that we take into our consideration what people who came before us thought about this word. It's like Goethe, writing, if you do  not know much about five thousand years of human existence, you are practically living from hand to mouth. Now I am not an expert on Goethe, I just read this quote on the beginning, rather on the first page of Jostein Gaarder's beautiful work Sophie's world and it sort of stayed with me. 

Coming back to secular. What are we talking about here, is it some sort of a constitutional definition, etymological definition, literary definition, cultural definition, philosophical definition, political definition, social definition or a definition as it has been given to us by the history of sedimentation of human utterances. Take your pick?

 More than that any such singular defintion or its combination will be faced with predicaments. Why? Because they will be at best some sort of, social construsts liable to meaning making and intrepretations. But since I have promised in the beginning of this post to provide you with a definiton, then, I think, I should. 

So here goes, for me secular is that which has helped the Indian National Congress help win votes all these years, and pseudo-secular is that which has BJP helped win votes. The brutal irony of it all is that this beautiful, poetic word secular means the same thing, when tranlated onto ground meaning-riots, murders, butcherings, arson, rapes and what not. Secular and its anti-thesis mean the same thing. But we are merely talking here aren't we? 

Wating for your reply

Warm regards 

Asad






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