The intolerant Indian – by Gautam Adhikari – Part 3

I had intended to write this in just two parts. But after I uploaded part 2, I went through some of my notes on the book. I realized that there are some more points (disagreements with the book, rather) that I would like to cover. Hence the unplanned part 3.

When we started off in part 1, we started with asking some questions. Let us start part 3 with some more questions. What is the relationship between Democracy, Secularism and Tolerance? We might not be surprised to find a religious state being intolerant. But can a secular democracy be intolerant? What is more important – being democratic, secular or tolerant? In the book Gautam seems to prefer secularism above democracy and tolerance. He discusses the cases where secularism prevails over democracy and tolerance with tacit approval.

The first is the case of France banning the display of religious symbols such as the hijabs in schools. He philosophizes that since the French state is secular, acceptance of republican virtues means not overtly displaying religious identities in public life. He does not find it important to ask why a liberal society cannot tolerate display of religious symbols. Is there a relevance to secularism other than making the society more tolerant to all religious and non-religious views? As we discussed in part 1, when secularism suppresses religious identity, thought and expression, it becomes a religion in another form.

The other is the case of Turkey where military has intervened a few times to ensure the continuance of the secular character of the nation. Is secularism worth saving at the expense of democracy?

The author seems to believe that it is more important to be secular than being democratic or tolerant. In these parts of the treatment, it appears that the book was motivated by intolerance to religions rather than any allegiance to tolerance. Can we call him the intolerant author? J

One of the solutions for intolerance that the book hints at is to throw away religion. A significant part of the book is dedicated to elaborating that religion has been more of a problem to the modern society than any help. We need to ask ourselves two questions

1. Is it possible to create and maintain a society with no religion?

2. Will intolerance go away or significantly reduce if religion is ‘eradicated’?

On question 1, there are societies in erstwhile USSR who under communist regime lived as religion-less for many generations. But when the regime changed many of them have gone back to some religious faith. Probably we have a need for faith. So unless enforced, a society is most likely go back to ‘faithful ways’. Is enforcing ‘no-religion’ better or more tolerant than enforcing another religion?

On question 2: Is religion the cause for intolerance or is it just an (probably major) area on which intolerance is manifested? In India where we see intolerance on the basis of caste, language, and region I would hesitate to state that religion made people intolerant. If there was no religion, the intolerant would have found another alignment to exclude and torment others.

There are others who have approached the question of religious tolerance very differently. Gandhi understood religion as essential spiritual guide to people. So throwing religion away was not an option. For him, passive tolerance of other faith was just not enough. He encouraged people of different faith to pray together, to understand each other’s religions and to respect faiths other than your own. He believed that all of us can be religious and be respectful of other religions. Something that Gautam Adhikari does not believe in.

Personally, I felt that the book treats religions unfairly in many places. In one place in the book religion is equated to fundamentalism. Once you are part of a religion, he says, you don’t have the choice of not believing anything that was believed to be as part of the religion. You can either be religious and blindly believe all that is in the book or join Gautam Adhikari and be secular. Here he aligns with the fundamentalist stand that religions can’t evolve. But from history we know that sensible people have let religions evolve. Denial of theory of evolution that was considered to be fundamental to Christianity, or caste system that was fundamental to Hinduism is not seen the same way anymore.