The Crisis of Secularism in India

by Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney; Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari

• ISBN13: 9780822338314
• ISBN10: 0822338319
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-30
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

While secularism has been integral to India's democracy for more than fifty years, its uses and limits are now being debated anew. Signs of a crisis in the relations between state, society, and religion include the violence directed against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 and the precarious situation of India's minority religious groups more broadly; the existence of personal laws that vary by religious community; the affiliation of political parties with fundamentalist religious organizations; and the rallying of a significant proportion of the diasporic Hindu community behind a resurgent nationalist Hinduism. There is a broad consensus that a crisis of secularism exists, but whether the state can resolve conflicts and ease tensions or whether it is itself part of the problem is a matter of vigorous political and intellectual debate. In this timely, nuanced collection, twenty leading Indian cultural theorists assess the contradictory ideals, policies, and practices of secularism in India.Scholars of history, anthropology, religion, politics, law, philosophy, and media studies take on a broad range of concerns. Some consider the history of secularism in India; others explore theoretical issues such as the relationship between secularism and democracy or the shortcomings of the categories "majority" and "minority." Contributors examine how the debates about secularism play out in schools, the media, and the popular cinema. And they address two of the most politically charged sites of crisis: personal law and the right to practice and encourage religious conversion. Together the essays inject insightful analysis into the fraught controversy about the shortcomings and uncertain future of secularism.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Secularism's Historical Background

Reflections on the Category of Secularism in India: Gandhi, Ambedkar, and the Ethics of Communal Representation, c. 1931

A View from the South: Ramasami's Public Critique of Religion

Nehru's Faith

Secularism and Democracy

Closing the Debate on Secularism: A Personal Statement

Living with Secularism

The Contradictions of Secularism

Secular Nationalism, Hindutva, and the Minority

Sites of Secularism: Education, Media, and Cinema

Secularism, History, and the Contemporary Politics in India

The Gujarat Experiment and Hindu National Realism: Lessons from Secularism

Secularism and Popular Indian Cinema

Neither State nor Faith: The Transcendental Significance of the Cinema

Secularism and Personal Law

Siting Secularism in the Uniform Civil Code: A "Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma"?

The Supreme Court, the Media, and the Uniform Civil Code Debate in India

Secularism and the Very Concept of Law

Conversion

Literacy and Conversion in the Discourse of Hindu Nationalism

Christian Conversions, Hindutva, and Secularism

Appendix: Chronology of the Career of Secularism in India

Works Cited

Contributors

Index

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