Indian Secularism: A Religio-Secular Ideal

Abstract

Is Indian secularism the Indian version of a universal conceptual category—secularism in India—with its own defining characteristics in addition to some essential general features that it shares with secularism elsewhere? Or, is it significantly distinctive for us to be wary of its being treated as just a variant without, however, asserting its uniqueness? Rajeev Bhargava has argued forcefully for Indian secularism being “a distinctively Indian and differently modern variant of secularism.”¹ Although broadly in agreement with his formulations, particularly his emphasis on the multivocality of secularism in the West, I develop my argument somewhat differently, focusing for heuristic purposes more on the specificity of Indian secularismthan its generality. Let me recall Max Weber’s insightful observation that whatever is “historical” is so because it is “significant in its individuality.”² Moreover, it seems to me, the method of civilizational comparison through “typification,” with a view to revealing the universal by focusing on difference, is appropriate for this endeavor.³

Vision is ideological almost by definition...the way in which we see things can hardly be distinguished from the way in which we wish to see them.

—Joseph Schumpeter