Inter-religious domination

Topic: Secularism: Western and Indian Models · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 8 "Secularism"

Meaning

Inter-religious domination is when members of one religious community oppress members of another, denying them basic freedoms and attacking them only because of their religion. Indian secularism exists first to stop this. Every citizen is promised freedom and dignity in every part of the country, and religious violence breaks that promise.

Explanation

How it works

• The target is a whole community. People are attacked for their religious identity, not for anything they did.
• Basic freedoms are lost. Victims may lose their life, their home, or the right to live safely where they belong.
• It is often institutionalised. Here, institutionalised means the domination is built into laws, customs or organisations. Secularism opposes all such domination.
• It is not only an Indian problem. NCERT gives examples from other countries:
• Israel: Arab minorities, both Christian and Muslim, do not get the benefits that Jewish citizens get.
• Europe: non-Christians face quiet, hidden discrimination.
• Pakistan and Bangladesh: religious minorities live in difficult and unsafe conditions.

Three Indian cases (NCERT)

• 1984 anti-Sikh massacre
• More than 2,700 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and other places.

• Their families felt that the guilty went unpunished.

• Flight of Kashmiri Pandits (from 1990)

• Hindu Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave the Kashmir Valley.

• They have stayed away from their homes for more than three decades. NCERT says "more than two decades".

• Post-Godhra Gujarat riots (2002)

• After the Godhra train burning, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

Where it fits in secularism

• Secularism is a normative doctrine, which means a theory of how society ought to be, not a description of how it is.
• Its negative goal is a society free of both kinds of domination:
• inter-religious, between religions (this concept);

• intra-religious, inside one religion (for example, caste or gender exclusion).

• Its positive goal is to promote freedom within religions, equality between religions and equality within religions.

• Fighting this domination is not fighting religion.
• Karl Marx (1844) called religion the "opium of the masses". He thought it would disappear once people's material needs were met.
• NCERT rejects this view. People can never fully control disease, accidents, separation from loved ones or death, and religion helps them cope.

• So secularism opposes religious domination, not religion itself.

• Communalism (Class 10) means using religion to divide society and dominate others in politics. It feeds inter-religious domination.

In the Constitution and practice

• Preamble: the words 'secular', 'socialist' and 'integrity' were added by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 [4].

• The Supreme Court has said this amendment only stated openly what the Constitution already meant [4].

• S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994):

• A nine-judge bench held that secularism is a basic feature of the Constitution [4].
• A basic feature belongs to the basic structure: core features that Parliament cannot destroy, even by amendment [4].
• The State must not mix religion with its secular, non-religious work [4].

• A state government that acts against secularism can face President's rule (when the Union government takes over the running of a state for a time, under Article 356) [4].

• Article 25(1): all persons have equal freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion. This right is subject to public order, morality, health and the other Fundamental Rights [3]. Inter-religious domination denies this freedom to the weaker community.

• The Nanavati Commission on the 1984 riots was a judicial inquiry led by a retired judge.
• It was appointed on 8 May 2000 [2].
• It looked into the violence against Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India from 31 October 1984 onwards [2].
• It reported on 9 February 2005 [2].
• Deaths recorded: 2,146 Sikhs in Delhi and 586 people elsewhere in India, about 2,732 in all [2].

• Police role: the police were indifferent or careless. At times they also helped or joined the attackers [2].

• Late justice: Sajjan Kumar was convicted only in 2018, 34 years after the killings.

Don't confuse with

• Intra-religious domination: oppression inside one religion, such as dalits being barred from Hindu temples, or Pakistan declaring Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Inter-religious domination is one community oppressing another.
• Religious fundamentalism: a rigid form of religion that allows no dissent, usually led by the most conservative group within a faith. It can lead to inter-religious domination, but the term describes the kind of faith, not the oppression of another community.
• Communalism: using religion in politics to divide and dominate. It is the cause or tool, and inter-religious domination is the result.
• Secularisation: the slow decline of religion's role in society, which is a social process. Secularism is the normative doctrine that opposes religious domination.

Prelims Hooks

• Nanavati Commission: appointed 2000, reported 2005, inquiry into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots [2].
• Nanavati figures: 2,146 killed in Delhi plus 586 elsewhere in India [2].
• 42nd Amendment, 1976 added 'secular', 'socialist' and 'integrity' to the Preamble [4].
• S.R. Bommai (1994): a nine-judge bench held that secularism is part of the basic structure [4].
• Trap: Pakistan declaring Ahmadis non-Muslims (1974) is intra-religious domination, not inter-religious. The 1984, 1990 (Kashmiri Pandits) and 2002 (Gujarat) cases are inter-religious.
• Trap: "opium of the masses" is from Marx (1844). NCERT rejects it, so secularism is not anti-religious.

Mains Points

• Justice delayed weakens secularism.
• The first 1984 conviction came only in 2018.
• The Nanavati Commission found police indifference and, at times, police involvement in the violence [2].

• Reform ideas: hold police accountable, set up fast-track courts for communal violence, and pass a law on communal violence.

• Indian secularism fights two kinds of domination, not just one.

• Western separation mainly stops the State from favouring one religion over others.
• India must also protect each community from other communities on the ground, as in 1984, 1990 and 2002.

• Under Bommai, secularism is part of the basic structure, and a state government that acts against it can face President's rule [4].

• Secularism is not anti-religion.

• By rejecting Marx's view, India's secularism respects faith while still opposing domination by any community.
• This answers the common charge of "pseudo-secularism".

Related concepts

• Secularism
• Intra-religious domination
• Religion as the opium of the masses
• Religious fundamentalism

Read more

• What secularism opposes: inter- and intra-religious domination