75. Essay Writing Format, structure and Examples. ‘RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND SECULAR DEMOCRACY’

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND SECULAR DEMOCRACY

INTRODUCTION: Contemporary secular and pluralist societies in many parts of the world including India are faced with the growing spectre of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.

DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT: Religion has, in recent decades, reappeared at the centre of many conflicts. It has intercepted national life in many places. Persistent and endemic fanaticism, particularly on the part of the institutionalised religions, has been a part of the vicissitudes of human history. Even today in the last decade of the 20th century, man continues to suffer because of the dysfunctionality of religion arising from its archaic institutionalization, indoctrination or obsolete beliefs and practices, and crude and often aggressive politicization of religion. A serious problem is the problem of religious intolerance and discrimination which has both local and global dimensions. What is needed is a deeper understanding of the importance of religion in the life of our people, and the formulation of a new and dynamic interpretation of secularism which would ensure the creative co-existence of our many religions, all making a positive contribution to the rich and varied mosaic that is India.

CONCLUSION: Freedom of religion is a complex and emotive right which can survive in a multi-religious and heterogeneous world only if attempts are made to foster a rational temper and genuine respect for all faiths.

 Religion has, in the historical past as well as in our own times, been an aberration, disturbing peace intermittently in different societies and regions and continues to be an instrument of exploitation and injustice.

Currently, it is relevant to discuss the problems and the future of secularism and pluralism in relation to the contemporary challenge of fundamentalism and its impact upon human rights and the relations between the state and its citizen. A serious problem of our times is the problem of religious intolerance and discrimination which has both local and global dimension.

Religious forces and movements have been undergoing significant repositioning during the last few decades. Secularists and pluralists seem to be in disarray while fundamentalist has regrouped and consolidated themselves. Religion poses serious dangers to democracy in many parts of the world.

The disintegration of secularism constitutes the crisis of contemporary societies. From Iran through India and from Ireland to Israel and the African continent, religion bids stridently for attention and power. It has been transposed in public perception from moderate and liberal contexts to conservative and aggressive ones.

In consequence, appeals to humanism and democratic values appear to attract little hearing. Even in modern secular and pluralistic societies, a trend appears to have emerged which implies that religion will continue to exercise a strong role. This trend runs counter to the modernization theory which is intertwined with the concepts of progress and development and the faith in democracy, socialism, science and technology.

The modern industrialized society is ‘a mass’ society characterized by accelerated global interaction, physical as well as psychic, and rejection of the traditional ways and obsolete values. The technological culture has brought about depersonalization of the individual and sets movements from diversity to uniformity and from heterogeneity to homogeneity. It transcends and absorbs into it the sub-cultures of sub-national groups.

On the other hand, much of the new religious energy today is being channelized into aggressive social or political movements that characterized the theocracies or totalitarian states in backward societies. Since the practised forms of religions are not akin to their source and original spirit, they are contaminated by political ambitions, considerations of acquisition of power and wealth. In the process, they have become instruments of exploitation injustice and oppression.

The classical International Law from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries was based on Christian practices. It is this law which became the basis of the liberal civilization of the West. The Western civilization conceived of secularism as the European Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, repudiating the authority of the Church. Western secularism and philosophy of liberal democracy pre-scribed standards which sought to guarantee life, liberty and property of foreigners within the state boundaries. The concept of secularism is exemplified by two basic features: first, modern science, technology and urban industrial civilization with its special paradigms and institutions of the state, education, health and development: and second, the liberal-democratic ideology characterized by its concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Since the French Revolution two centuries ago, the west has been trying to give a humanistic base to liberal democracy by adding new concepts of justice, the dignity of all human beings and unity of mankind,

In the twentieth century, the context of the problem of religion in international law changed as the latter attempted to provide a bridge between nations of different religious persuasions, and was later called upon to face the challenge of the protection of religious freedoms within sovereign states. In the early part of this century, the problem presented itself; in the form of protection of minorities, both ethnic and religious, which was tackled by the technique of “minority treaties” for the protection of religious liberties. This legal device worked reasonably well during the life of the League of Nations and collapsed with it.

During the Second World War, six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. This appalling barbarity brought into focus not only the question of protection of religious freedom but also the basic question of the protection of fundamental human. rights. International law became the instrument of meeting this task by `making obligations reining to human rights an essential part of the UN Charter. This was followed by a network of international instruments which identified and catalogued human rights and thus these instruments provided a tremendous impetus to the universal recognition of the core rights. The entire gamut of human rights embodied in these and other regional instruments guaranteeing moral and legal protection has brought about a substantial improvement in the status of the individual under international law.

The evolution of the human rights law after the Second World War is, indeed, a revolution in the recorded history of human affairs as it ushered in a new era resulting in rising aspirations and expectations of the oppressed peoples all over the globe. The violation of the delineated human rights is now a subject of the legitimate concern of the entire mankind. However, there still exist many hurdles for the individual to surmount and many of these human rights are confronted with serious challenges.

The protection of basic human rights, including religious freedom, is a matter poised not only against the State but also against any group sufficiently powerful to act as a substitute for the State. This means that the State has a constitutional responsibility to create private law to protect the citizen against the violative actions of private groups or individuals.

The freedom of thought, conscience and religion is one of the human rights which have remained in many parts of the world merely empty verbiage despite its recognition in many constitutions of the world. It is open to a variety of discriminations, abuses and blatant violations in different degrees.

 Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 declares: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or beliefs in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Similarly, Article 18 (i) of International, Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (1966) and Article 9 (1) of European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (1950) also declare the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, albeit in general terms. Article 12(i) of the American Convention on Human Rights (1969) and Article 8 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (1981) follow practically the same formulation. Unfortunately, there is no regional charter and institutions of human rights as yet for the states in the Asian region on the pattern of European, American and African organization, SAARC may eventually evolve into a regional organization for South Asia and adopt an effective regional charter of human rights.

Notwithstanding the universal and regional declaration of human rights, innumerable factions appear to display a consistent pattern of discrimination and persecution of other segments of the society. History bears witness to religious persecutions over the ages. It is no wonder then that it was felt necessary to elaborate the human rights further with a view to eliminating inequities perpetrated either by or against, any particular religious group.

The United Nations Organization made various efforts through Human Rights Committee since 1960 to bring out a draft declaration on the elimination of different forms of religious intolerance, It took more than two decades for the UN, because of the complexities and the emotive nature of religious perceptions and professions, to formulate a comprehensive declaration on religious freedom with a view to delineating the contents, elements and the rational limitations of this freedom, which may be universally acceptable to more than 150 member states dominated by different beliefs ideologies, political convictions and religious persuasions. The long series of efforts made since 1960, which eventually culminated in the adoption of the Declaration in 1981, shows the tenacious concern of the United Nations for religious freedom and the risks from serious challenges of religious fundamentalism to, secularism and pluralism.

Devoid of effective limitations on the reckless use of religious freedom endangering the very survival of a peaceful society, pluralism degenerates into conflicts between one people against another. The chaos prevailing in Lebanon, the senseless terrorism in Punjab and in Kashmir, the fanatic theocracies in the Middle East and several other local violent conflicts have had global ramifications and these exemplify the reactionary forces which employ religious symbols to advance and reinforce their claims and to bind and to arouse their co-faithful to let loose carnage against other groups in the name of God.

Recently, the publication of Salman Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, which reinterprets the symbols and myths of Islamic culture through modern secularized Muslim concepts and his own psyche in the context of contemporary events, perspectives and values, precipitated events which according to many threatened the emerging global ethos. The denunciation of the book and the condemnation of the author to death promising the killer both spiritual and monetary rewards, the worldwide threat of terrorism at the distribution and sale of the book, and the large scale and repeated riots in India inducing the Government to ban the publication and sale of the book, are events illustrative of a -reactionary type of intolerance practised in the name of religion.

 Religious hierarchies in Christianity, Judaism and Islam expressed sympathy for the claim of the proprietary right to the exclusive control of major key symbols and myths of the Islamic culture and how they may be used. In other words the ,key symbols and myths of all the Books of religion, venerated as divine revelation by the followers of these faiths, are under the exclusive ownership of the clerical bureaucracies and each is asking that the State be put at their disposal for enforcing their decision’ in respect of use of these symbols and myths. This claim is a clear threat to freedom of expression.

The unholy alliance of the custodians of religion and the forces of the disintegration of mankind are challenging today the vision of convergence and integration of world unity of “human family” and “global village”. These forces are employing a variety of parochialism and religious symbols to bring about chaos. The ideological .cold war is being replaced by a new cold war between fundamentalism, on the one hand, and secularism, nationalism and global unity of mankind, on the other.

 In a pluralist and multi-religious society like India, the religious differences have led to much violence in the past, culminating in the holocaust of the partition of the country in 1947, free secular India chose to adopt a Constitution which guaranteed the fundamental right to freedom of religion including the freedom of conscience and light to profess, practise and propagate religion subject to the overriding considerations of public order, morality and health (Articles 25 to 28).

The Indian Constitution thus gives pride of place to freedom of religion and also provides for rational limitations on this freedom. However, these provisions have been interpreted variously by the judiciary and, in practice; these articles remain a stumbling block in the emergence of a secular India. Freedom to propagate religion, free operation of state-aided institutions of “minority” character using education to propagate religion, the right given to every religious /denomination to establish institutions for religious and charitable purposes and to “manage its own affairs in matters of religion” and freedom to impart “religious instruction” are the provisions which have been used in practice to promote religious orthodoxy, obsolete superstitions and biases in the minds of the future citizens of India, which render any discussion and programme of secular education for national integration a fruitless exercise. The right to “establish” and “administer” educational institutions, given to religious agencies, has led to political rivalries and distrust and created explosive communal situations in the country. The net result is that more and more minority institutions enjoying autonomy are emerging and nurturing religious fundamentalism by organizing activities of patently non-sectarian character, and the religious majority to is not lagging behind in this respect.

Secularism, as interpreted, propagated and practised in India, is “religious pluralism”, a policy of laissez-faire, a licence to the dogmatists and religious bigots to carry on with impunity their unwholesome activities in the name of religious freedom. The constitutional provision gives to these elements unlimited charter to vitiate the minds, thoughts and attitudes of the young. To the politician, the religious communities provide “vote banks” to acquire and retain power by any means and they seem to have a vested interest in the rise of religious fundamentalism and recrudescence of communal clashes.

Though constitutionally a secular state, India, unfortunately, has not been able wholly to divorce religion in its practice from public life. The current crises, in the states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, have again brought religion in the forefront. It has raised complex questions of unfettered freedom of religion, alleged discrimination on the basis of religion and oppression of minorities and accusations of violation of human rights in the name of law and order. The communalist forces have been itching and waiting in the wings to flame communal passions on Babri Masjid-Ram Janma Bhoomi issue.

 The nexus between religion and politics in disputes such as this, underline the importance of the precise nature, content and scope of religious freedom as well as the rational limitations in multi-religious societies.

With a view to developing transnational and universal principles relating to religious freedom, the United Nations has, indeed, contributed enormously. It has viewed the problem of religious freedom in terms of preventing discrimination and intolerance on account of religious beliefs. The United Nations Declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief, adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 25, 1981, has attempted to elaborate the right to freedom of religion and to define its rational limitations. The declaration is merely intended at the present stage as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations and to enjoin certain moral obligations upon member states of the United Nations to take effective measures for combating, preventing, eliminating and prohibiting discrimination on the ground of religion or belief.

 Equality and non-discrimination constitute the heart of all human rights and these have to be promoted by concerted .efforts. The UN has carried out the exercise of producing the declaration, but the outlook for the future appears hardly promising because of the highly complicated nature of religious freedom. No one effort can by itself eliminate the age-old prejudices at the root of discrimination and intolerance based on religion. In fact, the principles of religious freedom and tolerance hay: their origins within the body politic at the grass root level of national communities. These principles cannot be imposed from above, as these have to evolve out of historical, socio-economic development and modernization processes.

 Besides, the right to religious freedom has unique features of its own which render it really a very complex emotive right. Some of these may be recalled here.

Since religion is related to human consciousness, every human being has a personal religion while every human community has a collective religion. Hence, the freedom of religion is not merely a legal right to have one’s personal moral integrity protected against the intrusion of governments, it is also an emotive right to owe one’s loyalty to religious convictions and to the church or to a religious order.

 The freedom of religion is thus not merely a civil and private right of an individual, but it is also a collective right of the co-believers, religious communities and institutions.

 In the vicissitudes of mankind’s religious history, religions have come in violent conflict not only with one another but also with the State. This happened in Christian Europe on the assertion that the political authority derived its legitimacy only from the religious source. Freedom of religion is a right which, historically, has posed a potential danger to the authority and the integrity of the State, with the religious authority exercising power in proportion to the wealth and the influence it commands over the hearts and minds of its followers. The liberty which the religious orders or the churches claim in their operations may amount to a legal licence to function autonomously in certain areas of life that may pose a threat to the integrity of that State. Whilst a secular lawyer may reject their claim to a monopoly of truth in preference to the freedom of individuals to pursue their own search, a religious bigot might feel that this carries the unacceptable implication that other beliefs are as “true” or as “worthwhile” as his own.

Religious freedom entails an exclusive right of the parents to impose unilaterally their own religious beliefs and conviction on their children. Some of these beliefs are inimical to genuine respect for religious beliefs and faith of others. Also, it raises the question of the freedom of the child to choose his or her religion. This right challenges the monopoly of a secular State in the area of education by the assertion of an “inalienable” claim of the parents to impart moral education to their children in accordance with their own religious beliefs. Even the United Nations convention on the rights of the child adopted on November 20, 1989, does not liberate the child from automatic succession to the religion of the parents. A modern secular State in a multi-religious society may not recognize the exclusive right and inalienable claims of the parents to impose their religious beliefs, superstitions and prejudices on their children to the detriment of national integrity.

Freedom of religion is a right which is backed by a variety of sponsors ranging from genuine democrats and humanists and really spiritually enlightened souls to self-seekers and crooks and unscrupulous politicians, self-claimed religious leaders, priests, preachers and bigots. Many of these have had a vested interest in perverting and distorting religious freedom and have shown no qualms in using religion to the detriment of social harmony and genuine religious and human values. This element has exercised for too long a powerful hold on backward religious communities to obstruct the emergence of a modern secular, culture. Hence, freedom of religion entails conflict between two opposite goals, one of equal respect for all faiths and beliefs, and the other of dogmatic intolerance, including that of preaching and converting others to the dominant faith and legalizing discrimination against others by public organs as well as by .other citizens on the ground of religion or belief.

 Freedom of religion is a right, which in a multi-religious and heterogeneous society, can flourish only with the spontaneous support and continuous nourishment of a secular political culture based on knowledge, wisdom, observation, analysis and logic, and not on blind faith and self-claimed revelations. The modern industrial society with an effective system of mass communication, financial resources and dynamic and disciplined people, requires a non-religious mode of cognition, civic humanism and secular educational institutions to generate a rational temper and genuine respect for all faiths.

The right to religious freedom is also unique in the sense that it falls partly within the scope of freedom of opinion and expression and partly under freedom of assembly and association and participation in the cultural life of a community. This right, because of its composite and complex nature, entails conflict with other rights and invites restrictions of dubious character.

 Lastly, the problem of religious freedom is essentially a problem of minorities in a pluralistic society; in particular, in the developing societies where forces of modernization and industrialization have not yet brought about national integration. In these societies social and economic relations have not yet stabilized and the society remains stratified; the dominant religious “in-group” in power manipulate to exclude the “out-groups” from the general benefits of the society; because of historical and extraneous factors, religious differences become highly politicized, and minorities for various reasons continue to derive their inspiration and sustenance from foreign elements which tend to maintain extra-territorial loyalties to the detriment of the national unity.

Notwithstanding the fact that the achievements of science and technology have revolutionized human life, man has failed to develop a global perspective in the arrangement of human affairs in this age of cataclysmic transformation.

In a violent revival, the faithful are invoking had with death and liberation as goals. In many respects. One World has, indeed, been created by breaking through the “outer limits”, and it is the containing “inner limits” in the form of narrow, short-range and self-oriented goals which need to be overcome. Despite great influence and potentialities of the religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism and various tribal religions, all, in practice, seem to have failed miserably in breaking through i mankind’s constraining limits and inspiring levels of global consciousness on the foundation of mutual love and respect. These religions themselves are hopelessly divided. Because of the dogmas of factionalism, divisiveness, exclusiveness, fanaticism and intolerance, the eat religions of the world in practice have failed to recognize those outside their’ individual fold as fully human and deserving love and respect due to them as human beings.

World religions have not only failed to eliminate differences of religious and philosophical views from the world scene but have also failed to learn to live and work together on this small planet in harmony towards the idea of the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.

It is undeniable that the emergence and acceptance of only a single world religion are as unlikely and is as undesirable as a single ideology or a single social order, or a single set of values. Accordingly, unity within the current diversity seems indispensable as there is no other choice before modem heterogeneous human societies. It is only on the basis of human solidarity and expansion of mankind’s current “inner-limits” that unity in diversity is possible and to which religious as well as secular and scientific modes of thought can positively and constructively contribute. The question is: how can the enlightened intellectuals take a lead and contribute towards that goal?

 As distinct from western democracies, India is a developing country committed to democracy, secularism and socialism. It is a country of rich heritage and has an extraordinary diversity of religious faith, unique in the world. The Vedic dictum, “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names”, as the key concept in the consciousness of the people has enabled all great religions to flourish here side by side while occasional tensions and conflicts have appeared as aberrations. India has the potential of synthesizing the spiritual and human values of the hoary past with the modern spirit of scientific enquiry. Apart from the indigenous religions emerging from the matrix of Hinduism like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, four great religions, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Is-lam have also flourished here for centuries. India could rightly claim to be a crucible in which the ideals of freedom of religion have been put into practice through a synthesis of tradition and modernity and spiritualization of religion, politics and science get in the secular mode.

This Indian experiment, which protects diversity and trusts plural sources of cultural energy has for some time been fragile, precariously poised between peaceful coexistence based on two parallel societies, and intermittently lapsing into a bedlam of communal riots. India has, indeed, no alternative to pluralism as it is a policy that assures freedom for all diverse groups to coexist creatively by permitting them to face their problems in a spirit of freedom and open engagement. This is, however, possible when the Indian society is not left to the mercy of manipulators of religious beliefs and political processes and it is liberated from the shackles of pervasive illiteracy, poverty and backwardness and by an accelerated social change accompanied by a development process and modernization.

The UN declaration of 1981 embodies, as pointed out earlier, transnational or universal principles of religious freedom which must take root within the body-politic of national communities if pluralism is to be saved from the fundamentalist extremism. Industrial societies apparently seem to be better placed as they are approximating the end of the development continuum. If religion becomes privatized, healthier it becomes for a society to develop a system of political and social philosophy that reflects all forms of religious faiths devoid of their dogmatism and superstitions.

In the developed Western countries, the French and the American revolutions brought about a shift in emphasis from the principles of mere tolerance of other religious Jenomi nations to that of more effective freedom and equality of worship for all. The unique liberty in which the American nation was conceived included more than personal religious liberty. It included full formal independence of the State from all religious beliefs (and non-beliefs).

 The United States of America is, perhaps, the only country of religious diversity in the world, which, to a large extent, has translated the ideal of the religious freedom, not as a rational secularist idea but something based on deeply-held religious faith into practice.

The American constitution provided the foundation of democracy and religious pluralism by its embodiment into the law as well as by delinking religion and the State.

 The unity of the American State did not require any unity of religion. One lesson which can be drawn by us from the practical experience and struggle of that country is that a truly great nation-state does not really require any unity of religion. A nation should exist, and hold together, and walk upright among the nations of the world, without the crutches of official religious institutions. The variety and mixture of religious beliefs, non-beliefs, can be altogether voluntary, and in the eyes of the State, they can all be equal and free.

The idea of religious freedom need riot to be rationalist secularist in the modern world; it may be founded on a deeply-held positive spiritual faith and a profound perception of common humanity. Mankind stands today at a decisive point where a dangerous divergence between knowledge and wisdom seems to threaten with extinction not only the human race but the entire lift on this planet. The key issue today is: whether “freedom of religion- means the removal of restrictions on the right of the individual to worship or believe as he wishes, or whether it means creating rules under which the church. Religious organisations and the State are to function without conflict.

 It is the synthesis of “spiritual regionalism” and “spiritual materialism-which may provide sound social foundations for genuine religious freedom and harmony in a society. If man repudiates religion or perverts democracy as a political process, he will require a substitute which may be both eviler and even more archaic. Competitive and acquisitive individualism, or mechanical straight-jacket communism, which has already collapsed in East Europe, or tribal minded nationalism, or heartless science and technology or violent and fundamentalist religion, may be an unsatisfactory substitute for secular pluralistic democratic human society.

The crucial problem is how to reconcile traditional religions, materialism and technological innovation with nationalism as well as internationalism, as effective tools of societal management under the system of positively secular and pluralistic democracies. Perhaps, a solution may be sought by a serious and deeper understanding of the scientific and positive Vedantic concept of secularism, in the sense of Sarva Dharma Sambhava and its dynamic interpretation. It lies in the design and functioning of a pluralistic democratic polity with a view to evolving a working model of creative constructive and dignified co-existence of all religions, and ethnic and linguistic groups in a vibrant heterogeneous democratic society.

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