Seldom has a political concept been stalked so consistently and so ferociously the way secularism is stalked by the defenders of the Hindu Right. A bench of the Supreme Court on October 21 had to once again observe that secularism has always been held to be a part of the basic structure of the Indian Constitution.
They were responding to a petition filed by four petitioners who said that the words secular and socialist should be deleted from the Preamble of the Constitution. Subramanian Swamy, one of the petitioners stated that the words inserted in the Preamble in 1976 cannot bear the date of the Preamble which was framed in 1949.
The arguments against secularism and pleas for its removal are repetitive, idiotic and plain silly. But the Hindu right is so intent on banishing the concept, that it does not mind being silly. The honourable justices Sanjiv Khanna and Sanjay Kumar observed that secularism is unamendable and that the concept secular should not be looked at through Western lens.
How should we then look at the concept? We do not have to go into the details of earlier judgements that defined secularism as equality of all religions. There are other, less tiresome and more poetic ways of approaching the concept of secularism, rather than through the prosaic and boring language of law.
As an aside, secularism is often mixed up with secularisation that is admittedly a western concept. Secularisation signifies the retreat of religion from the public sphere into the private. Secularism is a political and democratic norm ensuring equality between religions. We have always gloried in our many religions.
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And in any case, it was impossible to banish religion and secularism at a time when the country was divided into two on the basis of religion. No one could rule, much like the Queen of Hearts did in Alice in Wonderland ‘off with her head’. The impact of the politicisation of religion in the public sphere was far too visible, and far too painful.
We had to recognise that religion had become a prominent part of politics and the best way of treating it was to neutralise its toxic effects. So how do we neutralise the politicisation of religion? Let us look at our beloved Bombay film industry for a way out.
How post-1947 Indian films inspired people to transcend religious boundaries
Indian films in the post-1947 period had steered clear of the partition. But there were other issues of consequence that dodged the country. India in the period post 1947 was fragile. Partition and independence, the twin faces of August 1947, had divided the political community and drowned Northern and Eastern India into a vortex of violence. The miracle is that a democratic Constitution was written amidst the debris of destroyed homes, workplaces and places of worship.
The task the Constitution makers had on their hands was onerous. Indians spoke different languages, practiced distinctive rituals, had unique world views, and had diverse expectations of politics. Partition had rendered the task of living together more problematic. A newly independent India strained at the seams with diversity and difference, both of which can prove troublesome categories.
People brought into a democratic political community were strangers to each other. And in many parts of the country, democracy was a stranger to them. Independence had come with bloodshed and massacres, social hierarchies were left intact, elites continued to hold themselves above the rest of the people, and discrimination on grounds of religion and caste ran rife.
The task of progressive poets and the scripts and lyrics they wrote for Bombay films was clear. They had to inspire Indians to transcend religious boundaries that had become fetters, and focus on commonalities. In 1960, in the famous film Barsaat ki Raat directed by P.L Santoshi, Sahir Ludhianvi wrote the lyrics of a Qawwali ‘yeh ishq ishq hai ishq ishq’. The high point of the lyrics were the stanza ‘Ishaq azaad hai Hindu na Musalman hai Ishq/ aap hi dharam hai and aap hi imaan hai Ishq’ (Love is free, neither Hindu nor Muslim, it is in itself dharma and our creed).
In the film, Madhubala plays Shabnam who has fallen in love with an Urdu poet Amaan played by Bharat Bhushan. But her father, as fathers are wont to do, disapproves. On the radio Shabnam hears the voice of Amaan singing the last part of the Qawwali, and she is drawn to the site of the competition.
Amaan aptly represents her, a woman in love as a Radha who runs to Krishna whenever he plays the flute, as Sita who is the daughter of a king, but who traversed the forest along with Ram her husband wearing the garland of love, and as Meera, who, thirsty for the love of Krishna, drank a glass of poison.
In the climax to the sequence Amman sings that love is the teaching of Christ, of Allah and the Quran. These are classic Sufi themes. The teaching certainly changes the heart of Shabnam’s father, and he accepts the love of Shabnam and Amaan. Sahir’s lyrics cite Sufi stalwarts like Bulleh Shah, Ghulam Farid, Waris Shah, Kabir and Amir Khusrau. These saints had always preached Hindu-Muslim unity. This is our heritage; this is our version of secularism.
For the 1961 film B.R Chopra’s Dharamputra, Sahir wrote the lyrics of another famous Quwwali – ‘Kaabe mein rahon ya kashi mein, nisbat to usiki baat se hai, tum Ram kaho, yah Rahim kaho, maqsad to usiki zaat se hai’ (Whether you live in Kaaba or Kashi you are concerned with one God, whether you call him Ram or Rahim you address the divine). The qawwali is picturised at a crucial point of the film. Nawab Badruddin undertakes a pilgrimage as a form of repentance, because he had not allowed his daughter Husn Bano to marry her lover Javed.
The scene of the Qawwali shows us co-existing shots of a mosque and a temple. The two main ‘singers’ are Hindu and Muslim complete with the tilak and the Fez cap. These images, writes the film scholar Ira Bhaskar, “create a spiritual space that is not the preserve of just one community but rather is a space that provides solace to all those with faith who seek divine grace”.
Living in a multi-faith community is not a ‘Western concept’
The spirit of tolerance and respect for all spiritual traditions, because all of them are concerned with the divine, is what living in a multi-faith community is about. It has been this way ever since the Sufi and the Bhakti movement preached harmony. What is so Western about these deeply philosophical belief systems?
The 1961 film was made by B.R Chopra, himself a victim of the partition, and directed by his brother Yash Chopra. The film used archival sources to screen scenes from the partition – caravans attended by bloodshed, rape, and loot.
A weepy Rajendra Kumar appears on the screen to ask the painful question – “yeh kiska lahoo hai kaun mara? (whose blood is this, who died?)”. It makes us think, does it not? This is the legendary Sahir Ludhianvi, committed as he was to the radical path of solidarity as a leading member of the Progressive Writers Association.
The film based on Acharya Chatursen Shastry’s novel by the same name, won the National Award for the best Hindi film for that year, and fetched for Akhtar-Ul-Iman the Filmfare Award for the best dialogues. It was Shashi Kapoor’s first adult film. He played the role of a Muslim hating Hindu right-wing fanatic till the point he comes to know that he is the child of a then unwed Muslim couple – Rahman and Mala Sinha. This must be the only film of its time and for times to come to take on Hindu communalism.
The qawwalis penned by Sahir Ludhianvi are spectacular because they draw upon our shared traditions; our Indo-Islamic identity. Hindus are incomplete without the realisation that their inheritance has been also forged by Islam, and Muslims have to recognise that they owe much to Hinduism. This is India, this juxtaposition of a medley of cultures, languages, rituals and poetry bound together by the Sufi and the Bhakti tradition.
Bound together by the shared inheritance of Sufism and Bhakti
This is how it is, and this is how it should be. We should glorify this shared tradition, where in Sahir’s words Allah and the Quran can exist side by side with the embodiment of love, Mira, Radha, Sita, and where everyone is bound together by the shared inheritance of Sufism and Bhakti.
M.S Sathyu’s film Garm Hava (1974) was another outstanding film on the impact of the partition on the lives of Muslims, and the choices they did or did not make. The character of Salim Mirza, played by a dignified and stately Balraj Sahni refuses to leave his haveli and move to Pakistan, though one by one his family migrates to the new state created for Muslims, leaving tragedies in their wake.
There comes a time at which Mirza has no choice except to leave, he is subjected to humiliation of everyday life, he is left alone after his mother dies, and he sees no future for himself in a society that had proclaimed itself secular, but one that looked upon Muslims who chose to stay back in India with suspicion.
The day for leaving his homeland arrives, and Mirza locks the door of his haveli and steps into a Tonga with a heavy heart. And then the political miracle happens. A small procession carrying a flag bearing a hammer and a sickle comes towards him. His son played by Farooq Sheikh, who had already become a member of the Communist party, is part of the procession. Salim Mirza asks the Tonga-wallah to stop, steps down, straightens his cap, and joins the procession.
The film tells us subtly that there is an alternative to Hindu and Muslim religious fundamentalism; the path of socialism and secularism. Can we please stop hounding these concepts? For they show us an alternative road that leads to a future of peace and mutual respect. We do not have to be caught in the chains of unfreedom forged by religious fundamentalism that denies us the right to choose our own path.
We can be free of the pettiness of religious strife that binds us in manacles not of our own making. Finally an appeal to secularism baiters – can we please be left alone to peacefully live our lives with others with whom we have a shared history? We call this living together with mutual respect secularism. India will be poorer if we abandon the concept.
Neera Chandhoke was professor of political science at Delhi University.
