Indian Secularism : A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950 By Shabnum Tejani

Many of the central issues in modern Indian politics have long been understood in terms of an opposition between ideologies of secularism and communalism. Observers have argued that recent Hindu nationalism is the symptom of a crisis of Indian secularism and have blamed this on a resurgence of religion or communalism.

Shabnum Tejani unpacks prevailing assumptions about the meaning of secularism in contemporary politics in her new book, Indian Secularism : A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950 (Indiana University Press). The writer focuses on India but with many points of comparison elsewhere in the world. She questions the simple dichotomy between secularism and communalism that has been used in scholarly study and political discourse. Tracing the social, political and intellectual genealogies of the concepts of secularism and communalism from the late nineteenth century until the ratification of the Indian constitution in 1950, she shows how secularism came to be bound up with ideas about nationalism and national identity.

The author takes the readers to the origin of Indian nationalism, especially with the Hindu community in Maharashtra, cow protection, Ganpati festivals and music before mosques 1893-1894. She compares Regionalism to nationalism: Swadeshi and the new patriotism in Maharashtra during 1905-1910. The author discusses at length the evolution from Religious community to communal minority: Muslim and the debates around constitutional reform 1906- 1909, the question of Muslim autonomy: the Khilafat movement and the separation of Sind 1919-1932. Under the section on Secularism, she discusses the stages from untouchable to Hindu, particularly on Gandhi, Ambedkar, and the depressed classes question 1932. The final section focuses on nationalism to secularism: defining the secular citizen 1946-1950.

Secularism has been the subject of much debate. Scholars have argued that recent Hindu nationalism is the symptom of a crisis of Indian secularism and have blamed this on a resurgence of religion or communalism. Shabnum Tejani argues here for a more complex and historically informed understanding. Her book is a history of how the idea of secularism emerged in India.  

 Reviews suggest that her book examines how secularism came to be bound up with what it meant to legitimately call oneself Indian and shows why this concept’s genealogy is so imbued with the language of religion. Tejani argues that the emergence of the category of secularism in India had less to do with creating an ethics of tolerance than with a formulation of nationalism that provided a counterpoint to challenges posed by Muslim and untouchable communities.

Through a detailed reconstruction of six historical moments, which include the emergence of religious movements and key constitutional debates, she shows that the ideology of secularism that emerged in 1950 had its conceptual preconditions in histories of nationalism, communalism, and British colonial discourses. She also argues that the distinction between religion and caste that has characterized debates on Indian secularism is false. Rather than being distinct from community and caste, nationalism and communalism, liberalism and democracy, Indian secularism was a relational category that emerged at the nexus of all these. However, the book does not take us beyond 1950 to the modern times, especially when secularism has become a topic of discussion not only in the academic circles but also in the mainstream people’s lives as communalism and fascist forces have come to affect the very existence of humanity.

This book will interest all students of Indian democracy, politics, and history, as well as of political philosophy and the sociology of caste.

Dr Shabnum Tejani is a Lecturer in the History of Modern South Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Department of History, London, UK.

BY YOGESH KARIKURVE