In a recent article for the APSR, Dr. Cécile Laborde (University of Oxford) examines the rise of the Hindu Nationalist BJP in India and its effects on the secular Indian state. In so doing, she introduces a concept she terms “minimal secularism,” which she proposes as a “benchmark of global comparative secularism.”

In 2014, the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept into power, installing Narendra Modi as prime minister and delivering the dominant center-left Indian-National Congress (INC) party its worse electoral defeat since independence. By mixing religion and politics, the BJP has undermined the secular foundations of the 1950 Constitution. Such, at any rate, is the widely accepted judgement about contemporary Indian politics. In a recent piece at APSR, I show that that this judgement is not so much false, as it is incomplete.

Minimal Secularism

My article tells a more complex story. What the widely accepted view underestimates is the way in which the BJP has also been able to claim that it is a truly “secular” party—a party genuinely committed to the separationist ideals of secularism – all the while denying the principles of equal inclusion and personal liberty that give secularism its normative appeal.

The theory that I propose—which I call minimal secularism—incorporates this appeal. Minimal secularism refers to the pursuit of liberal democratic ideals such as equal inclusion and personal liberty. Crucially, these ideals can be promoted via state intervention in religion, as long as such intervention furthers these ideals. While the BJP might be able to claim some separationist credentials, its ideology and policies fall short of minimal secularism.

A Separationist Attitude

The BJP has laid claim to a a ‘hands-off’, separationist attitude of the state towards religion in three interconnected ways. First, the BJP has been a long-standing critic of the special rights granted to religious minorities by the hitherto dominant Congress party. For example, the BJP has defended universal and general laws (such as a Universal Civil Code) against so-called “personal law” systems such as the Sharia in family matters. Second, the BJP has been hostile towards state interference with many religious practices, such as the governance of Hindu temples, in the name of freedom of religion. Third, the BJP has denied being a “religious party” in the sense relevant to separationism. The BJP claims that Hindu nationalism—”Hindutva”—involves not the promotion of a religion but rather that of a culture, a thin mode of national identity. The BJP contrasts this thin, pluralist, tolerant and theologically open national identity with the allegedly illiberal, intolerant and dogmatic religiosity of Islamists. The separationist rhetoric of the BJP has therefore laid claim to ideals of non-interference of the state with religion, equal citizenship rights, and anti-fundamentalist nationalism.

The BJP’s separationist rhetoric, however, raises a number of questions. First, it is not faithful to the original secularism of the Founders of the Indian Republic. Second, separation is not, in and by itself, an attractive interpretation of secularism. On the more abstract theory of minimal secularism, separation between religion and state is only one possible institutional and political entailment of more fundamental principles. The most important of these principles are equal inclusion (of all groups in the state) and personal liberty (of all individuals).  When these principles require (depending on local circumstances and context) that the state intervene in the sphere of religion, this is compatible with minimal secularism.

The Secularist Vision

The secularist vision of the Indian Founders, such as Ghandi and Nehru, was driven by these principles of equal inclusion and personal liberty, and was not automatically interpreted to entail strict separation.  Consider equal inclusion first. The secularist vision was essentially that of a state where the deep status inequalities of Indian society (of caste, race, and religion) would be rectified through forms of differentiated multicultural citizenship. Lower castes were to benefit from affirmative action policies. Minority religious groups, such as Muslims, were to be granted special rights of recognition (such as that of their “personal laws”) —all in the name of an inclusive, non-sectarian secularism. Now consider personal liberty. Unlike the US, the Indian Constitution combines freedom of religion clauses with a mandate of the state to intervene in religious affairs. Personal liberty was understood, not only as freedom of religion, but also as freedom in religion. Given that majority Hindu religious practices oppress vulnerable members—such as the exclusion from temples of dalit caste members and women— the ideal of secularism called for a more interventionist state to ensure individual liberty within religion.

If we hold up minimal secularism as the most plausible interpretation of secularism, both in India and from a more general perspective, then the sense in which the BJP is not (despite its rhetoric) faithful to secularism become apparent. First, notwithstanding their appeals to the rhetoric of formal equality, Hindu nationalists make no pretence to promote equal inclusion. The BJP rhetoric of “no special rights to religious minorities” only accentuates Muslim marginalization in Indian society—their socio-economic status, vulnerability to police persecution, and widespread discrimination and abuse. Second, while the BJP has been keen to promote the personal liberty of Muslim women by attacking personal law systems, the defense of women’s rights has not extended to continuing to reform Hindu practices – rather the opposite.

India is fast becoming an ethno-democracy which has reduced religious minorities to the status of second-class citizens. Hindutva may be a “culture rather than a religion,” but cultures can be as exclusive as religions. The ideology of the BJP is not adequately secular, even when it claims to conform to separationism.

– Dr. Cécile Laborde, Nuffield Chair of Political Theory at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the British Academy