Question- ‘Religion is Pluralistic and Humanistic’. Analyse this statement in your own words in the Contemporary Universal Context.

Answer -

Religious Pluralism and Secularism

Gandhi acknowledged the multi-religiosity and cultural diversity of India when he stated in Hind Swaraj that India cannot cease to be one nation because people belonging to different religions live in it. It was the religious pluralism which Gandhi advocated, more than anything else, that greatly affected the development of secularism in India.

Gandhi’s religious pluralism is well expressed in his own words:
“My position is that all religions are fundamentally equal. We must have the same innate respect for all religions as we have for our own.”

He advocated not only mutual toleration but also equal respect. It required that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians be willing to respect all religions as equally right. It is pluralism, which regards all religions as the same and all gods as variations of the One, which underlies his concept of secularism.

It could be said that Gandhi spoke of secularism from the perspective of religion, and religious pluralism in keeping with polytheistic Hinduism. Thus, it can be said that Gandhi played a very important role in transmitting a pluralist picture of secularism among the Hindus. Gandhi's religious policy, therefore, was different in the sense that inter-faith relationships and religious harmony were based on the equality of all religions rather than a separation of religion from the state.

Framework, to be secular in politics was not to abjure one’s religion altogether, but only to abjure the religious use of political, legal institutions like the government (Rao, 1989).

Gandhi's religious quest not only moulded his personality but also shaped his political techniques with which he confronted racialism in South Africa and colonialism in India. While Gandhi’s advocacy of mutual tolerance and respect between different religions originally arose from his study of comparative religion, it had a practical aspect too which found expression in his leadership of struggles against racial, social and political injustice with adherents in these struggles belonging to all the major religions. Gandhi was aware of the gulf between the Hindus and Muslims, the two major communities in India and the great need for toleration. However, Gandhi’s secular perspective has not been non-controversial. He has been accused of exploiting religion to rouse the masses or of using Hindu symbols which eventually contributed to the communal polarisation leading to the division of India.

Religion and Politics

Gandhi was often accused of mixing religion with politics. But he repeatedly clarified his meaning of religion thus:
“Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion, which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which leaves the soul restless until it has found itself.”
(Young India, 12 May 1920, quoted in Nanda, 1995).

Thus he spoke of religion which was not the Hindu religion but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature. He alone is a true devotee of God who understands the pains and sufferings of others. The divinity of man manifests itself according to the extent he realises his humanity, i.e., his oneness with his fellow men. Thus Gandhi's religion was almost akin to humanism.

Gandhi claimed that his religion was his politics and his politics was his religion. While affirming that for him there was no politics without religion, he explained that this was ‘not the religion that hates and fights, but the universal religion of Toleration’.

In 1940, he reiterated that ‘religion should pervade every one of our actions,’ but added, ‘here religion does not mean sectarianism. It means a belief in ordered moral government of the universe. This religion transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them but harmonizes them’.

Thus Gandhi’s concept of religion had little in common with that which generally passes for organised religion: dogmas, rituals, superstition and bigotry. Gandhian religion was simply an ethical framework for the conduct of daily life which included not only the domestic and social spheres but also the political sphere.

Gandhi did not and could not accept the commonly accepted view of politics as a game of expediency taking precedence over morality. Satyagraha, Gandhi’s non-violent mode of struggle for fighting against social and political oppression, was rooted in morality and had no place for untruth, secrecy, hatred and, above all, violence. It supported suffering at the hands of the oppressor rather than inflicting on him, based on the abiding belief in the possibility of a change of heart of the enemy.

Gandhi saw the basic strategy of a non-violent struggle as different from that of a violent one. It was not about the use of a superior force or of overwhelming the enemy by the force of numbers but to generate those processes of introspection and re-thinking that would make it possible to arrive at a readjustment of relationships between the contending parties without generating hatred and violence. Non-violence was the central issue and it was not to be compromised at any cost. Utter failure rather than a compromise with non-violence was preferable. It called for the utmost discipline of non-violence.

Humanism and Universalism

Gandhi's religious outlook was thus imbued with deep humanism and universality. His concept of ‘Ram Rajya’, which he occasionally used to describe the goal of the Indian freedom struggle, was simply a concept of an ideal polity free from inequality, injustice, and exploitation.

In furtherance of his belief in religious tolerance, Gandhi’s prayer meetings were held not in temples but in the open, symbolizing religious harmony in that they included recitations from Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Parsi, and Buddhist texts. Thus, while Gandhi used the Hindu symbols and the saintly idiom, his message was always moral, humanist, and cosmopolitan.

Gandhi’s steadfast opposition to the Partition was well known. While personally he was deeply religious, he said that he would have opposed any proposal for a state religion even if the whole population of India had professed the same religion. He looked upon religion as a personal matter.

Gandhi gave his wholehearted approval to the resolution on fundamental rights passed by the Karachi Congress, which affirmed the principle of religious freedom and declared that “the State shall observe neutrality in regard to all religions”, a doctrine which found a firm place in the Constitution of independent India even after the bitter partition of the country based on religion, campaigned for relentlessly by the Muslim League. Thus, despite his wholly religious grounding in Hinduism, Gandhi worked to establish a secular State (Fischer, 1951).

Gandhi tried to invoke his religious values into Indian nationalist politics without letting it descend into communalism. However, despite being wholly opposed to all forms of communalism and partition, his use of Hindu symbols and saintly idiom has raised doubts about their having unwittingly contributed to both.

Thus, Gandhi’s political practice of combining Indian nationalism with the pluralistic and religious features of Indian society and culture has not been entirely free of problems and controversies.

His openness towards other faiths no doubt underlined his belief in the policy of religious tolerance. He was a strong supporter of building trust between different religions. In this context, he even believed that it was important that Hindus gained the trust of Muslims by backing their sectional demands.

This led him to support the establishment of separate electorates for Muslims in 1909 and later the Khilafat, the secular credentials of which have been controversial, in that it has been seen as a support to the Muslim clergy, which was reactionary and divisive, alienating Muslim secularists like Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

At times, Gandhi also courted Hindu nationalist organizations like the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Mahasabha thought he was a staunch opponent of the institution of unteachability.

Thus Gandhi's attempt to forge communal harmony in his style has ironically not been without contrary effects. Despite his indisputable belief in secularism and equality of all religions, communal divide continued and remained rooted in post-colonial India (Hardiman, 2003).

The Gandhian view of secularism stressing sarva dharma samabhava tried to achieve simultaneously the retention and abolition of the religious category. It tries to retain it insofar as it accepts the religious commitment of individuals and groups at the level of privatised behaviour but it expects at the same time the suspension of this identity in so far as the public domain of inter-communal community is a political necessity of a multi-religious nation (Rao, in Shakir).

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