Secular Common Sense

Interrogating India is a new series that looks critically at the common sense prevailing on some of the most pressing issues of our times. Provocative and incisive it has essays on themes ranging from secularism political representation and nationalism to corruption terrorism and language which figure prominently in today?s middle-class discourse. Passionate accessible and opinionated these reflections from some of India?s best minds should help us make better sense of the public debate on these issues while hopefully provoking us to respond to the challenges they present. Forthcoming titles The Necessity of Corruption by Shiv Visvanathan Reflections on Terrorism byKanti Bajpai Language as an Ethic by Vijay Nambisan Revisiting Nationalism by Bipan Chandra In this essay Kesavan argues that secularism is (and has always been) the political common sense of the Republic. Before Independence secularism grew out of the necessary pluralism of Congress politics. The Congress was inclusive because it had to prove to a sceptical colonial State that it genuinely represented the diversity of India. After Independence and the traumas of Partition the function of Nehruvian secularism was to reassure Indians of every sort that they lived in the Republic by right and not on sufferance. Secularism became a way of making the republican State credible to all its constituents. For Kesavan republican secularism is not a radical cause. As written into India?s Constitution secularism has had a single simple aim it has tried to make sure that no one community monopolizes the State and its institutions. Hindutva threatens this foundational safeguard because it claims the State in the name of a single community. It represents in politics a monopolistic take-over bid a coup in slow motion. It should be opposed because it wants to replace the secular common sense of our Republic with the rhetoric of grievance and resentment. Mukul Kesavan is the author of Looking Through Glass. He teaches history at Jamia Millia Islamia Delhi.