View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto THE CONTEST OF INDIAN SECULARISM Erja Marjut Hänninen University of Helsinki Faculty of Social Sciences Political History Master’s thesis December 2002 Map of India I INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1 PRESENTATION OF THE TOPIC ....................................................................................................................3 AIMS ......................................................................................................................................................... 5 SOURCES AND LITERATURE ......................................................................................................................7 CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................................................... 12 SECULARISM..............................................................................................................14 MODERNITY ............................................................................................................................................ 14 SECULARISM ........................................................................................................................................... 16 INDIAN SECULARISM ............................................................................................................................... 18 The Founding Fathers of Indian Secularism...................................................................................... 19 The Constitution of India.................................................................................................................... 21 Difficulties with Indian Secularism .................................................................................................... 23 THE CONTEST OF SECULARISM..........................................................................25 NATIONALISM ......................................................................................................................................... 25 Approaches to Nationalism ................................................................................................................ 28 COMMUNALISM ...................................................................................................................................... 33 The Evolvement of Communal Identities............................................................................................ 36 Economic Reasons.............................................................................................................................. 42 Politicisation ...................................................................................................................................... 44 HINDU NATIONALISM ............................................................................................................................. 46 From a Cultural Organisation to a Mass Political Party .................................................................. 48 The Ayodhya Case.............................................................................................................................. 54 SIKH NATIONALISM ................................................................................................................................ 60 The Way to a Sikh Identity.................................................................................................................. 60 Operation Bluestar and the Assassination of Indira Gandhi ............................................................. 65 Internal factors................................................................................................................................... 70 Political Implications ......................................................................................................................... 72 KASHMIRI NATIONALISM ........................................................................................................................ 74 Kashmiri Identity................................................................................................................................ 74 The Rise of Kashmiri Nationalism...................................................................................................... 75 Territorial Dispute ............................................................................................................................. 77 The Turn Against India ...................................................................................................................... 81 Freedom Fighters............................................................................................................................... 83 The Origins of the Unrest................................................................................................................... 85 ASSESSMENT : T HE CONTEST OF INDIAN SECULARISM ............................................................................ 87 The Surrender of Secularism.............................................................................................................. 88 Centralisation and Personalisation of Politics .................................................................................. 90 The New Nationalism ......................................................................................................................... 92 Unity Under Threat ............................................................................................................................ 93 THE CRISIS OF INDIAN SECULARISM ................................................................94 THE CRISIS IN NATION -BUILDING ........................................................................................................... 95 The Unsuitability of Modernity .......................................................................................................... 95 The Crisis of the Nation-State ............................................................................................................ 96 THE ORGANIC CRISIS OF THE INDIAN STATE ........................................................................................... 99 The Decline of Indian Secularism .................................................................................................... 104 The Nehru Tenure .........................................................................................................................................104 Indira Gandhi’s Authoritarianism..................................................................................................................105 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................109 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................112 PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ............................................................................................................................. 112 BOOKS , A RTICLES AND DISSERTATIONS ............................................................................................... 112 II OTHER SOURCES ................................................................................................................................... 120 Newspapers ...................................................................................................................................... 120 Magazines ........................................................................................................................................ 120 WWW-Documents............................................................................................................................. 121 ANNEX I: THE MAP OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR............................................123 ANNEX II: HINDU-MUSLIM RIOTS: VICTIMS .................................................124 ANNEX III: FREQUENCY AND CASUALTIES OF COMMUNALIST INCIDENTS ................................................................................................................125 III INTRODUCTION Three coaches of a train carrying devotees belonging to the Hindu community back home from a place of pilgrimage in Ayodhya, Northern India, were burnt down by a mob from the Muslim community on the 27 th of February 2002, in which 57 people, including women and children, were burnt alive and charred to death.1 The attack could be seen as an act of revenge against the holy and disputed site in Ayodhya and against the expanse of Hindutva. This attack was followed by the second largest communalist riots 2 in the country since the beginning of the 1990s. The Hindu nationalists wanted to start the construction for the temple for God Ram, which had been pulled down during the Muslim era. Until 1992, on the place stood the Babri Mosque, but the Hindus demolished it. The Hindu nationalist organisations were able to continue their agitation in the state of Gujarat, while the government of India was not able to respond to the riots quickly enough. The organisations circulated flyers which demanded people to boycott Muslim shops and not to watch movies whose protagonists were Muslims! 3 Some suspects that there was no interest on the side of government