Social Scientist Secularism and Time Author(s): Raghuramaraju Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 28, No. 11/12 (Nov. - Dec., 2000), pp. 20-39 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518279 . Accessed: 26/04/2014 05:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 202.41.10.21 on Sat, 26 Apr 2014 05:22:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Transcript
Social Scientist
Secularism and TimeAuthor(s): RaghuramarajuSource: Social Scientist, Vol. 28, No. 11/12 (Nov. - Dec., 2000), pp. 20-39Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518279 .
Accessed: 26/04/2014 05:22
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
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[Rux Martin] Q: The classical age is pivotal in all your writings. Do you feel nostalgia for the clarity of that age or for the "visibility" of the Renaissance when everything was unified and displayed?
[Michel Foucault] A: All of this beauty of old times is an effect of and not a reason for nostalgia. I know very well that it is our own invention. But it's quite good to have this kind of nostalgia, just as it's good to have a good relationship with your own childhood if you have children. It's good thing to have nostalgia toward some periods on the condition that it's a way to have a thoughtful and positive relation to your own present. But if nostalgia is a reason to be aggressive and uncomprehending toward the present, it has to be excluded. ("Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault," in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, eds. Luther H. Martin, et. al. The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1988. P.12)
In time, culture comes to be associated often aggressively, with the nation or the state; this differentiates 'us' from 'them', almost always with some degree of xenophobia. Culture in this sense is a source of
identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent 'returns' to culture and tradition. These 'returns' accompany rigorous codes of intellectual and moral behaviour that are opposed to the
permissiveness associated with such relatively liberal philosophies as multiculturalism and hybridity. In the formerly colonized world, these 'returns' have produced varieties of religious and nationalist fundamentalism. (Said, Edward, Culture & Imperialism, Vintage, London, 1993. pp.xiii-xiv)
Secularism is not only a matter concerning space, particularly the social space, but also time. It is not sufficient to treat the problem of secularism as a problem of space as it is equally a problem concerning
* Department of Philosophy, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.
Social Scientist, Vol. 29, Nos. 11 - 12, Nov.-Dec. 2000
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time. At the outset let me clarify that I am not, at least here, using a metaphysical notion of time, nor am I privileging time over space. In fact, I would ask for conceding to time what is conceded to the space in the discussions on secularism. In attempting to discuss secularism from the point of view of time, I want to avoid discussion of secularism, that too from the beginning, from a normative point view. Discussion of norms without either logical rigour, or factual basis can become too unwieldy for a dialogue; or they generally tend to melt in the air. Instead, I would be interested in an exercise where these melted concepts are solidified, to use in reverse order Lenin's oft quoted remark, providing the firm basis for norms.
Javeed Alam's essay on "Indispensability of Secularism," is
interesting because, amongst others things1 it evokes the notion of time in the discussion on secularism at two important places, his use of Hegelian concept of time and individuation as a process involving temporal dimensions. His treatment of time is not sufficiently comprehensive enough, particularly the fact that he does not take time as present continuous, is what will be discussed in this essay. The problems related to Hegelian notion of time in its application to social processes and the problems relating to the individuation process will be argued in this essay.
The philosophical terrain inhabited in the discussions on this theme
by T.N. Madan, Ashis Nandy, Partha Chatterjee, is the terrain of
space. Whether, secularism is necessarily related to "Christian-
protestant-individualism" scheme, hence societies, which do not have this entitlement, are not capable of being secular. Alternatively, the counter to this, the one argued by Javeed that there is no necessary relation between secularism and Christian-Protestantism because of the following reasons:
1.Secularism without foundationalism, where "secular(ism) is treated not as an innate feature inherent to the human situation but as a need at a specific moment in history in different societies..."
(Javeed Alam, 1998: 9) Further, "modernity, and all that is entailed
by it, refracts also as a context-bound contestation and struggle, there need to be no intrinsic 'foundation' to it and yet it may remain securely grounded in the historical process." (1998: 10) This disentangles secularism from foundationalism and sees it as part of historical
process. 2. The logic of those like Madan who treat secularism as a Western
idea, says Javeed, "boils down to the suggestion that if the antecedent conditions behind any specific historical change are not there then
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analogous developments are scarcely conceivable anywhere in the world.-." (1998:13). The ahistorical character of Madan's assertion, for Javeed, is a blow on the face of historical evidence." Thus, Javeed makes a logical move of rejecting the assumed necessatily relation between secularism and the origin of its social space and treats their relation to be contingent. The two arguments that Javeed rejected in Madan are the arguments of space, the western social space.
The interesting feature of Javeed's treatment of secularism is that in releasing secularism from foundationalism, of the terrain of space, he offers arguments, which are temporal in nature. While Javeed removed the spatial blockades and seeks to clear the path for secularism I am pointing out in this essay the temporal knots on the
way to secularism. The terrain of time is evoked in Javeed at two different levels and contexts. In the context of demonstrating that it is not necessarily a post-Enlightenment idea as even in the "late Medieval and early Renaissance period there was a systematic attempt to bring about some or other form of separation between religion and the state.." (1998: 3) This argument is not a major argument as it is being made tentatively and not substantively. For instance, the
examples that are given are the separation between religion and the state2 in the late medieval and early Renaissance period. In fact, Javeed himself admits that the grounds for attempting this were very different than ours. This 'difference' between these two grounds may make, unless proved otherwise, the parallel drawn between the separation between religion and politics in the late medieval and early Renaissance
period, either thin or marginal. Therefore, this instance of time, in the context of secularism, is not a substantive one.
The substantive argument for time, however, comes when he says that he believes, and I quote him:
..with Hegel, that for humankind there is no going back in history, time is something which cannot be rolled back. And that the unavoidability of their being in certain time does not, secondly, create a chain of necessity; ..We are all caught up inexorably in what is called modernity, whatever be our criticisms and deep reservations about the forms of entrenched modernity. So let us begin with a process that is inherent to modernity and is also inescapably global. (1998: 3-4)
I propose to discuss this crucial passage. At the outset let me
clarify that I am not raising the issue by asking the possibility like if we are in are they no outs.
I agree with Javeed regarding the fact that there is no going back in history. Understood literally, physically it is not possible to go back
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as one believes in Heraclitus that a person cannot step into the same river twice. This much of physical inevitability is granted. However, from this it cannot be concluded that past can't and will not be recalled by the present. This recalling is psychological and becomes an important aspect in making and unmaking of political decisions. I would like to contest Javeed's position by adding that it is necessary to recognize that human beings are also endowed with faculties such as memory and imagination with which they do go into the past, though with varying success. Going into the past is crucial to art and fictions, particularly going into one's own past in the form of self- portrait and autobiography is the most difficult test for an artist. This human facility is put to use as much for creative purpose as for purposes, which are not creative, but those that generate psychological aberrations. As we cannot go back in history is a fact, it is equally a fact that human beings do go back into the past through imagination and memory. It is also true that they go and conceptualize the future using the imagination. Processually, what is not physically possible is sought to be captured through memory and imagination. This capturing is distortion too. It is to use a now familiar feature, like a computer retrieving a corrupt file or when power is suddenly shut down recovering the file. In much the same way as the computer, the process of suddenly saving or retrieving involves desperation involving unmanageable speed, involving distortions, cuts and pieces, entanglements, overlapping, etc.3 So, though it is true that we cannot go back in time, the past in an important way can be recalled like recalling the 'childhood', though not necessarily for regressive politics, but also for creativity and to enrich the present. So time is not merely time present and time future but also time past a la T.S. Eliot.4
Let me discuss Javeed's notion of time, which is Hegelian, eliciting the psychological factors constituting it. Granting that there is no going back in history, and that we are caught up inexorably in modernity, which to quote Javeed is:
about the individuated persons ...[which] leads to a process of individuation of persons and interests; all this on a mass scale as never before. The social being of individuated persons is something that also gives rise to a distance from others - pre-existing community of people out of which such persons emerge - and therefore also a sense of difference. Feeling oneself to be different and also, to whatever minimal degree, distant gives to a sense of 'private' in the sense that something of (or in) "me" cannot always be open for monitoring, that unsolicited social regulation of my personal life is a kind of invasion. The process
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of individuation is also the moment of multiple birth - of claims and experiences and expectations in life. It is here at this point that we begin to see the emergence of the 'private' in society. It is here that the need also for 'rights' begins to be felt by persons who hitherto could live, even in happiness, without a sense of such a need. Now for a society on a way to modernity, there is therefore a sense of unfamiliar, a strangeness, to the experience that persons becoming individuals undergo. What are the unexpected burdens that this new condition imposes on society? (1998: 4)
The reason why I have quoted the above passage at length is that unlike many other writings on secularism which defend secularism abstractly, emotionally, axiomatically by highlighting one or other value, whether it is individual freedom, rights, freedom of expression, justice, etc., Javeed makes an important forwarding move in this discussion by attending to the process of individuation, thus, relating a psychological feature to his normative proposal of indispensability of secularism. Taking this combination for discussion is the strength of his argument. This adds remarkable new dimension to the discussion on secularism. This seminal move goes a long way in broadening and in the process enriching the terms of the discussions on secularism. In this sense Javeed is one of the few participants in the discussion on secularism, both for and against, who is taking a risk with doctrines they believe. This is in contrast to many who adhere and adhere more when it comes to the discussion on secularism to their original doctrinaire positions. In the process we have seen brilliant polemics, for instance, Ajaz Ahmed's criticism of post- colonialism, but a tame conformism to the doctrines they believe. This may be partly more due to circumstances, such as the sudden visible emergence of the phenomena of right wing politics, the communalization of social life, etc., than a scholarly competence. Like Ahmed many have leaned towards necessity of contexts rather than requirements of truth.
Thus, Javeed contributes remarkably to the discussion on secularism by alluding to the process of individuation, which involves time, and relating it to modernity. However, his argumentation in
elucidating the process is simplistic, not because it simplifies issues but because it takes into consideration only positive or seemingly positive aspects such as "distance,' 'difference,' 'privacy,' 'rights,' 'strangeness,' and such other aspects into consideration, thus taking the problem of individuation as non-problematic. I would argue that the process of individuation is indeed problematic and the process of
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leaving the 'pre-existing traditions' does not naturally result in the individuation process. Though leaving the pre-existing traditions and 'arriving' (there are no absolute arrival points, though) are both physical stages and conceptual positions, what intermediates between these two positions is equally important.
Before elucidating the complexity of these intermediate stages, let me state how important the individuation process is for Javeed. Individuation process is so important to his justification for secularism, as he argues later in the essay that only secularism can succeed as an interlocutor. He says:
The situation required interlocutors for exchange of opinions and ideas and adjudication of diverging interests and diverse notions of good between these very differently positioned worlds.
And,
Compulsions from within this situation triggered the need for what is now called the secular doctrine of governance. It was required over and above anything to seek a mode of doing things in the public life in a way such that the competing, and often irreconcilable, conceptions of good do not vitiate every situation of public interactions among the people. (1998: 6)
According to Javeed, only secularism can negotiate the new social reality unleashed on a massive scale by the process of individuation. About individuation he says:
..a mass of people who were let loose from their earlier bonds. This took various structural shapes like the formation of new classes, professional groups, and so on; all these are, to the extent these constitute themselves into communities for contestations as the segments of intelligentsia or of struggle as workers in trade unions, affiliative as against the filiative communities as they survive in whatever altered form - the bearers of a variety of traditions - lost their prior local autonomy. (1998: 5)
Thus, Javeed defends secularism, as it is the only interlocutor that can coordinate and negotiate these new social phenomena unleashed by individuation. This justificatory format makes individuation more crucial to Javeed's argumentation rather than secularism. Behind the whole web of interesting details in the essay, secularism in an important sense is dependent on and necessarily related to individuation, making the latter the rock bed of his analysis.5 So let us look closely into the temporal components constituting the beginning of the individuation process and its various manifestations
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before taking into consideration its arrivals. Here let me point out that Javeed not only takes the time to be irreversible but also makes a jump from the beginnings to the ends thereby skipping the intermediary stages. That is, he takes the individuation as completed and time in present tense whereas for me the process of individuation is in the present continuous tense. It is after assuming this completion that he starts proposing secularism as the only interlocutor for this changed social realities. However, it is this assumption that is very problematic for me. It is problematic at a psychological level not at a normative or other levels. Let me elaborate.
The process of individuation cannot be taken as complete and Javeed seems to be taking it to be in the past tense. He takes the arrival of individuation for granted. If it is not taken as complete then secularism is indispensable only to those regions where individuation is a reality, thereby narrowing down the scope of secularism to only those areas of individuation. If there are areas, which are not individuated yet, then till they are individuated, --and if individuation is on, that is individuation in the present continuous tense, and it is spreading in all direction,-- secularism cannot be interlocutor to these areas. Javeed does not say anywhere in the essay that secularism can be the interlocutor to the pre-modern communitarian life. He only points out how the pre-modern traditional life world cannot be the interlocutors for the modern social life. Even within the West where the process of individuation is at its best, both assisted by industrialization and urbanization, it is not clear whether individuation is total. Moreover, contrary to this Western experience, the scene in India, where the process of individuation is rather slow, partly because of the dilutions due to spatial distances, and the effect of industrialization is rather meek; the individuation process is slower than it is in the West. The incompleteness of individuation within Indian society can be
deciphered at two levels, at the level of society and individual. At the societal level there are large areas of Indian society that
have not yet come under the ambit of individuation. India is still largely a pre-modern society. This I will not elaborate here. Apart from these social level contingencies of the features of incompleteness, there are incomplete features at the individual level. Here let me point out that there may be individual in whose life the individuation began, the process might have sufficiently progressed in the case of many individuals bringing positive results of individuation.6 Javeed has taken only this form of successful and uncomplicated aspect of individuation
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into consideration in this essay. However, some may not have made sufficient progress towards the individuation. Problems associated with the psychological trajectories of this form of individuation in the West are discussed in the following. Here, it may, however, be pointed out that, though Javeed argues for a contingent relation between secularism and Western society, he however, assumes a necessary relation between secularism and individuation. Given this, it is appropriate, following the theoretical route taken by Javeed, to look into the problem of individuation within the West as discussed by Eric Fromm and Oakeshott.
INDIVIDUATION AND THE WEST
Modernity in the West discarded a large number of traditional practices and social institutions as superstitious. Referring to the renaissance mood, J.L. Talmon observes:
Men were gripped by the idea that the conditions, a product of faith, time and custom, in which they and their forefathers had been living, were unnatural and had all to be replaced by deliberately planned uniform patterns, which would be natural and rational. (1966: 3)
The impact of Renaissance thinking consisted in freeing man from the traditional institutions. This becomes clear in Rousseau who laments that man is in bondage and needs to be freed. Since he is in bondage, he cannot see the alternatives. Therefore, he has to be 'forced to be free'. Here, to quote Fromm, "the abolition of external domination seemed to be not only a necessary but also a sufficient condition to attain the cherished goal: freedom of the individual. (1964: 4) This 'freedom from' the natural associations has been forced on all. This idea of 'freedom', which implies the restraintlessness state, seems to have some implications. Two things follow from the state of freedom from external constraints and individualism. First, the freedom referred to above, says Fromm, brings 'an increased feeling of strength' and secondly, also 'an increased isolation, doubt, skepticism," which results in 'anxiety'. (1964: 48) This increased
feeling of strength is dominant in some while freedom for the majority primarily means the loss of the most important advantage, i.e., the sense of security, which they enjoyed when their life was in the midst of traditional ties. Severed from these ties, these people face the
problem of loneliness, lack of belonging, isolation or social solipsism. Fromm observes:
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This lack of relatedness to values, symbols, patterns, we may call moral aloneness and state that moral aloneness is as intolerable as the physical aloneness, or rather that physical aloneness becomes unbearable only if it implies also moral aloneness. (1964: 19)
These psychological aberrations culminate into the formation of two dangerous tendencies, namely, mass phenomena and fascism. Michel Oakeshott and Eric Fromm discuss these, respectively.
INDIVIDUATION AND MASS PHENOMENA
Referring to this state of restraintlessness, Michael Oakeshott
points out a close relation between hypothetical individualism and the mass phenomena. Before elucidating this relation let us clarify the constituting feature of mass man, Gassete hold that mass,
.. as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual, we can decide whether he is 'mass' or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself -- good or ill-based on specific grounds, but which feels itself 'just like everybody,' and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else. (1972: 11-12)
Masses, according to Oakeshott, as they appear in modern
European history are not composed of individuals, but "are composed of anti-individuals' united in a revulsion from individuality." (1961: 160) The emergence of this 'anti-individual' attitude, he tried to show, is related to the growing shift of emphasis from relations to persons. By relations, he means the state of individual where, "to know oneself as the member of a family, a group, a corporation, a church, a village community, as the suitor at a court or as the occupier of a tenancy, had been, for the vast majority, the circumstantially possible sum of
self-knowledge." By persons, Oakeshott means, the state where the emphasis has been on man, who in most cases, is not an empirical but a hypothetical man. Oakeshott says:
Almost all modern writing about moral conduct begins with the hypothesis of an individual human being choosing and pursuing his own directions of activity. What appeared to require explanation was not the existence of such individuals, but how they could come to have duties to others of their kind and what was the nature of those duties (1961:154)
The notion 'anti-individuality,' which Oakeshott refers to, is a notion of the postulated, hypothesized individuality. It is not the anti-
individuality of the concrete human being. Accordingly, the
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anti-individuals are those who previously came under the influence of the 'individuality', which are the products of 'freedom from'. To understand this sort of anti-individuality -- the collection of which is mass which had emerged as a reaction to the hypothetical individuality -- it is essential to understand the nature of this individuality. Inspired by the idea of individualism and faith in freedom, in the sense of 'freedom-from', the prevalent beliefs, occupations, status or institutions were sought to be dissolved and it was attempted to free all people, indiscriminately from them. This was deemed desirable because equality was the unquestioned assumption. Referring to this abstract and universal notion of equality Oakeshott says:
The old certainties of belief, of occupation and of status were being dissolved, not only for those who had confidence in their own power to make a new place for themselves in an association of individuals, but also for those who had no such confidence. ( Oakeshott 1961: 158)
This freedom and individuality have, in a majority of the cases, led to the rise of social solipsism, isolation or loneliness. From this state, says Oakeshott:
..a new disposition was generated: the impulse to escape from the predicament by imposing it upon all mankind. From the frustrated 'individual manque" there sprang the militant 'anti-individual' (1961:159)
When man with this attitude of anti-individuality, finds numerical
superiority of his type of people, he forms a collectivity which becomes the masses. The nature of this mass man reveals that feelings rather than thoughts, impulses rather than opinions, inabilities rather than
power govern him. He doesn't want to make decisions for himself. But wants others to decide things for him. Mass leader takes up this role and function of making decisions by the mass men. In addition, the mass leader becomes a leader not by virtue of qualifications, but driven by the need to get away from, or escape from, choice. The anti-individual and the leader were the counter-parts of a single moral situation; they relieved one another's frustrations and supplies one another's' wants. Therefore, the man who wanted salvation from the traditional bonds, in the end, "will be satisfied only with release from the burden of having to make choices for himself." (1961: 168). Thus, Oakeshott traces the origins of masses in modern Europe, to the idea of abstract individuality. This abstract individuality is primarily understood as not having any obligation to external social relations.
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Fromm discusses another dimension of the escape mechanism of man from this loneliness. He traces roots of fascist psychological traits -- sadism and masochism - to this escape mechanism. He says:
Aloneness, fear, and bewilderment remain; people cannot stand it forever. They cannot go on bearing the burden of "freedom from"; they must try to escape from freedom altogether unless they can progress from negative to positive freedom. The principle social avenues of escape in our time are the submission to a leader, as has happened in Fascist countries, and the compulsive conforming as is prevalent in our own democracy. (1964: 134)
This sense of freedomin the absence of natural social practices and habits leave him in loneliness and isolation. Man cannot endure for long this solipsistic state. Therefore, he attempts to escape from it. From this extreme individualism, man reaches the state of 'anti-
individuality' where he does not have to decide things for himself. The leader does this work for him. Fromm locates the origins of the two fascist psychological traits, sadism and masochism as a
psychological requirement of this form of individualism. Machoist
attempts are "to get rid of the individual self, to loose oneself, on other words, to get rid of the burden of freedom." And sadist attempts are the impulse "to have complete mastery over another person" (1964: 157). These two psychological traits are diametrically opposed to each other. But according to Fromm, they spring from the same
source, namely, "the inability to bear the isolation and weakness of oneself." These two diametrically opposed psychological traits are
exclusively interdependent, and their relation is 'symbiotic.' (1964: 156-58)
These attempts to get away from oneself and to relate to other are termed by Fromm as secondary bonds. In these, secondary bond individuals consciously attempt to rationalize that he is related to the other and consequently rationalizes a sense of belongingness. Nevertheless, unconsciously the dichotomy and the hostility prevail. Fromm says that in these secondary bonds man does not attain in what he has lost in the primary bonds. In the words of Fromm:
The self attempts to find security in 'secondary bonds,' as we might call the masochistic bonds, but this attempt can never be successful. The emergence of the individual self cannot be reversed; consciously the individual can feel secure and as if he "belonged," but basically he remains a powerless atom who suffers under the submergence of his self. (1964:156-57)
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The main difference between the primary and secondary bonds seems to lay in the fact that man in his primary bonds, or to use Javeed's expression 'pre-existing traditions,' i.e., in his relations with his family, community, or his surroundings, grows with them. He is not consciously aware of this growth. Secondary bonds, on the other hand, are consciously established. He does not grow in to these secondary bonds, but enters into them. Therefore, individuation, which is so crucial to Javeed's defence of secularism, is both positive and negative. The negative aspects of aberrations of individuation are as much a reality as the positive aspects.
In pointing out these aberrations of individuation I would not however, conclude from this that these aberrations are inevitable, so critique modernity. Here let me point out that like Fromm and Oakeshott I would not like to criticize modernity because of these aberrations that it might generate. I may however, pitch my criticism on modernity from somewhere else. I will not accept Fromm's critique of modernity because of the aberrations of individualism, for two reasons. One, I do consider that the cases of failed instances of individuation can at least subsequently succeed in finding security in the secondary bonds. So there is a subsequent possibility for the individuals forming fascism to overcome this state. My second disagreement with Fromm is that though I do accept his description of aberration of individuation, but I do not use this to criticise, as he does, modernity. I would like to work in between Fromm's realism and Javeed's idealism about individuation. This brings us to the process of individuation in Indian society.
Further, I believe that it is possible to both negotiate with these alleged aberrations as well as find out mechanism to preempt their arrival at the outset. This is actually what we in India should have learnt from the experiences of the process of modernization in the West, thus, not only avoiding the aberrations but also turning the disadvantages of the West as our advantages. However, I do not think a work in this direction is initiated at all. Instead we have taken the determinism for granted.
INDIVIDUATION AND INDIA
The above discussion elucidates the complexity between the leaving point of pre-communities and the arrival of individuation. This in between phenomena can be seen through Fromm's distinction between primary and secondary bonds. The former, pre-conscious in origins and natural and the latter, conscious and need based. However,
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before embarking on discussing the individuation process in India let me clarify a methodological point.
I am using this distinction of Fromm along the same lines as Javeed, i.e. individuation in the West is not necessarily related to the West but can be seen outside the West. However, let me add a small proviso here. There are two aspects in the above discussion on the individuation in the West. First, there is a psychological aspect that is alluded to. Second, there is a normative or a political angle associated with these thinkers discussed above. Further, they may also have put the first aspect to use for the second. Our disagreements with the second should not however, make us dismiss the first. If the first has to be contested it has to be at the level of facts rather than norms. (Here I am aware of the view that facts can have values and values also can be facts and other such combination). With this clarification let me use this distinction between the primary and the secondary bonds to understand the process of individuation in India.
Like in the West, in India too, modernity has unleashed the process of individuation as Javeed rightly pointed out. In addition, like in the West there may be many, particularly those who came under the impact of Western liberalism in whose life the process of individuation was largely successful. However, like in the West, this process is not complete or it did not take the route of individuation but got derailed. The success of individuation is much less in India because of the historical factors of both spacial and temporal distance between the origins of modernity and the site of its implementation. As the pace of this individuation is not so fast as in the West, the reaction against it and the instances of derailments may also be less in magnitude. All these make the pace of individuation in India slower. It is because of this sociological feature rather than normative position that I find Javeed's taking for granted the process of individuation, which is the premise on which he bases his thesis of indispensability of secularism, problematic. Here I am not contesting secularism but the prior conditions of secularism, namely, individuation.
Like in the West, in India too these people insofar as they have left the pre-modern, immigrated to the urban centres, incorporated features of individualism, and along the way had doubts about these developments. I think it is this uncertain psychological state coupled with the inevitability of the present, which they are not ready to leave, that makes him or her, nostalgic about the his or her community past. It is this situation of a psychological trap, which, in a selective manner, makes him or her to create second order community identities,
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which are largely imaginary, and are quiet, different from their earlier communities. Though they have left the pre-modern communities but they have not achieved individuation. They are the products of individuation at the same time its bitter critiques. Further, it is these individuals, not the individuals belonging to the pre-modern societies, who largely feed into the phenomena of communalism. It is for this reason for me aberrations in the process of individuation are important. Let me distinguish between the individuals of the pre- modern communities from the post-modern individuals.
These second order communities don't tally with the first order communities. The difference between the primary communities and this second order communities is that while the primary communities seem to be living more with experience and reality, the second order communities live more in imagination and memory and less in reality and experience. Similarly, there is a difference between communities' conflicts and communal conflicts. One of the distinguishing factors is that in the conflict between two communities there is at least an initial clarity partly facilitated by the layered distance amongst communities. While there are many overlapping amongst communities, there is nevertheless clarity about the differences regarding their community identities. In contrast, most of the communal conflicts, at least in the beginning, are governed by confusion and chaos. Further, this is largely an urban phenomenon. The raw material for the communalism comes from those who left their communities, immigrated to the urban centres; incorporated features of individualism, and along the way had doubts about these developments. I think it is this uncertain psychological state coupled with the inevitability of the present, which they are not ready to leave, that makes him or her, nostalgic about the his or her community past. It is this situation of a psychological trap, which, in a selective manner, makes him or her to create second order community identities, which are largely imaginary, and are quiet different from their earlier communities. This uncertainty is at the root of the confusion and chaos that one sees in communal conflicts, in India.
It may be true that subsequently, due to the former's visibility and articulation, they do make inroads into the first order communities. However, it is necessary to maintain this distinction. So the members participating in the communal violence largely come not from communities but are those who left their communities and incorporated quite a lot of individualists' features but had doubts along the way and constructed second order communities and it is
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the conflict amongst these second order communities that culminate into communalism. So this phenomenon is a mixture of both individualism and communities. It is this 'hybridity,'7a particular form of this hybridity, which is unable to negotiate between what it is left and what it is yet to arrive at, and uncertainty associated with this 'in-between ness' and the weakness and failures associated with this predicament, that provides resources for communalism. So in the Indian context, the aberrations of individuation have fed into the making of communalism. Thus, individuation is not a simple process having a clear or even natural direction, but a complex one, involving aberrations. And these aberration that feed into the communal phenomena, rather than the communities, which existed before modernity. To repeat the point I made earlier, I am not thereby suggesting that these pre-modern communities are not in conflict with each other's; I am only suggesting that the conflict between these communities is qualitatively different from the conflict involved in communalism. It is the trapped individuals of individualism though not all of them, who become the primary and the potential resources for communalism. In this respect, individuation not only makes secularism indispensable as argued by Javeed but also the aberrations of individualism that threatens it.
So, within the spactial terrain of India, the individuation presents itself in three broad modes: 1. There exist large realities, which are not mostly affected by individuation. 2. There are many who have left their pre-existing communities and succeeded in individuation. 3. There may be those in whose life the individuation is not complete, either because it still on or for various reasons got terminated.
There are many who though have taken themselves off from their pre-existing communities, however, their journey got derailed. It is these people, though not always and not necessarily, who feed into communalism, as they neither possess the pre-modern identities or the sense of belonging, nor are they succeeded their chosen second order communities or even individualism. In this trapped situation when they suddenly and out of desperation by remaining physically away from their pre-modern belongings and mostly stay in the modern spaces, but recall through imagination their pre-modern realities, they largely constitute the feeders of communalism.
So the process of individuation involves all these. Therefore, unless these issues of individuation are carefully sorted out,8 like devising mechanisms to come out of these aberrations of individuation, we cannot adjudicate on secularism. Further, this fact of an incomplete
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individuation makes it necessary to have two kinds of interlocutors, one for the individuated areas of society and another, which already exists for the pre-individuated societies. Secularism is indispensable for the former and not to the latter, which has its own native interlocutors. This coexistence further might make it necessary to establish the need to postulate a meta-level interlocutor that would coordinate these two, the secular and what Javeed himself calls traditional.
I have tried to show that it is necessary to look at secularism from the point of view of time. Space and time are so crucial that emphasizing one and undermining the other do tilt the balance and drastically change our preferred futures. The ingenuity of Javeed's discussion on secularism lies as he treats it as a problem of time. However, I have pointed out that the notion of time taken in present tense is problematic in Javeed, as individuation has to be looked at as present continuation. Further, what is also problematic is that time is not merely linear and straight forward but indeed consists of discontinuities, terminations, cuts, fractures, some of them involving psychological knots, etc. Till these different aspects of individuation are distinguished, knots sorted out, the indispensability of secularism as a political programme is postponed. All this is because Javeed makes his defence become parasitic on individuation assuming their relation to be necessary. Here I do not rule out the possibility of making a case for secularism outside individuation but that requires a different treatment, which cannot be undertaken here.
REFERENCES
- Alam, Javeed. 1998. "Indispensability of Secularism," Social Scientist, 26, 7-8, July-August, pp.3-20.
- Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
- Foucault, M. 1984. "What is Enlightenment," in The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow (ed.), Penguin, Harmondsworth.
- Fromm, Eric. 1964. Escape from Freedom, Hold, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
- Gasset, Ortega Y Jose. 1972. The Revolt of the Masses, Unwin Books, London.
- Harpham, G. G. 1994. "So ...What Is Enlightenment? An Inquisition into
Modernity," Critical Inquiry, (Spring, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 524-556.) - Kant, I. 1991. "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment," in
Kant's Political Writings, Hans Reiss (ed.) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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- Oakeshot, M. 1961. "The Masses in the Representative Democracy," in Freedom and Serfdom, Albert Hunold (ed.), D. Reidel Publications Co. Dordrecht, Holland.
- Rousseau, J.J. 1952. The Social Contract and Discourses, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
- Talmon, J.L. 1966. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, Secker &
Warburg, London.
NOTES
1. For instance, yet another important positive feature of Javeed's discussion of secularism is, it is dialogical in nature as it actively seeks to negotiate with other view points such as T.N. Madan, Asish Nandy and Patha Chatterjee, and not make the presentation axiomatic facilitating refusals at the outset.
2. Even within the modernity, the separation between religion and politics, which is crucial to secularism, is one amongst many other aspects of the larger distinction, namely, between self-regarding actions and other-regarding actions. This distinction is initially traced to Kant, subsequently used by J.S. Mill. Foucault, Feminists, and M.K. Gandhi contest this distinction among many others. For an interesting discussion see Kant (1991), Foucault (1984), and the essay by G. G. Harpham (1994)
3. My conceptualization of going back into the past is different from those who argue that traditions are invented. Traditions are not invented as we invent games, and recalling is a more appropriate term than invention, to elucidate this process.
4. Further, more concretely, in maintaining that we cannot go back in history is to subscribe to what Partha Chatterjee in the context of criticizing Ernest Gellner called 'sociological determinism' and not a problem for political philosophy. (1986) The commitment of Javeed to this deterministic position is explicit in his saying that we "are all caught up inexorably in what is called modernity, whatever be our criticisms and deep reservations about the forms of entrenched modernity." (1998: 4) In pointing out this feature I must acknowledge that Javeed makes an
important advancement in trying to dissociate modernity from colonialism, which undermines the postcolonial criticism of modernity, which seems to assume the relation between modernity and colonialism to be a necessary one. In contrast, Javeed envisages modernity independent of colonialism, for him given the logic of capitalistic expansionism, modernity would have arrived at the non-western societies even without colonialism, thus making colonialism as contingent to modernity. Having said this, let me, however, point out that historically, though not logically, modernity arrived into the non-western societies particularly India through colonialism. So, Javeed's brilliant theoretical claim that colonialism is contingent to modernity is though theoretically tenable but historically, however, in the case of India colonialism collaborated with modernity, making their relation non-contingent. To come back to the deterministic argument, here I am not contesting
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determinism from liberal account of freedom, as historically speaking there may not have been facilities and even resources for exercising freedom. However, determinism can be contested because it is contrary to fact; even if it is not contrary to fact, there is nothing that bars us from contesting it at a normative level; further, even if it is not contrary to fact, it can be contested in order to bring down the actuality or possibility of its oppression. Alternatively, sometimes what we take to be deterministic may either eventually or subsequently proved to be not so deterministic. This may be either because they were contested or so even without contesting. Here let me also point out that the notion of inevitability has different facets, some of them are: not going back; inevitably going into the future; inevitably reaching specific ends, etc.
5. Given this necessary relation, though in a mild sense there is some sort of essentialism between individuation and secularism. I personally would endorse this essentialism as less harmful one. Otherwise the discussion on secularism outside individuation might hang in the air without anchoring in reality.
6. Here there can be two types of receptions that were archetypically expressed by Hobbes and Rousseau. The Hobbesian is that where the pre-society past evil life is replaced by good. The Rousseauen approach, on the other hand, is that the past life, which is not evil but natural, is replaced by a better social life. What is lost is less positive than what is gained. To quote Rousseau: What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property, which can be founded only on a positive title. (1952: 16) Javeed's position is similar to Rousseau as he does not portray the pre-modern as hopelessly backward like Hobbes, but for him it is less preferable in comparison to the modern. Further, like Rousseau, Javeed also gives inevitability argument to justify the transition into the modernity.
7. A view positively used by Ashis Nandy and lucidly conceptualized by Homi Bhabha. Here I am drawing the attention towards negative aspects of a form of hybridity. I further suggest that there is need to list different proportions of hybridization and account for their impact on both individual and social transformations.
8. As a part of this sorting out it is necessary to first accept the reality of the aberration of individuation. Subsequently, as a part of this sorting out it is necessary to distinguish the above 3 from 1. Most often we either concentrate on 2 or conflate 3 with 1. (For instance, Nandy, Javeed, Charles Taylor and many others use the expression traditional rather than pre-modern as a contrast to modern. Nandy in his book entitled, The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves, makes use of this expression quiet often.) All that is modern become progressive and all that is pre-modern becomes regressive, and pre-modern is rejected because it is religious. Javeed, Nandy and Taylor do not, however, make this charge. I think it is important to distinguish between the 1 and the 3. I base my distinction on the difference
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that I have elucidated above between communal conflicts and community conflicts. Let me further elucidate the concept of pre-modern communities. Pre-modern, unlike tradition, thrives less on theory and more on elucidating recurrences and establishing causal connections. I am using this negative term, because it facilitates open endedness, further, most of the words of the virtues in Indian languages are negatively connoted; ahimsa, akshara, anasuya, etc. Pre-modern is larger than tradition. Tradition is a part of the pre-modern. Pre-modern is not as clearly defined as either tradition or modern. It is this structural affinity of clear demarcability of tradition that makes modernity historically take on the tradition rather than the pre-modern. The fuzziness to use Sudipto Kaviraj's phrase of these pre-modern communities don't make it easier for modernity to handle them. However, I accept tradition only as a part of the pre-modern, but if the former claims monopoly over the pre-modern then I would continue to contest it. Further, in accepting the existence of the pre- modern it is not my intention to conform to it. I am only pleading that even our radical political programmes must begin taking the pre-modern as a starting point for our study. The serious understanding of the realities of the pre-modern should be preceding our radical political moves. These moves will be more realistic if they take into account their study of the pre-modern realities. This may be largely echoing the Marxist project of social realism, which consist in both understanding the historical movement and the political economy of societies. In our present context, it consists of a realistic understanding of the pre- modern societies and modern societies and then relating these social moments to the radical political programme of social justice and classless society. This is at variance with the attempted understanding of Indian or any other pre- modern societies axiomatically, surrogated by the understanding of the pre-modern societies by Marx and Marxist in the West. Beginning with the understanding of the pre-modern societies, not to romanticize them, not even to endorse them, but with an open mind to change them. The nature of the change has also to be not a priori decided but contextually informed. One of the successes of Jananatya Mandali and Gaddar in Andhra Pradesh lies in effectively using the folk symbols to propagate the revolutionary ideas. In fact, this internal subversion does also become, at least some times, effective in addition to the external attacks. These attempts make the problem of communication, communicating the revolutionary ideas to the people under subjugation who understand only their oppressor's language, easy. In fact, Karl Marx himself uses this strategy in his textual presentation. Marx quite often uses the Biblical expression in the first volume of Das Capital, thus making it easy to communicate the revolutionary ideas to the religiously oriented Western readers. It is through this sense of social realism about the pre-modern Indian society, carrying the Marxist ideals of social justice rather than the doctrinaire burden, that one can proudly become Marxist in India. The progressive social ideal of Marxism should not be surrendered or even be rejected by the critiques, because of the doctrinaire burden. It is in this sense Marxism in India can be a positive political programme. It is through this realm of realism regarding the pre-modern and the ideals of social justice that one can possibly bring Marx and Gandhi together. Here let me also point out that very often in referring to the pre-modern one
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gets scandalized because the right wing politics have also used the pre-modern. First, this use cannot be sustained but can easily be exposed, as hindutva is
quite hostile to the pre-modern and in fact, closely aligns itself with the modern. This will be clear even if one cursorily reads the writings of V.D. Savarkar, the ideologue of hindutva. Further, even if hindutva is politicizing the pre-modern social realities, this should not make one to drop pre-modern, on the other hand, we must
explicate the differences between the pre-modern and hindutva. Instead, if we merely and indirectly endorse this alignment, this is not only politically dangerous but theoretically naive. Should we drop feminism because the hindutva is either appropriating or likely to appropriate the women's
question?
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