What are the critical views of T.N. Madan on Secularism ? ( 200 words)
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Answer:
Secularism in Its Place
T. N. MADAN
This is the text, with a few verbal modifications, of a lecture delivered by T. N.
Madan at the President's Panel in Honor of the Fulbright Fortieth Anniversary Pro-
gram, on the occasion of the 1987 meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in
Boston. T. N. Madan has invigorated the social sciences in India for many years by
his research, writing, and teaching. As an author he has written on such themes as
Hindu culture, culture and development, ethnic pluralism, family and kinship, and
the professions. As editor of Contributions to Indian Sociology, he has attracted to its
pages distinguished research and writing from an international pool of contributors.
This achievement is related to his capacity to combine discriminating intellectual
taste with a friendly capacity to insinuate the journal into the publishing program
of outstanding social scientists. It is also related to the fact that his anthropological
understanding is combined with a wide-ranging methodological sympathy for other
social sciences as well as the humanities.
The paper was delivered at a moment when the idea of secularism, entrenched
in the Indian Constitution by legislators who had experienced the chaos of communal
conflict in 1946-47, is again being raised. The secular settlement, elaborated in the
shadow of partition, deprived the politicization of religious identities of legitimacy.
But this settlement has weakened. Contrary to the expectations of a rationalist social
science, economic growth and the breakdown of previously settled relations among
local communities and classes have led to the revival of religious identities and to
their expression in public and conflictual forms. These circumstances have led to a
vigorous debate about how to understand and how to address the new conflicts.
The debate follows, to an extent, earlier channels of argument elaborated in the
nationalist era. Jawaharlal Nehru's secularism rested on the notion that religion is
an erroneous view of the cosmos that will yield to more rational understanding as
scientific thinking and economic growth advance. This position entails the con-
struction of an edifice of public law that is applicable to all persons and an edifice
of politics that recognizes individual, not group, identities. Mohandas Gandhi's
secularism rested on the notions that all religions are true, that they give meaning
to the moral life, and that Indian society can be built on a community of religious
communities. The policy implications of this position are more responsive to group
identities. Although Professor Madan's argument does not rest on the same onto-
logical premises as Gandhi's, his position is closer to Gandhi's than to Nehru's. He
T. N. Madan is Professor of Sociology at the
Institute of Economic Growth (University of
Delhi).
The author would like to express his gratitude
to the Board of Foreign Scholarships and the U.S.
Information Agency for selecting him as a Ful-
bright Fortieth Anniversary Distinguished Fellow,
and to the Association of Asian Studies, particu-
larly its president, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, for
inviting him to address them. Further, he wishes
to thank Ainslee Embree, Susan Pharr, and Stanley
Tambiah for their responses to his presentation.
To Alan Babb, Ashis Nandy, and Lloyd and Su-
sanne Rudolph, who helped him clarify several un-
clear points, he acknowledges his indebtedness
with much pleasure.
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