E-Kantipur

It could only have been a happy coincidence that a couple of days ago Lok Raj Baral (in The Post) and Narahari Acharya (in Kantipur) came out rather strongly against the idea that Nepal’s infant secularism could be subject to a national referendum. Both these gentlemen are intellectual stalwarts in the Nepal Congress spectrum; Acharya is an active Congress politician, while Baral is viewed as a ‘Kangresi’, even though it is an appellation the professor does not feel very comfortable with.

The need to highlight such trivia is because M/s Baral and Acharya occupy what our friends on the Left would consider the space next only to the ‘reactionaries’ and are hence similarly tarred to some extent by this metaphorical proximity. But in the slowly increasing din demanding the restoration of Nepal’s status as a Hindu state, that the ‘near-reactionaries’ should be the ones defending the separation between religion and politics contrasts sharply with what is coming out from the Left - which is zilch, nothing.

As Acharya writes, the Nepali Congress, with its professed ideology still strongly wedded to the ideals of the true Renaissance man B.P. Koirala, has never stood in favour of any state religion but has preferred to remain silent about it all along, including in the manifesto prepared for the Constituent Assembly elections. Yet, he feels alarmed that a number of political heavyweights from his party have chosen to associate themselves with a movement that seeks avowedly to bring back faith into the realm of politics. That the said individuals are intellectually and morally bankrupt the likes of Sher Bahadur Deuba, Khum Bahadur Khadka and Sujata Koirala cannot be taken as a source of comfort since integrity is certainly not held at a premium in Nepali politics, and this particular trio are possible contenders for the party’s top leadership positions.

Baral is peeved that no political leader of stature has spoken out against the creeping movement against secularism, mainly with the support of Hindu extremists in India, despite its potential for wider social conflict. That is where the loud silence from the Left is unnerving. For, unlike the Congress, the Maoists and the UML are supposed to naturally feel antipathetic towards religion of any kind. Their declared positions have also made that amply clear. ‘Nepal should be declared a secular nation.’ So went one of the famous 40 Maoist demands from back in 1996. Not to be left behind, in 2003, the UML let loose with ‘The state shall be declared secular’ as part of its central committee’s ‘Proposal of National Consensus for a Progressive Way Out’ of the political impasse of the time.

On the contrary, however, as reported in some of the papers, during their meetings with the highly controversial Indian godman Chandraswami, Prachanda and Madhav Kumar Nepal expressed regret for having helped turn Nepal into a secular state. There is no knowing if they meant what they said since the possibility of both trying to endear themselves to any Indian of perceived political significance cannot be ruled out. But it has been apparent for a while now that Nepal’s communists are not quite averse to the opium of religion. The communist prime minister goes for a holy dip, while, for his part, after having trampled over the religious sentiments of countless Nepalis during the ‘people’s war’, Prachanda sees nothing untoward in undergoing rituals to realign the stars in his favour (so that he can once again become prime minister). With home-grown charlatans like these, I wonder why anyone sees the need to import similar types from India.

Going back to the discussion on secularism, I have not heard any convincing argument how or why any Nepali Hindu is any the worse for the country having been declared secular. The state has not done anything extra for non-Hindus apart from declaring public holidays on some non-Hindu festivals, and there is not much more it is likely to do. But even that little has certainly helped religious minorities feel greater ownership of the state, and that can only be considered a progressive step. I feel that the only reason that Nepal’s past Hindu-ness seems desirable is purely sentimental and probably has to do with a rather misplaced sense of Nepali exceptionalism just like the dual-pennant flag and the quarter-hour time difference (in contrast to everyone else who go by half hours).

Instead of indulging in retrograde talk of reverting to a Hindu state, we should now be debating the contours of the Nepali form of secularism. For like any -ism, secularism is also an idea with its own set of elaborate rituals. Is our secularism to resemble that of France or the US, with a strict separation of state and religion? Or, are we better off in the Turkish tradition, with a government department in charge of ensuring that the mullahs adhere to the country’s radical secularism? Or, are we going for the secularism as practised in India, with its neutrality towards all religions, as reflected in the Hindi, as well as Nepali translation, of the term, dharma nirapekshyata.

It is the absence of such a discussion that has made it possible for public discourse to be hijacked by those who would like to revive the secular vs Hindu state dichotomy. And that is also why certain practices have already been adopted by the state with the potential for tensions later on. As Acharya has noted, the current president has slid easily into the religious role played by the king as head of state, but what if a non-Hindu were to become president some day, a likely possibility. Similarly, since it will be well-nigh impossible to rid the Army of its religious obscurantism, should state secularism not extend to allowing the recruitment into the army of mullahs and lamas as well? And, what about all the Hindu shrines in all the police posts and schools all over the country? We should be seeking ways to combine the deep religiosity of the people with their diverse sources of spiritual comfort. These, I believe, are more pertinent issues than whether Nepal should remain secular or not.

Sudhindra Sharma, a sociologist who has studied the institution of the Hindu monarchy in some detail, has often argued that there has never been a Hindu republic just as there can be no secular state with a Hindu monarch. So pivotal is the role of the rajan in a polity driven by principles of dharmashastra that you cannot have one without the other. In that sense, calls to restore Hinduism as the state religion can only serve the interests of those who seek to restore the monarchy through the side door. One can only hope that our communists are red enough to at least be alert to such an eventuality.

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