Extention of Gandhian Secularism......
Gandhi has been proving that he is beyond Spatio-Temporal Dimensions...
After 60 years ...Relevance of his philosophy is not only continuing but also in creasing
day by day.....
Before going towards Gandhian concept of Secularism... lets see what is
Secularism ? Secularism has its root in Europe...The imprtant thinker related with this notion
was Machiavelli....He first emphasised the need of Secularisation of Politics.......By which
he meant separation of politics or social life from Religion....Acc.to him Religion is totally
private affair....and nothing to do with man''s extrovert life..........He was trying to curb
influence of Pope on Polity of that time....
This western concept of Secularism is totally different from Gandhian
concept of Secularism.....If we carefully examine Western Concept then we will find that
it is negative....it asserts the need of exclusion of Religion from polity......the reasons may be
different.
Gandhi changed the notion of Secularism totally.Gandhi know indian sociaty
very well.He knew that as contrast to Europe...Indian society is characterised by many religions.
And Indians are deeply religious..Religion is essential part of their life. For that reason Gandhi feel that Indian Society can not afford the Western concept of Secularism.He made Negative western notion Positive...
He included Tolerance in it to make it positive.. We can say in a mathematical equation...
Western Secularism + Tolerance = Indian Secularism.......
Rather than excluding religion from polity Gandhi adopted Equal respect for all religions.
Indendity Crisis and Gandhian Secularism....
Fransis Fukuyama''s ''End of History'' thesis proved wrong by the erruptios of many bloody
conflicts in 90''s..It looks like that Realist thinker''s like Samuel Huntington was right when he paints very gloomy picture of world order.
...mentioned in his ''Clash Of Civilizations.''....
Due to forces of Globalization ..and specially Communition revolution and Macdonaldization
i.e.increasing Westernisation..people are feeling more and more insecure as far as their domestic culture and traditions are concerned............Its nothing but Problem of Intimacy...where people feel loosing their identity when they are close..
That is what happening on Global arena..The crisis of Identity is chief characterstic of Globalised World.
These days we are experiencing more and more ethenic conflicts..for example..recent turmoil in Kenya....
And these Identity Crises become more violent and horrific when they are fueled by Economic disparity,Economic diprivation and absence of strong Democratic forces...
Due to globalisation the economic crisis and identity crisis have become so inseparable that problem with one result in other.......
Now we need to extend the definition of Gandhian Secularisation to a large extent from Religion to region race, caste ,language and nation as well....Rather than emphasising on Uniformity we shold strive for Equqlity as far as cultural aspect is concerned....Though it is very difficult to define the concpt of Equality.......we have to draw a common denominator.Equality in a sense of equal respect for all religions...
Todays world can not afford to be intolerant....as many nations have N-capability and many more are in Q.
Definitely idea of Tolerant world is far away...but we must try to follow this path by respecting others, otherwise future is Dark!!!!