<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A Kingdom of Another World (pdf)
8.3. Conclusion
Is secularism a Christian value? Two kinds of problems we have encountered in the Indian debate bring us to a positive answer. On the one hand, the secularists in India argue for the separation of the political and the religious domains, but they do not know what constitutes the identity of either domain. Yet, principles that prohibit the intrusion of religion in the political realm or that declare the freedom of religion are intelligible only if one has a theory in the background, which allows one to identify religion and the way it differs from the secular political world. In this sense, the case of the Indian secularism debate has given us more evidence for the hypothesis that the modern liberal conception of toleration is the product of the secularisation of the Protestant theology of Christian liberty. Against the background of this religious framework, the strict separation of the realm of religious liberty from that of political coercion makes perfect sense. Once such a principle is exported to a culture other than the West, however, it loses its significance and its fruitfulness as a foundation for the resolution of the conflicts between different communities in society. The only role it can play is that of a normative dogma, which presupposes the superiority of western political theory to the traditional forms of pluralism in Indian society.
On the other hand, we have seen that the model of liberal pluralism is notâand cannot beâneutral between the Hindu traditions and the Semitic religions in the Indian plural society. When it comes to an issue like conversion, it turns out that the liberal secular state has adopted the theological view shared by the Semitic religions about the nature of religion and the different cultural traditions of humankind. This does not only create a problem in the liberal political theoryâs claim to religious neutrality. It also shows that liberal toleration generates inter-community conflict in the Indian societyârather than alleviating itâprecisely because of its theological nature. Both intuitions of the Indian anti-secularists, then, have been captured by the argument of this chapter. On the one hand, secularism has become a barren idea in India, because of its western-Christian origins. On the other hand, it causes ruptures in the fabric of Indian society, instead of allowing these to heal.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
8.3. Conclusion
Is secularism a Christian value? Two kinds of problems we have encountered in the Indian debate bring us to a positive answer. On the one hand, the secularists in India argue for the separation of the political and the religious domains, but they do not know what constitutes the identity of either domain. Yet, principles that prohibit the intrusion of religion in the political realm or that declare the freedom of religion are intelligible only if one has a theory in the background, which allows one to identify religion and the way it differs from the secular political world. In this sense, the case of the Indian secularism debate has given us more evidence for the hypothesis that the modern liberal conception of toleration is the product of the secularisation of the Protestant theology of Christian liberty. Against the background of this religious framework, the strict separation of the realm of religious liberty from that of political coercion makes perfect sense. Once such a principle is exported to a culture other than the West, however, it loses its significance and its fruitfulness as a foundation for the resolution of the conflicts between different communities in society. The only role it can play is that of a normative dogma, which presupposes the superiority of western political theory to the traditional forms of pluralism in Indian society.
On the other hand, we have seen that the model of liberal pluralism is notâand cannot beâneutral between the Hindu traditions and the Semitic religions in the Indian plural society. When it comes to an issue like conversion, it turns out that the liberal secular state has adopted the theological view shared by the Semitic religions about the nature of religion and the different cultural traditions of humankind. This does not only create a problem in the liberal political theoryâs claim to religious neutrality. It also shows that liberal toleration generates inter-community conflict in the Indian societyârather than alleviating itâprecisely because of its theological nature. Both intuitions of the Indian anti-secularists, then, have been captured by the argument of this chapter. On the one hand, secularism has become a barren idea in India, because of its western-Christian origins. On the other hand, it causes ruptures in the fabric of Indian society, instead of allowing these to heal.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->