Religious based conflict in India, Comparative Understanding of Gujarat riot in 2002 and the Ayodhya conflict

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=crss20

Religion, State & Society

ISSN: 0963-7494 (Print) 1465-3974 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crss20

Indian secularism, dialogue and the Ayodhya dispute

Arun K. Patnaik & Prithvi Ram Mudiam

To cite this article: Arun K. Patnaik & Prithvi Ram Mudiam (2014) Indian secularism, dialogue and the Ayodhya dispute, Religion, State & Society, 42:4, 374-388, DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2014.983038

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2014.983038

Published online: 04 Dec 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 675

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Indian secularism, dialogue and the Ayodhya dispute

Arun K. Patnaik* and Prithvi Ram Mudiam

Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India

(Received 7 January 2014; accepted 24 July 2014)

Indian secularists compound difficulties for the emergence of a genuinely secular society by relying on an exclusively constitutional rather than a dialogical approach to settle India’s religious disputes as manifested in Ayodhya and elsewhere. There are, however, intellectuals who favour dialogue with religious communities to strengthen secularism but are afraid of suggesting dialogue with contending parties on contentious issues like the Ayodhya dispute for fear of legitimising religious fundamentalism. As a result, the notion of ‘contentious dialogue’ is avoided even while the need for dialogue is recognised. Instead of religious grievances getting resolved through law, they get embroiled over a period of time and result in the rise of religious fundamentalism and terrorism, thereby deepening the crisis of secularism. In the Ayodhya dispute, com- munities encouraged by the secular state have followed a legal approach to the settlement of their religious grievances since 1950. While the dispute languished in court, the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, the emergence of religious terrorism and the riots in Gujarat in 2002 followed. All these developments are in some way interrelated and need a broad and holistic counter-strategy. Only a dialogic approach will induce communities to comprehend the interconnected nature of pro- blems arising from the Ayodhya dispute and make them seek solutions outside the law. This paper proposes a model of reconciliation based on the themes of recognition of intrinsic faith, negotiation with extrinsic elements of each religion and sacrifice. This dialogical approach ought to be carried out by a non-sectarian political society that must involve ruling and opposition parties, NGOs, lawyers, administrators and con- tending religious organisations in order to seek a realistic solution to the Ayodhya dispute in the larger and long-term interest of a secular polity in India.

Keywords: intrinsic and extrinsic religion; religious common sense; secular political society; dialogue; mutual sacrifice; reconciliation

Introduction

Secularism was one of the foundational principles of the Indian state that was established at the end of British colonial rule in the subcontinent in 1947. Its relevance and significance for the stability and development of India hardly need any reiteration when we take into account India’s religious diversity and also the larger historical background of the division of British India on a religious basis and the creation of the new state of Pakistan. However, India’s secular politics is increasingly trapped within a conception of the legal state, while religious disputes grow across India both in intensity and number. The legislature and judiciary are seen as the institutions that should resolve religious disputes and their failure to offer any timely resolution of these disputes is seen as a failure of the law rather than of politics.

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Religion, State & Society, 2014 Vol. 42, No. 4, 374–388, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2014.983038

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

The Ayodhya dispute in Uttar Pradesh has been unresolved since the modern state of India gained independence. Yet secular politics demands more of the same thing: new and stronger laws. At the same time, we should recall that before the Ayodhya dispute occupied the centre stage of politics in India in the 1990s, the dispute existed in the social imaginary of local Hindus in Ayodhya when it was not yet part of the organised political expression of Hindutva forces.1 A Jesuit priest, Joseph Tieffenthaler, visited Ayodhya in 1767 and observed the celebration of the festival of Ram Navami (the birthday of Lord Ram) in front of the disputed site; he mentions it in his book published in 1768 (Sharma 2010, 129–162). The location of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) was challenged by a section of local Hindus; this led to a riot around the mosque in Ayodhya in 1855. In 1857 a legal suit was filed by Hindus to reclaim the disputed location. In 1885 the first legal suit was filed in the Faizabad sub-judge/trial court to build Ram Chabutara, a small podium for plays about Ram; this was dismissed; in 1886 this judgment was challenged again in the Faizabad district court, which also adjudicated in favour of the status quo: the claim against the mosque was considered time-barred. However, keeping in mind the events of 1855, the local administration fenced the mosque area within the Babri complex and allowed the Hindus to access Ram Chabutara, Sita ki Rasoi (a shrine to Sita) and Hanuman Garhi (a temple to Hanuman) in the outer courtyard with separate entry and exit options so that devotees would not clash with each other. A ‘fragile truce’ was arrived at between the two religious communities who ‘agreed to worship’ in different places within the Babri complex. This arrangement lasted until 1949.

After independence, in 1949 some Hindu groups revived the dispute over the Babri Mosque and installed an image of Ram Lalla (the infant Ram) inside the inner courtyard of the mosque. Local Muslims perceived ‘imminent danger of its demolition’, as reported by the then district collector/magistrate. The local administration brought pressure on the Hindus to move the image; the Hindus countered with a legal suit in 1950. The court ruled that the image could remain and that the Hindus could worship there. The state govern- ment sought an injunction against this order. The gates were then locked, preventing both Hindus and Muslims from worshipping in the complex. In 1950, a second suit was filed by a Hindu plaintiff asking for permission to pray but was withdrawn later. In 1955 an interim order that the image could remain was issued.

In 1959, the mahant (chief priest) of the Nirmohi Akhara sect filed a third suit in the district court claiming the entire land title for the sect, which was in charge of Hindu sacred places in the outer courtyard. In 1961, the Sunni Waqf Board filed a fourth suit to take charge of the entire land including the mosque. In 1989, the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) organisation filed a fifth suit for the full possession of the disputed land. Meanwhile, in 1986 the district court granted necessary relief within 24 hours on a writ filed by a Hindu plaintiff by ordering the reopening of the locks of the main gate for worship of Ram. The Congress-led state government in Uttar Pradesh decided to break open the gates within two hours and allowed the Hindus to worship. In 1989, at the request of the state government, all four suits were transferred from the district court to the Lucknow bench of the High Court in Uttar Pradesh. On 25 October 1989, the Court allowed the Uttar Pradesh govern- ment to take possession of land around the mosque but later, on an appeal from Muslim groups, set aside the acquisition of the 2.77 acres adjacent to the disputed structure and prohibited permanent construction. In November 1992, the Supreme Court allowed sym- bolic kar seva (voluntary religious service) on the basis of an assurance by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to maintain the status quo in Ayodhya. As all the above legal suits were pending for adjudication before the High Court, the Babri Mosque was demol- ished by Hindutva sympathisers in December 1992 and a makeshift temple was built at the

Religion, State & Society 375

disputed site by the VHP. However, no community was allowed to worship at the disputed site. In 1996, the High Court allowed Hindus to worship at the makeshift temple. Muslim groups appealed to the Supreme Court to allow them to hold annual prayers at the site, but the Supreme Court suspended the High Court’s order and issued an injunction against any change at the disputed site. In 2002, the High Court directed the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to excavate the site to determine if a Hindu temple lay underneath. In August 2003, the ASI survey reported to the court that there was evidence of a temple beneath the mosque. The Sunni Waqf Board, however, disputed these findings.

The present-day Ayodhya dispute was thus pre-Hindutva in its origins but was appropriated by the Hindutva organisations. What they did was to convert a local issue into a national political dispute; and it was this long-pending legal dispute that provided an opportunity for the Hindutva forces to mobilise Hindu masses politically. As the Dutch anthropologist Peter van der Veer points out, what looked to most secular political and intellectual circles like a trivial and local dispute has now emerged as a major threat to the future of political secularism in India (van der Veer 2009). It is no surprise, therefore, that the events since the destruction of the Babri Mosque have given rise to a growing body of literature on issues of secularism and fundamentalism indicating aroused anxieties about the future of secular India. The secular critics blame the state for lack of political will to implement constitutional law while politicians enact laws and pass the responsibility to the judiciary and/or police. However, neither the secular critics nor the state is perturbed by the inefficacy of the exclusive reliance on constitutional mechanisms to resolve religious disputes. We argue that it is high time that the secular front thought of politics and alternative political agencies rather than depending solely on constitutional entities to settle the growing religious disputes across India. It is imperative that the framework of a secular state go through a process of expansion rather than contraction in order to tackle the crisis that secularism is passing through in India today.

Constitutionalism and the crisis of political secularism

It is clear from the above account that since 1950 the secular political powers have relied solely on constitutional instruments to ‘settle’ the Ayodhya dispute. The Hindu national- ists too relied on legal instruments from 1950, but changed track, simultaneously adopting a mass contact programme in pursuing their goal. Thus while the secular forces relied on a one-line constitutionalist position, the Hindutva forces used a two-line struggle to achieve their objective. An exclusive reliance on constitutionalist thinking has been the bane of political secularism in India as the Indian constitution aims to build secular democracy in a largely pre-modern feudal society. Controlling the constitutional organs, the secular political powers do not recognise that ordinary people and their habitual religious practices need to be taken into confidence in tackling various forms of inter-religious and intra-religious conflict involving religious communities. From the very birth of the secular democratic nation-state, secular political society has passed the responsibility to the executive or judiciary to settle religious disputes as and when they arise. Instead of calling for a timely resolution of such religious disputes by letting communities participate in the settlement of their ‘local’ grievances mediated by the state, all religious grievances have been referred to the time-consuming conflict resolution process of the constitution- alist path.

The constitutionalist position of political secularism poses a number of problems for the building of secularism in India. First, it disconnects state secularism from the religious social imaginary of ordinary people, which involves both intra-religious and inter-religious

376 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

domination.2 As a corollary, political leaders become disconnected from disputes that arise from religious domination since these are handled exclusively by the executive or the judiciary. Second, its chosen path of dispute resolution is time-consuming, and a timely resolution of disputes seldom takes place. Third, it creates new but related problems in the long run, like the riots in Mumbai (1993) and Gujarat (2002). Fourth, its policy becomes one of appeasement rather than of settlement of religious grievances; consequently the masses are alienated from constitutional secularism, and elites from all religious commu- nities have to be appeased time and again. Fifth, since the constitutionalist position of the secular forces is an overarching national frame, it tends to impede the political recognition by those forces of ‘local and trivial’ religious grievances, and as a result the field of political negotiation is left open for the fundamentalist forces. Sixth, the constitutional position of secularism breeds political complacency, as it is usually seen as an end-product of that national imagination whereas in reality it is the beginning of a process.

High Court judgments

It is, indeed, a sad commentary on the state of India’s secularism that the Sunni Waqf Board, the VHP and the secular camp have each appealed to the Supreme Court and in May 2011 brought a stay order on the verdict of the Allahabad High Court (the Lucknow bench) on the Ayodhya dispute delivered in September 2010.3 On 30 September 2010, the three-judge bench of the Uttar Pradesh High Court gave a verdict on the civil dispute pending since 1949; all three judges had been hearing the case on a day-to-day basis since 2002. In the meantime, a criminal case had arisen following the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992; this is still pending before the same court. In the 2010 verdict, however, the two judges, Justice S.U. Khan and Justice S. Agarwal, favoured the resolution of the dispute by asking the three contending parties, the Sunni Board, the VHP and Nirmohi Akhara, to share a three-way division of the disputed land: one third for the Babri Mosque, one third for the Ram Lalla temple and one third for the Ram Chabutara podium and the Sita ki Rasoi shrine. The third judge, Justice S.D. Sharma, gave a clear verdict in favour of the VHP’s claim and favoured the handing over of the entire disputed land to the Ramajanmabhoomi Trust in order to build the Ram Lalla temple. He found the claims of the Sunni Board and Nirmohi Akhara for land title as ‘time-barred’ and that the disputed mosque came into existence against tenets of Islam, being built on land burying ‘temples’. The majority bench, however, recommended a three-way division of the disputed land, on the basis of the following observations. First, there was no record of ownership of land by Babur or any other party who might have gifted land for the building of a mosque. Second, the local Hindus and Muslims were using the premises in dispute for religious worship before 1855, when a claim was made on the mosque that led to a riot in 1855. Third, whereas Justice Khan argued that the Hindus could not prove that the Babri Mosque was built by destroying the Ram temple, his fellow-judge opined that Hindus believed that the inner courtyard of the mosque was the real birthplace of Lord Ram. Fourth, both judges, however, agreed that an image is a deity capable of holding property. Fifth, Justice Agarwal argued that Lord Ram’s birthplace was a matter of ‘faith and belief of the Hindus’. In view of the long history of sharing the premises for religious worship at the disputed site, both judges rejected the claim of any of the three parties for exclusive possession of the land title and delivered a verdict by using the moral domain of sacrifice, for a three-way partition of the disputed land.4

Religion, State & Society 377

Law and broken social bonds

Since the High Court verdict a great deal has been written about Ayodhya and there have been appeals to the Supreme Court urging it to annul the High Court’s verdict (Menon 2011, 81– 89); yet the limits of the legal approach do not seem to have dissuaded the authorities from pursuing the same path again. A few writers have proved exceptions to the general trend to think in secularist terms. Lata Mani and Sarah Kazmi, for instance, talk about the need for reconciliation through dialogic politics after the High Court verdict (Mani 2010; Kazmi 2010). However, there is no explicit discussion of the agencies through which dialogue should be conducted nor of the methods to be used. The law can help prevent one person from injuring or killing another but cannot enforce the ethics of friendship, understanding, accommodation and respect between them. These need to be built and reinforced at neigh- bourhood level. As Habermas and Ratzinger argue (2006, 35–40), when there are fractures in social bonds no law can help bridge those gaps. What is needed is a different kind of politics that extends the influence of law/parliament to include stakeholders in civil society and religious communities in order to rebuild secular social bonds.

Ironically, even though they resort to law to settle religious disputes, neither the secularists nor representatives of the Hindutva organisations seem willing to accept judicial pronounce- ments as binding unless they are to their liking. The secularists, for instance, were reluctant to accept the pronouncements of the Supreme Court in cases such as Rev Stanislaus v Madhya Pradesh (1977), Mohd Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum (1985), R. Y. Prabhoo v P. K. Kunte (1995) and R. K. Pal@Dara Singh v Republic of India (2011). Yet they go to court again on the Ayodhya dispute, hoping for a ‘favourable’ judgment, in which case they expect the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to honour the law by following suit. The VHP, RSS and BJP are on record as saying that issues of faith cannot be settled in courts (Suresh 2002; PTI-Nagpur 2012; Ayodhya Dispute 2014). However, they criticise the secular front for disregarding the law when it suits them. Even Muslim representatives, while insisting on the court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute, refused to accept the court verdict in Mohd Ahmed Khan v Shah Bano Begum. This cultivated ambivalence about judicial pronouncements on the part of secular, Hindutva and Muslim groups has undermined their credibility and diminished the possibility of a negotiated settlement of the Ayodhya dispute.

This anomaly also shows that such long-pending disputes as Ayodhya cannot be settled through law to the exclusion of interfaith dialogue. The ‘wait and see’ policy followed by the secularist authorities, which is a direct consequence of their total dependence on legal process, is counterproductive as the religious communities grow restless and resort to retributive actions that are contrary to India’s secular ethics.5 The urgent need for dialogue to settle longstanding disputes needs no reiteration after the emergence of terror groups among all major religious communities in India, especially among Hindus, since the mid-2000s (Jaffrelot and Maheswari 2011, 42–46). The way ahead involves not simply a stronger commitment to law but also the conducting of what Mani Shankar Aiyar (2011) advocates in the context of India–Pakistan disputes: ‘uninterrupted and uninterruptable’ dialogue.

Political society

In his recent work, Partha Chatterjee uses the concept of ‘political society’ as an alternative to the ‘legal state’ or ‘civil society’ to tackle the crisis of governance in developing countries (Chatterjee 2004, 27–78).We share his discomfort with ‘legal state’/‘civil society’, but would also question ‘political society’ as he understands it, since he does not consider the question of the ‘autonomy’ of communities, a critical variable relevant for political

378 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

secularism. Moreover, his usage excludes civil society and constitutional law without which secularism cannot be sustained by political society. We would like to present a more complex notion of ‘political society’ relevant to the pursuit of ‘dialogic politics’ as a way of resolving the religious disputes that seem to be growing in number in India. This dialogue should go beyond religious communities and their front organisations like the VHP/RSS, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the All-India Christian Council. Interfaith dialogue carried out by religious groups themselves may not be able to settle the Ayodhya dispute. The dialogue needs to follow interfaith dialogue format, since the dispute involves major religious communities in India, but it needs to be political dialogue conducted by a political society. Moreover, as benefits of the settlement of the Ayodhya dispute would accrue to India’s political secularism, the secular state itself must undertake the responsibility of pushing forward interfaith dialogue rather than entrust it to the religious communities themselves. Such an approach would explicitly reject the current strategy of the Indian state, which is to evade interfaith dialogue by passing on responsibility to the law courts or to the religious communities themselves. The Indian state, we argue, must take responsibility for delivering political secularism to every household by involving itself in all major religious disputes from Ayodhya to Kandhamal,6 simultaneously retrieving and expanding interfaith dialogue formats.

Secular intellectuals are aware of the relevance and efficacy of dialogue as a dispute- solving mechanism but do not seem to consider interfaith political dialogue as a way of resolving the Ayodhya dispute. A number of them, like Romila Thapar, Arundhati Roy, Swami Agnivesh and Medha Patker, favour dialogue between the Indian state and the Maoists and even the Kashmiri separatists;7 but all of them are intriguingly silent on the need for dialogue with the RSS/VHP or the Sunni Board or Christian missionaries, while interfaith disputes simmer in India. This smacks of double standards: dialogic politics is advocated in some cases while non-dialogic politics is advocated in others. They seem to ignore the dialogue that Mahatma Gandhi, Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan had with the RSS or Christian missionaries and the dialogue that the champion of the untouchable classes Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar had with the Hindutva leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. There is a history of dialogue in India between political circles and faith-based organisations or communities, but it seems to be being erased from the national memory.

Even those who are exceptions to this general line of thinking do not go far enough. Akeel Bilgrami and Gyan Pandey agree that dialogue with faith communities is necessary for renewing secularism (Bilgrami 1998, 410; Pandey 2007, 175–77).8 Pandey rightly suggests that dialogic politics must deal with unequal relations growing among religious communities. Both aptly stress that India’s secularism must be constructed by a demo- cratic state power by speaking to a community’s internal beliefs. However, the dialogue that is suggested in their writings suffers from several shortcomings.

First, as Bilgrami argues, a dialogue with internal beliefs of a religious community may show that such beliefs are inconsistent and paradoxical. However, it is plausible to argue that all beliefs of a faith may not be wholly ‘internal’. From the vantage point of secular politics, the faith of a faith group may be broadly divided into two sets of beliefs: ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’. We elaborate this point later. Only when this fact has been recognised, a variety of political strategies are available to the state to settle religious disputes between communities. The secular state must recognise and respect the ‘intrinsic faith’ of each religious group and include such elements into a dialogic process, as explained later. The state could, however, disagree with certain elements of ‘extrinsic’ faith and carry out a dialogue with the faith group with the aim of reforming them. It is, therefore, necessary to expand on Bilgrami’s model of dialogue.

Religion, State & Society 379

Second, Bilgrami and Pandey do not see dialogue as means to solve concrete problems that arise because of disputes between politicised faiths. This may be because there is an undercurrent of fear of ‘speaking to religious fundamentalism internally’: the fear of legit- imising religious fundamentalism. Here, their model of dialogue, ‘speaking to faith intern- ally’, is paradoxically circumscribed. In the absence of any emphasis on political dialogue with religious fundamentalism, the secular intellectuals have little choice but to hang on to the strong state to enforce secular laws and prevent the rise of fundamentalism or offer dialogic solutions in abstraction. This is tantamount to complicity with the Indian state’s strategy of evasion of adopting political dialogue as a means to settle major religious disputes that threaten India’s secular fabric.

In the case of Ayodhya dispute, a dialogue was carried out by three Indian prime ministers before 1992, but it was incomplete, fractured and interrupted. Three different dialogue formats were followed by Bhuta Singh (home minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet) in 1989, the prime minister V.P. Singh (of the United Front government) in October 1990 and the prime minister Chandra Sekhar (heading a short-lived coalition government) in November 1990. Bhuta Singh held just one discussion with the RSS but to no avail. V.P. Singh did talk to both the parties but talks were unsuccessful. Chandra Sekhar organised talks but without any concrete proposal to solve the problem (Ananth 2011, 323–324, 374–376, 382–383). These attempts at dialogue were ad hoc and did not last long enough to address the dispute with the requisite seriousness and persistence. Such dialogue was never taken up again at the highest political level after 1992.

Religious common sense

What is important is to recognise that dialogue is to be carried out with dogged persis- tence by a non-sectarian political society which involves members of ruling and opposi- tion parties, lawyers, bureaucrats, NGOs and leaders of religious communities, in this case both in Ayodhya and outside. They need to participate and deliberate with a concrete proposal which must aim to critically share and inhere what Antonio Gramsci calls the (religious) ‘common sense’ of the masses, ‘intrinsic elements’ of religious communities, while simultaneously initiating reforms of their ‘extrinsic elements’ (Gramsci 1995, 112– 265; Fulton 1987, 197–216).9 Recent studies, such as the one by Ranabir Samaddar, emphasise that democratic dialogue means ‘allowing the dialogic situation to inhere and absorb conflict and conflictive positions’ (Samaddar 2011, 13).

Such dialogue has never taken place in relation to the Ayodhya dispute because most secular intellectuals operate with a variety of negative models of secularism.10 Even if some have a positive model of secularism, they hesitate to talk about it because of fear of ‘legitimising’ the RSS/VHP. They do not seem to understand that the RSS/VHP/BJP gained political ascendency by sharing the religious ‘common sense’ of pan-Indian Hindus. Ironically, Ashis Nandy, who has a more sympathetic understanding of faith, fails to explain the connection between the RSS and Hindu social imaginary. He, along with others, argues that ‘the choice of Ram as a symbol in the 1990s was determined by political strategy and cost calculation, not by religious fervor or theology or by any attempt to return to the fundamentals of faith’ (Nandy et al. 1993, 99).11 While there is a definite political strategy in the Hindutva campaign, what is, however, missed by the above assessment is its connection with the ‘religious common sense’ of several Hindu sects such as Vaishnavites and Shaivaites as exemplified in the idea of janmabhumi (birthplace), which served the Hindutva organisations as a pan-Indian instrument to mobilise Hindu masses during the early 1990s. For instance, the idea of the birthplace of a god or goddess is a central feature of the image-worshipping

380 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

common sense of a variety of Hindu sects.12 Even Gandhi, who was not an admirer of image- worship, admitted that it might be part of the ‘human nature’ of Hindus, who need symbols in the temple just as Christians need images in the church. As a reformer, however, he did not believe in rejecting any of the essential elements of Hinduism or Christianity (Gandhi 1999, vol. 24, 374–375). There thus developed a synergy between Gandhi’s secularism and the image-worshipping of the Hindus (an example of a social imaginary) in which he was not even a participant. This is a crucial element in the development of political secularism. The key issue here is that this Hindu social imaginary pre-dates the birth of the RSS which merely relayed it in a fundamentalist format in order to gain Hindu mass support in 1992. The secular forces have had little understanding of this complex connection between the RSS and the image-worshipping Hindu social imaginary. As a result of their intellectual and legal opposi- tion to the very idea of Ramjanmabhumi (the birthplace of Ram) which is intrinsic to Hindu faith in general, secular politics became disengaged from the Hindu social imaginary, leaving that space completely to Hindutva forces to exploit. However, it should be possible even now, through dialogic politics, to disentangle the religious common sense of the Hindu masses from a fundamentalist sway. Secularism can, then, gain ascendancy over religious common sense.

Dialogue and non-sectarian secularism

While the need for dialogue to resolve the Ayodhya dispute can hardly be overstated, it is necessary to examine the place of dialogue within different secular perspectives. Broadly speaking, there can be three models of secularism: negative secularism, sectarian positive secularism and non-sectarian positive secularism.

Negative secularism either does not recognise faith or regards it as a personal matter. Romila Thapar typifies a ‘negative secularist’ response to the recent Ayodhya verdict: ‘The verdict has annulled respect for history and seeks to replace history with religious faith. True reconciliation can only come when there is confidence that the law in this country bases itself not just on faith and belief, but on evidence’ (Thapar 2010). Thapar thus argues that the Ayodhya verdict is retrograde as it means that law re-establishes faith. She assumes that (secular) law has nothing to do with faith as it should be derived from reason or evidence. This is a binary construction: reason (law) and religion – a classic example of negative secularism.

Sectarian positive secularism, by contrast, entails a narrow assertion of one particular understanding of faith. Kumkum Roy (2010, 53–60) criticises the Ayodhya verdict on the grounds that it manifests a ‘sectarian positive secularist’ approach. She argues that Ram may be in the minds and hearts of people and that the court verdict supporting the construction of the Ram temple de-legitimises the idea of an impersonal Ram or other forms of polytheism that are the essence of Hinduism: that it amounts to de-recognition of India’s diversity of faith.13 She also wonders how the court’s affirmation of a personal god can be seen as a manifestation of secularism.

These two models of secularism, then, involve either a rejection or a reduction of faith. They also imply that when faced with the politics of faith, secularism must rely on law and state power to counter it. We argue that neither of these models is helpful in the face of violent conflicts among religious communities in India. The former confronts faith per se and the latter confronts certain manifestations of faith.

Political dialogue, we would argue, is possible only in the context of the third model of secularism identified above: the non-sectarian secular perspective. This (a) recognises three forms of faith (personal, impersonal and animistic)14 as well as non-faith, (b) prevents the domination of one religious faith by another through rules, norms and conventions, and (c) acts as facilitator of interreligious dialogue in a non-partisan way. Nehru’s understanding of

Religion, State & Society 381

the Indian secular state is of this kind: ‘It does not obviously mean a state where religion as such is discouraged. It means freedom of religion and conscience, including freedom for those who have no religion. It means free play for all religions, subject only to their not interfering with each other or with the basic concept of our state’ (Gopal and Iyenger 2003, 192). Nehru thus distances himself from a negative model of secularism and argues that the secular state, apart from ensuring religious and non-religious freedom, must also provide ‘equal opportu- nities’ for all religions (Gopal and Iyenger 2003, 194). He thus avoids a binary understanding of secularism by including a negative model within his positive view of religion, thus making it inescapable that all secular institutions including law courts must negotiate with faith in India’s multireligious society rather than merely de-recognise or counter it.

Intrinsic and extrinsic faith and relevance for dialogue

While non-sectarian positive secularism may facilitate dialogue with faith-based groups, it is necessary to make a distinction between the intrinsic and extrinsic elements of any given faith or non-faith15 so that different dialogue strategies like affirmation, negation and modification can be adopted. Intrinsic faith refers to the core metaphysical beliefs of any particular religion, while extrinsic faith refers to temporal and sociological beliefs sanctioned by that religion. Rajeev Bhargava’s idea of political secularism maintaining ‘principled distance’ from religion presupposes a dialectical play between (secular) politics and faith-based communities. He argues for a framework of autonomy and intervention mediating between politics and religion following a value perspective (Bhargava 2010, 88–89).16 Expanding on his ideas further, it may be argued that secular politics must recognise the autonomy of the ‘intrinsic faith’ of a religion or the ‘internal beliefs’ of the irreligious, while seeking intervention in their ‘extrinsic faith’: the domains of domination, both inter-religious and intra-religious, sanctioned by religion (Bhargava 2010, 63–108).17 In this paper we reiterate the useful distinction between intrinsic faith and extrinsic faith, making use of a psychological theory of religion. Ashis Nandy (1998) makes a binary distinction between ‘religion as faith’ and ‘religion as ideol- ogy’. For Nandy, religion as ideology is problematic as it refers to politically organised religion. However, not all religious views may be politically organised as ideology. Moreover, ‘religion as ideology’ may incorporate some elements of ‘religion as faith’, as we showed earlier while explaining the political ascendency of Hindutva ideology. It may be necessary to make a further distinction within ‘religion-as-faith’ based on a division between intrinsic and extrinsic religion (Kirkpatrick and Hood 1990) The former refers to religion as an end in itself, as devotion, belief in God, belief in religious institutions and so on. The latter refers to religion as means to justify the status quo, social prejudices and superstitions; these may or may not be part of political ideology of a religious community.

Political secularism has erased extrinsic properties of many a religious community, including its ideological or political manifestations, in order to reinforce its own hegemony in the public sphere. It is interesting to note, however, that nowhere in the world has official political secularism erased the intrinsic faith of believers. Beliefs in a personal or impersonal god or animism are forms of intrinsic religion in which political secularism does not interfere. At the same time, one of the crucial tasks of political secularism is to ensure that any believer or non-believer has freedom of conscience and that varieties of intrinsic religion do not dominate over others. Most of the core metaphysical beliefs of a religion (intrinsic faith) survive across space and time, whereas most of the elements of extrinsic faith may change. For example, image worship and the idea of janmasthan (the birthplace of a god) are intrinsic to Hindu metaphysics, while beliefs in caste or women’s subordination are not (Nadkarni 2008, 77–129).18 There is a demand among the Dalits that they be allowed to enter temples:

382 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

intrinsic faith in a temple form of worship is retained by untouchable castes while many extrinsic beliefs such as untouchability itself are rejected. Persistent discrimination against their intrinsic faith has in fact pushed many untouchables to non-Hindu communities (Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian) where there can have equal access to shrines. The Indian state recognises that the issue of caste or the status of women cannot be left to religious communities to regulate according to their traditions, and that it must intervene in order to initiate reforms to end discrimination. Article 25 (2) (B) of the Indian Constitution prescribes ‘social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus’ (The Constitution of India). However, we argue that secularism needs to be pro-active and undertake a dialogic approach to address such contentious issues rather than rely solely on constitutional or legal processes as a strategy for settling disputes. The actions of the Indian authorities, with their ideology of political secularism, to defend the Dalits’ right to follow their intrinsic faith have been confined to the law and constitutional sanctions, and they have thus left unexplored all other options for negotiation and reform of the Hindu social order.

Secularism should recognise the rights of Muslims and Christians to maintain their belief in monotheism and proselytisation. However, secular politics must legally and morally prevent all religions, non-proselytising as well as proselytising, from damaging or dominating others. It is thus the responsibility of the secular state to be vigilant about certain aggressive missionary activities.19 In 1947, immediately after Indian indepen- dence, Gandhi warned that if India’s secular state patronised ‘missionary practices’ among Christians, then secularism would face serious problems: ‘The State should undoubtedly be secular ... . There should be no interference with missionary effort, but no mission could enjoy the patronage of the State as it did during the foreign regime’ (Gandhi 1999, vol. 96, 238–239). Arguably public campaigns for suddhi (purification) by Hindus, conversion by Christians and tabligh (spreading faith) by Muslims cannot be claimed as part of the intrinsic faith of these religious communities and are incompatible with a secular order (Gandhi 1999, vol. 38, 16–17; Rao 1994, 56). Secularism must therefore educate communities to respect each other’s religion, and must restrain them from (organised) conversion–reconversion efforts so that India’s religious communities regard each other as ‘cousins’ or ‘neighbours’, as Gandhi used to describe them (Bose 1996, 234).

The Ayodhya dispute has been dealt with by legal means alone and remains unresolved. Evidently the law alone cannot settle religious disputes: at best it can offer some guidelines for reconciliation. It will be possible to bring about a cultural rapprochement between Hindus and Muslims or between Hindus and Christians only if Indian politics becomes more positive, non-patronising and dialogic. It needs to overcome its secular deficit in order to deepen the understanding of ‘non-sectarian positive secularism’ and wean people away from the lan- guage of fundamentalism and hatred. It follows from above that it will be possible to look for solutions to long-pending disputes such as Ayodhya if India’s secularism respects the intrinsic faith of all religions. Many secular solutions to the Ayodhya dispute have been proposed, such as building a hospital or a museum on the site in question. These, however, are solutions based on ‘negative secularism’ as defined earlier. They betray a degree of indifference, insensitivity or even hostility to the religious questions involved in the dispute. A cultural problem is offered a developmental solution, just as it was in the old left’s response to the caste problem by looking for its resolution in class struggle. A cultural solution to the Ayodhya dispute must be sought within the intrinsic faith of Hinduism and Islam. Political dialogue, as we argued earlier, must begin to inhere what Gramsci calls the religious ‘common sense’ of both communities while confronting their extrinsic beliefs wherever necessary through reason

Religion, State & Society 383

and empirical proof. Only if secular political society begins a dialogue from within the ‘intrinsic faith’ of each religious community will it be possible to craft a solution to the Ayodhya dispute.

Dialogue, sacrifice and reconciliation

Given the painful reality of the Indian state’s failure to settle such disputes through dialogue and reconciliation, the Allahabad High Court judgment needs to be seen as a crucial inter- vention to break the current impasse in secular thinking in India. Despite several flaws in its judgment, the model of reconciliation worked out by the court has immense possibilities for renewing India’s secularism. It is distressing to note that most secular intellectuals (as cited earlier in this article) do not appreciate the fact that the High Court has asked each community to sacrifice its maximalist claims without challenging its ‘intrinsic faith’. Thus, the High Court’s verdict is remarkable for its philosophical and social perspective.20 In particular, we may appreciate its idea of secularism as neighbourhood. The court has asked each community to share the contested space within the Babri Mosque complex, as is already the case in Kashi (coexistence of mosque and Shiva temple) and Mathura (coexistence of mosque and Krishna temple). Each community must sacrifice part of whatever it claims in order to contribute to a value of a higher order: to political secularism, which provides the broader political and cultural framework for religious communities to live in peace and harmony.

The High Court verdict could thus be described as a landmark judgment on secularism from a non-maximalist perspective, an example of ‘non-sectarian positive secularism’. As noted above, however, in May 2011 the Supreme Court issued a stay order on the High Court verdict, describing it as ‘strange’ for asking the three disputants to share the disputed site equally (Ramakrishnan 2011); and, unfortunately in our view, all three disputant organisations welcomed this stay order. They were not satisfied with the High Court judgment because it asked them share the disputed site equally and were happy with the stay order because it opened up the possibility of each disputant gaining sole possession of the disputed site. The Supreme Court seems to have taken a legalistic view of the dispute. We have argued, however, that it cannot be solved by law alone, as indicated by the High Court judgment. The Supreme Court too, we hope, will be sensitive to the necessity of going beyond law in settling this complex issue by building on the High Court judgment rather than reducing the dispute to conflict over property.

The Hindutva movement for the Ram temple in Ayodhya orchestrated by the BJP since the mid-1980s gave rise to misgivings among the Muslim community that it could lead to similar demands in relation to mosques in Kashi, Mathura and elsewhere: these misgivings need to be addressed.21 The state must also try to persuade the Hindu community, particularly the VHP, to take moral responsibility for the demolition of the Babri Mosque and to promise to rebuild it, sharing the contested space in Ayodhya as in Kashi and Mathura. The Sunni Waqf Board should also respond to the theme of sacrifice positively. Such a response calls for extra-judicial thinking. The Ayodhya dispute should not be treated merely as a ‘title to property’ given the fact that the emotions of both communities are involved.22 The Board should be prepared for a negotiated settlement keeping in mind the need for a broader and durable cultural reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims based on the Quran itself. As spokesmen for the Board affirm, if there is a proposal for reconciliation based on Quranic laws, Muslims will be prepared to listen (Ayodhya Verdict 2010). We should note that the Quran makes a distinction between the ‘sacred mosque’ and the ‘remote mosque’ (Abdel Haleem 2004, 175). The sacred mosque at Mecca has a special significance as it is here that Allah’s message was revealed to the Prophet. A remote mosque, as in Jerusalem and elsewhere, can however be built anywhere (Abdel

384 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

Haleem 2004, 395). When the Board compromises over a piece of land in the Babri Mosque complex, then, this does not amount to compromising on the intrinsic faith of the Muslims.

Only dialogue can help the disputant communities and their organisations to develop a shared understanding of the complications involved in the Ayodhya dispute and the impor- tance of solving it in their own long-term interests. It is the responsibility of the secular state to provide a forum for an interfaith dialogue as the first step towards resolving religious disputes between communities. The ‘secular’ state and its dialogic politics, therefore, need not and should not shy away from contentious religious issues. It must, however, respect and protect the elements intrinsic to all faiths so that dialogic politics is likely to continue uninterrupted. It would then be possible to initiate dialogue to reform extrinsic elements of a community’s faith which are inconsistent with contemporary life based on modernity, equity and humanism. It is difficult to envisage any other way of building a genuinely secular state and society in the long run in an open, diverse and democratic country like India.

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank K.S.R.V.S. Chalam, M.S.S. Pandian, Ranabir Samaddar, V. Janardhan, Manjari Katju, K.C. Suri and John P. Lederach for their constructive criticisms of the earlier drafts of this paper. They would also like to thank Philip Walters and the three anonymous reviewers for their detailed and incisive comments which helped in improving the paper substantially.

Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes 1. The Hindutva family consists of Hindu nationalist organisations like the Rashtriya

Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and their front political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

2. Domination may not necessarily result in organised conflict, and yet it is the business of secularism to tackle forms of religious domination which, if challenged, may produce religious conflicts. Dalits, for example, are denied temple entry, which is a kind of religious domination; but if Dalits challenge this denial, religious conflict may result.

3. For the texts of the court judgment see Decision of Hon’ble Special Full Bench Hearing Ayodhya Matters 2010.

4. Law courts in India use moral sources in society and religion to give important legal verdicts. In the present case, the judges referred to the notion of sacrifice as enunciated by Lord Ram and the Prophet Mohammed during their own lifetimes, in order to bring about reconciliation and peace between Hindus and Muslims over the Ayodhya dispute. The judges seem to imply that if Ram and Mohammed could invoke sacrifice for higher ideals, why can their followers not do the same in relation to this dispute? For details of sacrifice, see Justice S.U. Khan’s judgment delivered on 30 September 2010 (http://elegalix.allahabadhighcourt.in/elegalix/ ayodhyafiles/honsukj.pdf) 277–78.

5. ‘India’s secular ethics’ refers to a set of diverse values such as mutual respect/tolerance, autonomy/syncretism, and inter-religious, intra-religious and non-religious liberty/equality. We consider the last point later in this article when we discuss Nehru’s secularism.

6. Kandhamal is a district in the province of Odisha where major anti-Christian riots occurred during 2007–2008. They displaced nearly 35,000 (official figure) Christians, mainly Dalits and tribes- people, from villages and towns and drew the attention of the international community; in February 2010 there was a visit by a delegation of 11 diplomats from the European Union. See Das (2010).

7. The National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM) has asked for dialogue with Maoists, Kashmiri separatists and others. See its dialogue appeal, NAPM for Political Dialogue with Maoists (2011). See also the appeal for a multilateral dialogue by the state with Maoists and

Religion, State & Society 385

tribes by Amit Bhaduri and Romila Thapar (n.d.). Swami Agnivesh calls for interfaith dialogue: see Agnivesh (2005).

8. Pandey comes closer than Bilgrami to recognising dialogue as contested discourse (Pandey 2007, 175–176), but he fails to push his model of dialogue further to incorporate ‘contested agencies’. He departs from Bilgrami in order to return to the latter’s placid conception of dialogue. The spectre of fundamentalism haunts both.

9. ‘Religious common sense’ may be a set of contradictions between ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ elements of faith.

10. In a negative model of secularism, religious beliefs are suppressed or ignored. For Gramsci’s distinction between positive and negative secularism, see La Rocca (1997).

11. Elsewhere in their work all religious volunteers (karsevak), the followers of the Hindutva movement for the Ram temple in Ayodhya, are lampooned as ‘lumpenised’ elements (Nandy et al. 1993, 26).

12. For instance, the Hindu religious text the Bhagavad Gita reflects this view: ‘Whenever there is a decay of righteousness, O Bharat, and a rise of unrighteousness, then I manifest Myself’ (Chinmayananda 1996, 270). This quotation does not refer to a birthplace as such but implies that Hindu gods are born and reborn and hence do have a birthplace.

13. Roy’s criticism of the Ayodhya verdict is based on the assumption that it justifies a sectional faith by ignoring polytheism in the Hindu religion. In fact the verdict nowhere explicitly denies polytheism in Hinduism.

14. These three streams were identified by Gramsci (1995, 118–119). We argue that while ‘civilisational dialogue’ (a phrase used by John Dayal, secretary general of the All-India Christian Council, New Delhi, in a personal communication) among these three streams may continue, it is not the business of political secularism to join this debate. Its job is rather to provide for a legal, moral and institutional framework for such dialogue including the debate around faith as raised by atheism. In any case, secular politics must prevent all forms of domination including domination of reason/law over faith.

15. According to M.V. Nadkarni (2008, 78) ‘In understanding any religion, it is useful to distinguish between what is intrinsic to it and what is peripheral and discardable’.

16. However, it is possible to expand on his idea of principled distance beyond the twin principles of (1) ‘autonomy’ and (2) ‘intervention’ to include a third principle of (3) ‘assimilation’ or ‘unity-in-diversity’ or syncretism. It should be added that the first two principles may be relevant only for political secularism in India but that all three principles need to be seen as integral to India’s cultural secularism.

17. Bhargava (2010, 63–108) argues that political secularism needs to confront both inter-religious and intra-religious domination. However, in addition, secular politics needs to confront domination of law over faith, as the Ayodhya dispute indicates that there is no legal solution to it. It is has not been settled over last 60 years, partly as a result of the domination of law over faith allowed by secular politics since 1949.

18. Gandhi is also critical of caste divisions among Hindus which affect their well-being and also that of their non-Hindu neighbours. The sanctioning of such social divisions by religion can be seen as an extrinsic part of religion. According to Gandhi, ‘The existing innumerable divisions with the attendant artificial restrictions and elaborate ceremonial are harmful to the growth of a religious spirit, as also to the social well-being of the Hindus and therefore also their neighbours’ (Bose 1996, 234).

19. Proselytising poses no problem if it is seen as intrinsic by a particular religion. However, as Gandhi did, a distinction can be made between belief in conversion and aggressive public conversion campaigns. When such ‘aggressive’ propagation in public places like hospitals, education centres, pilgrim sites and village assemblies take place in a multireligious society, it can lead to conflicts.

20. See note 4. 21. Such misgivings have been expressed by Syed Shahabuddin, the former convener of the Babri

Mosque Coordination Committee, and Assaduddin Owaisi, MP for Hyderabad. 22. Nivedita Menon also makes a similar point though in a legalistic mode: ‘Rather than treating the

issue . . . as a straightforward property dispute . . . the Supreme Court could address the issue as one involving the future of plural faiths, India’s future as a democracy . . .’ (Menon 2011, 89).

386 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam

Notes on contributors Arun K. Patnaik is a professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, India. He obtained his doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, in political theory. He specialises in Gramsci’s dialectical exploration into themes of common sense, civil society, party, religion and political society. He is currently interested in exploring India’s intellectual traditions and the nature of Indian secularism. His publications include a monograph (co-edited) Gramsci Today (2007); “The Contemporary Significance of Gramsci’s Critique of Civil Society”, Working USA: the Journal of Labor and Society 15 (December) 2012; and more than 30 research papers and book chapters.

Prithvi Ram Mudiam is a professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, India. He obtained his doctorate in international relations from the London School of Economics. His research interests include India’s foreign policy, international political economy, nuclear politics and regionalism. His publications include India and the Middle East (London, British Academic Press, 1994) and nearly 20 articles in national and international journals and edited volumes.

References Abdel Haleem, M. A. S., trans. 2004. The Qur’an. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Agnivesh, S. W. 2005. “Applied Spirituality: A Spiritual Vision for the Dialogue of Religions.”

Current Dialogue (World Council of Churches) 45 (July). http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/ interreligious/cd45-07.html.

Aiyar, M. S. 2011. “India–Pakistan Relations: A Way Forward.” The Hindu, January 24. http://www. thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article1119034.ece/.

Ananth, V. K. 2011. India Since Independence: Making Sense of Indian Politics. Delhi: Pearson. “Ayodhya Dispute.” 2014. Wikipedia, October 24. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayodhya-dispute. “Ayodhya Verdict: All India Muslim Personal Law Board to Appeal in Supreme Court.” 2010.

NDTV, October 16. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ayodhya-verdict-all-india-muslim-perso- nal-law-board-to-appeal-in-supreme-court-60202&cp.

Bhaduri, A., and R. Thapar. n.d. “Will the Mindset from the Past Change?” INSAF: International South Asia Forum. Accessed October 25, 2014. http://www.insafbulletin.net/archives/661.

Bhargava, R. 2010. The Promise of India’s Secular Democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bilgrami, A. 1998. “Secularism, Nationalism and Modernity.” In Secularism and its Critics, edited

by R. Bhargava, 380–417. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bose, N. K. 1996. Selections from Gandhi’s Writings. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press. Chatterjee, P. 2004. The Politics of the Governed. Delhi: Permanent Black. Chinmayananda, S. 1996. The Holy Geeta. Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust. The Constitution of India (as Modified up to the 1st December 2007). Government of India, Ministry

of Law & Justice. http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf/. Das, S. 2010. “Kandhamal Opens Up to EU Team.” The Telegraph, February 5. http://www.telegraphin-

dia.com/1100205/jsp/nation/story_12067549.jsp. Decision of Hon’ble Special Full Bench Hearing Ayodhya Matters. 2010. http://elegalix.allahabadh

ighcourt.in/elegalix/StartWebSearch.do. Fulton, J. 1987. “Religion and Politics in Gramsci: An Introduction.” Sociological Analysis 48 (3):

197–216. Gandhi, M. K. 1999. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (e-book). (Vols 24, 38, 96). New

Delhi: Publication Division, Government of India. Gopal, S., and U. Iyenger, eds. 2003. The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru. (Vol. 1). Delhi:

Oxford University Press. Gramsci, A. 1995. Further Selections from Prison Notebooks, edited by D. Boothman. London:

Lawrence and Wishart. Habermas, J., and J. Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). 2006. Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason

and Religion. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Jaffrelot, C., and M. Maheswari. 2011. “Paradigm Shifts by the RSS? Lessons from Aseemananda’s

Confession.” Economic and Political Weekly 46 (6): 42–46. Kazmi, S. 2010. “My Take on the Ayodhya Verdict.” Mainstream 48 (42). http://www.mainstream

weekly.net/article2371.html/.

Religion, State & Society 387

Kirkpatrick, L. A., and R. W. Hood, Jr. 1990. “ Intrinsic–Extrinsic Religious Orientation: The Boon or Bane of Contemporary Psychology of Religion?” Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 29: 442–462. doi:10.2307/1387311.

La Rocca, T. 1997. “Gramsci on Religion: A Teacher of Secularism.” Paper presented at the conference ‘Gramsci and the Twentieth Century’, Cagliari, April 15–18.

Mani, L. 2010. “Where Angels Fear to Tread: The Ayodhya Verdict.” Economic and Political Weekly 45 (42): 10–12.

Menon, N. 2011. “The Ayodhya Judgment and What Next?” Economic and Political Weekly 46 (31): 81–89.

Nadkarni, M. V. 2008. Hinduism: A Gandhian Perspective. 2nd edn. New Delhi: Ane Books India. Nandy, A. 1998. “The Politics of Secularisation and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance.” In

Secularism and its Critics, edited by R. Bhargava, 321–344. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Nandy, A., S. Trivedy, S. Mayaram, and A. Yagnik. 1993. Creating Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi

Movement and Fear of the Self. Delhi: Oxford University Press. “NAPM for Political Dialogue with Maoists.” 2011. The Hindu, February 24. http://napm-india.org/

node/169. Pandey, G. 2007. “The Secular State and the Limits of Dialogue.” In The Crisis of Secularism in

India, edited by A. D. Needham and R. S. Rajan, 157–176. Ranikhet: Permanent Black. PTI-Nagpur. 2012. “RSS Seeks Early Legislation to Allow Ram Temple in Ayodhya.” The New

Indian Express, October 24. http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/article1312212.ece Ramakrishnan, V. 2011. “The Supreme Court Order Staying the Allahabad High Court Verdict

Opens up All Possibilities in the Ayodhya Title Suit.” Frontline 28 (11). http://www.frontline.in/ static/html/fl2811/stories/20110603281109900.htm.

Rao, U. R., ed. 1994. The Way to Communal Harmony by M K Gandhi. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press. Roy, K. 2010. “Issues of Faith.” Economic & Political Weekly 45 (50): 53–60. Samaddar, R. 2011. “The Dialogic Subject.” Paper presented for the Calcutta Research Group,

Kolkata, at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, India, February 7.

Sharma, D. V. 2010. Decision of Hon’ble Special Full Bench Hearing Ayodhya Matters. Annex IV: 129–162. http://elegalix.allahabadhighcourt.in/elegalix/ayodhyafiles/hondvsj-ann-4-p3-lowres.pdf.

Suresh, K. G. 2002. “VHP Goes Back on Promise to Abide by Court Verdict.” rediff.com, June 22. http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jun/22vhp1.htm.

Thapar, R. 2010. “The Verdict on Ayodhya: A Historian’s Perspective.” The Hindu, October 2. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article807232.ece/.

van der Veer, P. 2009. “Interview.” DART, April 2. http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/dart/interviews/vanderv eer.html.

388 A.K. Patnaik and P.R. Mudiam