Last week, a young Muslim woman was harassed by a mob of Hindutva nationalists for wearing a burqa.

The incident took place at a school in the Indian state of Karnataka. Most supporters of PM Modi’s Hindu nationalist government applauded. But the government’s opponents described the act as a violation of the Indian constitution, which describes India as a ‘secular nation’, in which the religious rights of its citizens are protected.

The ‘moderates’ were not thrilled by the incident, but some believed that there was nothing unconstitutional about educational institutions banning hijabs. They claimed that this was in line with ‘hijab bans’ in public institutions in France which, like India, is a secular democracy.

It was perhaps such statements that prompted the Pakistani academic Ali Usman Qasmi to state: “This is not about India aspiring to become a cheap copy of French laicism, but its transformation into a dangerous variant of European fascism.” 

Qasmi was pointing towards a misapprehension that many middle-class supporters of PM Modi seem to be carrying. Whereas the more radical Hindu nationalists are unapologetic about their overt distaste of secularism, Muslims, Christians, and ‘Western modernity’, one often comes across ‘modern’ middle-class Hindus who are convinced that the current Indian government’s restriction on cultural practices of India’s Muslim citizens, is a true manifestation of secularism. They are fond of giving the example of France.

Middle class, ‘moderate’ supporters of India’s hijab ban increasingly like to look for equivalence with France’s secularism. India’s ban is nothing of the sort. And India is headed down the same road that Pakistan already did a few decades ago

Such notions are a somewhat delusional defence of something that is a lot closer to fascism, than secularism. In 2004, when France imposed a ban on the display of religious symbols and attire in public schools, the ban covered students of any or all religions, and not just Muslims. Secularism in Europe and the US is quite similar. But its nature is more ardent in France.

French secularism is often referred to as laicism. Yet, like secularism in all developed European countries, laicism too guarantees free exercise of religion, as long as it remains confined to the private sphere and outside the realm of politics. It is not anti-religion. In fact, no secularism is.

Hearing a modern/moderate Hindu Indian explain the anti-Muslim disposition of the Modi regime as something akin to French secularism, is quite amusing on so many levels. This means that he/she considers Indian secularism as underdeveloped, or one that should be replaced with ‘genuine secularism,’ preferably French.

Ironically, does this also mean that a quasi-theocratic Hindu nationalist regime is the best expression of authentic secularism? French laicism is one of the strongest bulwarks against exercising religion in the political realm. So how on earth is a ruling political party that is unabashed about its desire to turn India into a Hindu rashtra [nation] an Indian variant of laicism? 

According to the Indian political scientist Neera Chandhoke, “the challenge to secularism has not come from personal faith or religion, but from religious groups that struggle for power.” Thus, Modi’s ‘secular’ apologists who are attempting to explain hijab bans in India as a kind of laicism, are actually defending a theocratic force that is locked in a battle for political power against the principles of Indian secularism, and secularism in general.

The Hindu nationalist mob that harassed the burqa-clad woman in Karnataka, turned her from being a non-Hindu citizen of India with rights, into a demonised religious ‘other.’ 

But by banning religious symbols and attire in public, isn’t laicism viewing the whole idea of religion as an ‘other’? Not quite. It sees religion as part of society, but one which should exist in the private sphere, or only in places of worship. 

Laicism does not discriminate between religions in this context. It does not aspire to erase non-Christians to enact a Christian theocracy. Its insistence to strictly keep religion as a private affair is rooted in a history in which numerous lengthy wars were fought in Europe on the basis of religion. These wars caused widespread economic, political and social devastation. 

This was one of the major reasons behind the emergence of secularism in Europe. Laicism is considered to be a slightly more vigorous strand. Its earliest roots lie in the 18th century French Revolution, when the two main centres of power, the monarchy and the Church, were conjoined. They were viewed as an exploitative and authoritarian whole by the early French middle-classes, and the masses.

The French Revolution was thus radically anti-clerical. It produced an anti-religionism that was as dogmatic as the Church that it had toppled. But this made the revolution eat its own children. 

In 1905, a law was passed in France which officially declared it to be a secular country. The law was authored keeping in mind the destruction caused by a politicised Church as well as by radical anti- religionism. Laicism therefore, provides the freedom to practise religion as long as this freedom is exercised in private and is not turned into a political tool. Where does the hijab ban in India fit here? Nowhere.

The Indian ban was emerging from an attempt to impose a hegemony of a majority religion at the expense of other religions. There is nothing secular about this. The ban was wielded as a tool to browbeat a hated ‘other.’ India is actually becoming what Pakistan became, even though the latter never declared itself as secular.

But the idea of Islam of Pakistan’s founders, and the one adopted earlier by the state, had relegated the theocratic dimensions of Islam into the private sphere, and put the faith’s modern nationalistic variant in the public sphere. 

This variant began being challenged by other variants of Islam that were more theocratic in nature. It was a tussle for political dominance. The 1973 Constitution tried to strike a balance between the two. But the document was soon stormed by those who wanted to erase not only non-Muslim minorities, but minority Islamic sects as well, to turn the country into a single-sect theocracy.

This was more or less achieved through controversial constitutional amendments, short-sighted state and government policies, and mob violence. The state and governments are now obliged to retain the single-sect equation.

The disconcerting truth is that, after uncannily aiding proponents of the single-sect nation in undermining, harassing and demonising non-Muslim and sectarian ‘others,’ the state has itself become increasingly vulnerable to the threat of being stormed by those it had earlier aided.

Today, it has no clue how to address this. India too is headed in a similar direction. 

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 20th, 2022