Deafening grumbles....

It is becoming fashionable again to seek State intervention in everything, right from the economy to morality to even getting people to respect each others’ beliefs. And to my mind, this is a dangerous tendency. To start considering the State as some sort of final adjudicator in our disputes, our dilemmas is to abdicate one’s own reason and repose blindly in the ‘wisdom’ of the State. The quotes are necessary because what may be wise at one juncture of time may not be justifiable in the future.

Turkey and Egypt are often touted as examples of secular states. Their devotion to secularism and their zealousness in their resolve to preserve it has been called exemplary. And yet, I have no more respect for their zeal than I have for Saudi Arabia’s theological state structure. For in their enthusiasm, they are seeking to enforce the unenforceable on their populace.

Human nature rebels against authority. It may accept it for some time, a few decades, maybe even a few centuries, and if the authority is really accomplished, even a few millennia. But after its self-determined threshold has been breached, no amount of coercion can stop the grumbling masses from destroying the edifice of power.

Even if Turkey, Egypt and their likes may state their noble intentions behind their coercive approaches, they in the end deny the basic maturity of their populaces. They take an inherently paternalistic approach to a problem the debate over which can at best be delayed by a few decades, but which is bound to resurface with double force thereafter. Paternalism, one may bear sometimes, some may bear it all the time, but not all can bear it all the time (forgive my rephrasing of Lincoln’s quote here).

Supporters of a coercive approach may state the divisive properties of religion, and how a nation can never be truly called united while its people put religion before their national identities. One hears this argument much too often in India. One presumes too much into the unitary effect of religion. And aren’t there more divisive identities that men may presume? There is regionalism, casteism (in the particular case of India) et al.

Coercion never works, especially when it comes to getting people to agree to something, and it is a miserable failure when you want it to get people to respect each others’ beliefs. Trust me, I don’t want you telling me to respect someone else; I’d rather do that on my own. Coercion makes the majority resentful of having to suppress their emotions, their beliefs in the State’s desire for uniformity. The minority stands the risk of becoming arrogant and aggrandize the resentment of their fellow compatriots. A point to note. By majority and minority, I don’t just mean religious majorities or minorities; it could be ethnic, casteist, gender etc.

Turkey and Egypt may have had it easy so far, but now their masses are beginning to demand the right to be overt about their beliefs. They are demanding the right to be seen to belong to a faith, to a system of beliefs. The struggle that these populaces find them in could lead them in either direction. Either they could become fanatics and reject modernity and all that their nations have achieved so far, or become apathetic and lose all their momentum to change their future for the better.

Secularism by coercion is a form of display of authority. The masses are grumbling. It behooves us to hear their grumbles while they are just so. Trust me, their screams and shouts could become too deafening to bear.