Religious Violence And A Post-Secular World

A newlywed woman sat, numb with shock, next to her husband라이브 바카라 dead body. Bodies like this were lying in a part of the Kashmir Valley known as the Switzerland of India. These images from Pahalgam, after the terror attack on April 22, are hard to forget; and perhaps, would never be forgotten. The entire country is rightly snapping in rage. From political leaders to commoners–everyone is showing a strong reaction on social media. But will this anger kill Islamist terrorism? Shouldn’t we try to understand why Pahalgam happened?
To do so, we have to admit first that it was a group of Islamist terrorists who killed the innocent tourists (mostly Hindu) in Pahalgam. We need to condemn this unpardonable act loudly and clearly. Only then will whatever we say make any sense. We should also admit that Islamist terrorism is one of the biggest threats to the present-day world and that it operates on a large, international scale.  The rise of political Islam is a political phenomenon that has cunningly used religion to organise some of the most heinous crimes on the globe after the Second World War.
Having admitted this, we must ask why the Pahalgam attack happened. It라이브 바카라 true that Pakistan has been stirring things up over Kashmir for a while. But that라이브 바카라 not the only reason for this massacre. The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, that has claimed responsibility for the attack, has made an official statement. It said, “More than 85,000 domiciles have been issued to non-locals, creating a pathway for demographic change in Indian-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK). These non-locals arrive posing as tourists, obtain domiciles, and then being to act as if they own the land. Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally.” If this is really the primary reason for the attack, then who is to be blamed? Kashmir is a Union Territory now and if fake domicile certificates are being issued, the Union government will have to take the responsibility for that.

Tourists who have been to Kashmir recently have written on social media that there is tight security everywhere, 24/7 in Kashmir. So, how could the terrorists carry on a successful "operation" in such a heavily guarded place for almost 40 minutes? News reports say intelligence agencies did warn the government about possible attacks during tourist season. Should we not ask what measures the Home Ministry took after receiving that information. After the removal of Article 370 from the Constitution, we have been told time and again that Kashmir is “free from terrorism.” Does Pahalgam give us an image of a terrorism-free Kashmir? We should also remember that terrorists cannot succeed in an operation such as this in a security-heavy zone like Kashmir without some possible help from the local insiders. 

If we look at the attack from a broader perspective, we might find another reason for the success of the attack. The time has come to admit that not only political Islam but also political Hindutva has gained ground in the subcontinent for the failure of secularism both as an ideology and praxis. This takes us back to Jürgen Habermas. In the early part of his career, Habermas did not consider religion important in public life. But over the last two decades of his life, his views on religion and secularism gradually changed. On September 16, 2008, during a discussion in Istanbul, he gave a talk titled “A Post-Secular Society – What Does That Mean?”, offering a criticism of the secular thinkers to argue for accepting the necessity of a '‘post-secular’' society.

This talk was later published as an essay. In it,  Habermas argues that the secular ideologues base their arguments on three main ideas. First, science and technology have changed humans’ relationship with nature. Because science can now explain almost everything, the mysteries of nature do not feel so mysterious anymore. Science has basically struck a blow at the very root of a theo-centric world. Second, with the rise of modern bureaucratic systems, religious institutions lost much of their influence on public life. They have focused only on their own communities rather than society at large. Third, after industrialisation, the expansion of social welfare systems across the world gave people a sense of security that used to come from religion earlier. This also reduced the dependency of people on religion to feel protected from forces beyond their control.

Habermas pointed out that this whole theory of secularism is now facing big challenges. In a globalised world, many religious groups have succeeded in using multicultural, transnational and cross-border activities to their advantage. He has rightly observed that we have been witnessing a kind of “religious revival” in many places across the globe. In many cases, it has even turned into the growth of fundamentalism, giving birth to new religious-states. He said, “Finally, the mullah regime in Iran and Islamic terrorism are merely the most spectacular examples of a political unleashing of the potential for violence innate in religion.

Often smouldering conflicts that are profane in origin are first ignited once coded in religious terms.” Habermas, thus, rightly observes that secularism has not made religion disappear. He rather agrees with José Casanova that while religion may have lost its dominance over the masses, that does not mean that it no longer matters in politics, culture, or in people라이브 바카라 personal lives. In fact, Habermas even argues that too much secularism might have actually helped terrorism grow. When secular states do not permit religious communities to express their (religious) views in public, it pushes some people of these communities toward religious radicalism.

This is why Habermas believes that we now need a “post-secular” society—one where religious communities do not have to hide or give up their beliefs to take part in public and political life: “I have thus far taken the position of a sociological observer in trying to answer the question of why we can term secularised societies ‘post-secular.’ In these societies, religion maintains a public influence and relevance, while the secularistic certainty that religion will disappear worldwide in the course of modernization is losing ground.” Habermas also points out something that the secular materialists often ignore: secular language and values sometimes have roots in religious ideas. Religious traditions, according to him, actually have a lot of values that can help people become more selfless and accommodative. For instance, he underlines how an idea like equality before the law—which is key to a democratic society—often comes from religious teachings. He gives the example of the civil rights movement in the US and how leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. used religious values to fight for equality for the minorities.

We need to emphasise at this juncture that Habermas does not reject the idea of secularism entirely. He wants to build a bridge between people of faith and secular thinkers. He says that religious and secular communities need to learn a lot from each other. On the one hand, the secularists must listen to the voices of the religious groups, and, on the other, religious people need to accept constitutional principles within their own faith. He specifically gives the example of the 1965 Vatican II conference, in which the Catholic Church finally took a stand in favour of liberal democracy.
What Habermas identifies as the flaw in the secularists seems to be exactly the flaw of the secularists of our own country. In India, the rigid stance of the secularists to ignore the importance of religion in public life has paved the way for the birth of fundamentalism and terrorism to a great extent. If we need to fight political Islam in our country, the old jargon of the secularists won't come handy now.

They need to engage with the religious groups in a Habermassian "post-secular" way. Similarly, devout Muslims citizens, Muslim artists and writers, and political leaders must try to understand the language of the secularists. But before that, they should strongly condemn the Pahalgam attack. 

Angshuman Kar is Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies
Director, Centre for Australian Studies, The University of Burdwan,  India
& Former Secretary, Eastern Region, Sahitya Akademi, India's Official Academy of Letters.