Opinion Places of Worship Act – a crucible for the idea of India

Historically, the land that is India was never a homogenous nation, population or even imagination, with different eras being defined by the territorial supremacy of various rulers. This land has been ruled by many – be it Ashoka, the Guptas, the Lodis, Mughals, Marathas, Cholas, Jats, the list goes on. While religious communities stake claim to their ancestry over the land often based on affiliations to such ruling communities or through mythological beliefs, the modern state political conceptualisation of the idea of India is largely attributable to late 19th century and early 20th century developments in the Subcontinent leading to the decolonisation of India with the advent of its freedom movement. The freedom movement, with all its different facets and leaders, along with the British authorities, forged an idea of India politically and territorially, the ethos of which is captured finally in the Indian Constitution.

India, that is Bharat, socio-politically is thus a fused entity created out of multiple identities and cultures, with its binding glue being the shared aspirations and goals of multiple groups, people and communities that sought political freedom and independence from colonial rule. The Preamble is a prototype of this glue that binds the original idea of India together. After 75 years, the glue seems to be a bit undone, and this is a moment that will redefine the Indian vision one way or another.

The Places of Worship Act, 1991, was a legislative attempt to strengthen the preambular goal of secularism, recognising that the rich cultural history of India carries with it centuries-old narratives and experiences of violence between communities who at that time had no shared aspiration for a common nation.

The Parliament of the time, conscious of the potential harm to the body politic which could arise from repeatedly reopening centuries-old wounds, chose in its wisdom to acknowledge that August 15, 1947, was a watershed moment. It was from that day onwards that various communities came together to primarily pledge their allegiance to the idea of India as a nation-state while continuing to practice their religion and faith with the protection of the law. The Act draws an imaginary line, to ensure that any section of the Indian population of today is not punished or subjected to humiliation and violence on the pretext of actions of people from their religion centuries ago. Simply put, the Hindus who allegedly destroyed Buddhist prayer sites in ancient India, or the Mughals who allegedly destroyed Hindu temples in medieval India, are not to be avenged through violence meted out on fellow Indians in modern India. This is premised on the notion that modern Indians will be Indians first in law unlike the medieval and ancient inhabitants of this land, and thus the Act attempts to bolster Indian-ness in our appreciation of our shared cultural and religious past.

The opposition to this Act is a socio-political and religious backlash to the idea of India which was envisioned on August 15, 1947. It calls for the supremacy of belief and faith over the social contract enforced by the Constitution and is a tribute to ideas of religious and cultural supremacy over modern-day nation-state consciousness. To those who oppose the Act, this is not an un-Indian position to take. They would argue that opposing the Act is more Indian because it is a movement for the reclamation of the true character of this land, where Hindu sites of worship must be brought back to their glorious past, and that alone would lead Bharat to be a Vishwaguru.

The issue really is not what lies beneath a centuries-old place of worship, but whether the consciousness of the Indian being should be dug up at the altar of religious antiquity. The legislative wisdom guiding the promulgation of the Places of Worship Act tried to permanently bury the hatchet of the past to forge a unified sustainable future. A kind of oneness which only a truly secular democracy can celebrate. The next few months and years will determine which vision of India will triumph – the one which recognises fault lines that were imaginarily wiped out by the lawmakers of the past to bolster the dream of a unified vision of a shared India, or the one which is premised on cultural supremacy and reclamation of a glorious religious past.

With that in mind, one looks forward to the next Republic Day. As Rabindranath Tagore prophetically prayed all those years ago – into the heaven of freedom, let my country awake.

The writer is a Delhi-based advocate