This article was downloaded by: [York University Libraries]

On: 29 December 2014, At: 16:50

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK

European Societies
Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reus20

How Secular is European

Secularism?
a
Rajeev Bhargava
a
CSDS, New Delhi, India
Published online: 03 Jun 2014.

Click for updates

To cite this article: Rajeev Bhargava (2014) How Secular is European Secularism?,
European Societies, 16:3, 329-336, DOI: 10.1080/14616696.2014.916335

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2014.916335

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or
suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed
in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should
not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,
claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities
whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection
with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
 This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-
licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014
 European Societies,
2014
Vol. 16, No. 3, 329–336,
http://dx.doi.org/
10.1080/14616696.
2014.916335

HOW SECULAR IS EUROPEAN

SECULARISM?
Rajeev Bhargava
CSDS, New Delhi, India
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

ABSTRACT: European Secularism, one of the many versions of secularism

available in the world, was developed in the context predominantly of single-
religion societies, after a great deal of religious homogenization had already
taken place. It was and remains a modest secularism. However, with the
migration of workers from former colonies and the intensification of
globalization, pre-Christian (Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain) and post-Christian
faiths (Islam and Sikhism) have been thrown together for the first time in
modern Europe creating an unprecedented diversity the like of which has
not been witnessed in Europe under conditions of modernity. This has
destabilized European secular states and the conception of secularism that
underpins them. European Secularism is in crisis for as it now turns out it is
not quite secular enough.
Key words: European Secularism; religions; modern Europe

European Secularism, one of the many versions of secularism available in

the world, was developed in the context predominantly of single-religion
societies, after a great deal of religious homogenization had already
taken place. It was and remains a modest secularism. However, with
the migration of workers from former colonies and the intensification
of globalization, pre-Christian (Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain) and post-
Christian faiths (Islam and Sikhism) have been thrown together for the
first time in modern Europe creating an unprecedented diversity the like
of which has not been witnessed in Europe under conditions of modernity.
This has destabilized European secular states and the conception of
secularism that underpins them. European Secularism is in crisis for as it
now turns out it is not quite secular enough. My main claim in this essay is
that this crisis is due largely to the failure of Europe to make a conceptual
shift from a secularism developed in and for single-religion societies to one
that is far more sensitive and finely tuned to deep religious diversity. At its
root then the crisis of European Secularism is conceptual. Europe must
reconceptualize its secularism and in order to do so possibly learn from the
experience of non-European, non-western societies such as India.

– 2014 Taylor & Francis 329

 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

I begin by distinguishing three senses of the term ‘secularism’. First, it is

used as a shorthand for secular humanism. The second specifies the ideals,
even ultimate ideals, which give meaning and worth to life and that its
followers strive to realize in their life, I call it ethical secularism. I distinguish
this ethic from political secularism. Here it stands for a certain kind of polity
in which organized religious power or religious institutions are separated
from organized political power or political institutions for specific ends.
Now political secularism is usually thought of as involving the
separation of state and church. This is true, for example, of both the
French and the American versions. This is only a half-truth and
sometimes only a third of the whole truth. This way of seeing political
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

secularism is highly inadequate because it leaves out those societies which

have no churches. For instance, neither Islam nor Hinduism are church-
based religions. But both Turkey and India have consistently followed
political secularism. However, this is not the only reason for its
inadequacy. The separation of church and state is neither necessary nor
sufficient in non-Christian societies and though necessary, it is not a
sufficient condition in even Christian societies.
A crucial requirement of a secular state is that it has no constitutive
links with religion and that the ends of any religion should not be installed
as the ends of the state. For example, it cannot be the constitutive
objective of the state to ensure salvation, nirvana or moksha. Nor it can be
a requirement of the state that it increases the membership of any religious
community. The conversion of one individual or a group from one
religion to another cannot be the goal of the state. Then what are the
typical ends of a secular state? These can be of two kinds: (1) amoral – the
attainment or aggrandizement of power or wealth, or (2) moral ends such
as the protection and advancement of liberty, equality, and fraternity
between or among individuals and groups. Then, for such a value-based
secular state, two conditions are widely believed to be crucial: (1)
separation at the level of institutions and personnel and even more
importantly (2) separation at the level of ends. Besides these two levels
of separation, a third level of separation is sometimes believed to be as
crucial – (3) separation at the level of law and public policy.
Although not fully institutionalized until 1905, the birth of the idea of
political secularism happened with an abrupt break with the past, with the
revolution in France. The French revolutionaries wished to deconfessio-
nalize the French state, and sought the strict separation of the church-
based religion and state not only at the level of institutions and personnel
but also at the level of ends. The state had to be separated from the
objectives of the church for the sake of an emancipatory agenda. The
enormous social power of the church had to be curbed in order to grant
liberty and equality to all individuals. Even more important was the

330
 European secularism BHARGAVA

equality of individuals as citizens of a common republic, now made

available to all regardless of religion. They could have it, provided they left
behind their communal identity and entered the public domain merely as
individuals. They would be treated as full citizens as long as they left
behind their religion in the private domain and entered the public domain
without it. Political secularism here meant the privatization not just of
powerless religions but equally of the most powerful religion in France –
Catholicism. And not only was separation of church-based religion and
state introduced here but also separation itself was given a new meaning.
For the French, it meant one-sided exclusion. From now on, the state
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

could intervene in every matter of all religions, to help or hinder them but
no corresponding power was available to any religion including Catholi-
cism. I shall call this model, the idealized French model (Model 1).
While France was developing its own political secularism, another
model was developing in America. Here new residents of this territory had
fled from religious persecution and toleration in Europe, deeply valuing
the religious liberty of individuals to associate and form their own
churches. Over time a consensus grew, enshrined in the first amendment
to the constitution, that the best way to protect the interest and freedom of
one’s own denomination was to keep state power completely away from all
denominations. Thus, church-state separation was installed for the sake of
religious liberty and denominational pluralism. This strict separation was
understood in the USA as mutual exclusion, i.e., the exclusion of the state
from the affairs of the religion and the corresponding exclusion of religion
from the affairs of the state.
So, we have two models of secularism, one that developed in France
and the other in the USA, but neither took shape in the rest of Europe,
where it developed later and took a different form. Here a progressive
secularization of society and the permeation of secular humanism in
European social imaginary led to the weakening over time of confessional
states. Gradually, faiths that were previously tolerated became publicly
visible and civic disabilities of individuals belonging to minority religions
were slowly, in varying phases, removed. Eventually it led, in the latter
half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century,
to the availability first of civil rights and later political rights to all
individuals regardless of their religion. This does not mean that
institutional arrangements pertaining to the dominant religion were
disbanded. Just that as the power of the church declined and religion
became less salient in their lives, people simply stopped bothering about
those arrangements. Consider the mandatory presence of a fixed number
of Anglican bishops in the House of Lords. This form of secularism is
different from France because it allows some support for single religion

331
 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

but not any negative intervention. It is also different from America where
constitutionally speaking the state can neither support nor hinder religion.
By the standards of American and French models of political secularism
which have hitherto shaped our normative conceptions of it, the European
version is fairly moderate. Hence, Tariq Modood’s apt term for them:
moderate secularism (model 3). Formally speaking, the public or official
monopoly of dominant religions remained intact, even as their social
power has considerably declined.
These are not the only models of political secularism; however, other
conceptions have emerged outside the west that have transformed its
meaning. Two of these have developed in the subcontinent and at least one
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

of these is enshrined in the Indian constitution. Allow me to explicate them

and then evaluate European Secularism by the norms of two richer,
transcultural variants of secularism. Perhaps, the best way to begin
articulating them is to use the categories of self and the other. By the mid-
sixteenth century, all of Western Europe had fragmented into predominantly
single-religion societies. Religious homogenization came to Europe in the
wake of a persistent, deep, and pervasive anxiety about the other, about both
the other outside one’s religion and, potentially, the other within. The other
was viewed and felt as an existential threat. So doctrinal differences were not
mere intellectual disagreements but were cast in a way that undermined basic
trust in one another. The other could not be lived with but simply had to be
expelled or exterminated. One might say that this constitutes the hidden
background condition of Europe’s toleration and even its political secularism.
The background conditions in India were different, at least till the
advent of colonial modernity. For a start, different faiths, modes of
worship, philosophical outlooks, and ways of practicing existed. Deep
diversity was accepted as part of the natural landscape – all were at home.
Syrian Christians, Zoroastrian, Jews, Muslims (Arab traders on the
Malabar coast), Turks, and Afghans, who came initially as conquerors –
not to speak of a variety of South Asian faiths – were all at home. To feel
and be secure was a basic psychosocial condition on the Indian
subcontinent. They all exhibited basic collective self-confidence, possible
only when there is trust between communities. In short, the presence of
the other was never questioned.
It was not until the advent of colonial modernity and the formation of
Hindus and Muslims as national communities that this background
condition was unsettled. Doubts about coexistence forced themselves upon
the public arena and religious coexistence became a problematic issue to be
spoken about and publically articulated. An explicit invocation and defense
of the idea became necessary that all religions must be at peace with one
another, that there should be trust, a basic level of comfort among them and if
undermined, mutual confidence must be restored. This was put sometimes

332
 European secularism BHARGAVA

normatively and sometimes merely affirmed. The term used by Gandhi for
this was ‘communal harmony’. Soon after independence, this idea found
political articulation in public discourse as secularism, strictly speaking,
political secularism. The state must show sarvadharma sambhāv (be equally
well disposed to all paths, god, or gods, all religions, even all philosophical
conceptions of the ultimate good). The task of the state as an entity separate
from all religions was to ensure trust between religious communities, to
restore basic confidence if and when it was undermined. This happens under
conditions when there is a threat of interreligious domination and when a
majority religion threatens to marginalize minority religions. So here
secularism is pitted against communalism – a sensibility or ideology where a
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

community’s identity, its core beliefs, practices and interests and constitu-
tively opposed to the identity and interests of another community.
Secularism came to be used for a certain comportment of the state,
whereby it must distance itself from all religious and philosophical
conceptions in order to perform its primary function, i.e., to promote a
certain quality of sociability, to foster a certain quality of relations among
religious communities, perhaps even interreligious equality under condi-
tions of deep religious diversity (Model 4).
A second conception developed too, even more ambitious, that tried to
combine its major aim of fostering better quality of social relations with an
emancipatory agenda, to not only respect all religions and philosophies but
also to protect individuals from the oppressive features of their own
religions or religious communities – or to put it differently, to confront
and fight both interreligious and intrareligious domination, simulta-
neously. This is the constitutional secularism of India.
Several features of this model are worth mentioning. First, multiple
religions are not optional extras added on as an afterthought but were
present at Indian secularism’s starting point as part of its foundation.
Indian secularism is inextricably tied to deep religious diversity. Second,
this form of secularism has a commitment to multiple values, namely
liberty, equality, and fraternity – not conceived narrowly as pertaining to
individuals but interpreted broadly to cover the relative autonomy of
religious communities and their equality of status in society – as well as
other more basic values such as peace, toleration, and mutual respect
between communities. It has a place not only for the right of individuals to
profess their religious beliefs, but also for the right of religious
communities to establish and maintain educational institutions crucial for
the survival and sustenance of their distinctive religious traditions.
The acceptance of community-specific rights brings me to the third
feature of Indian secularism. Because it was born in a deeply multireligious
society, it is concerned as much with interreligious domination as it is with
intrareligious domination. Whereas the two Western conceptions of

333
 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

secularism have provided benefits largely to individuals only, under the

Indian conception even community-specific political rights (through
political reservations for religious minorities) were almost granted during
the drafting of the constitution but were withheld in the last instance only
for contextual reasons. In fact, it is arguable that a conceptual space is still
available for these rights within the Indian constitution.
Fourth, Indian secularism does not erect a wall of separation between
religion and state. There are boundaries of course, but they are porous. This
situation allows the state to intervene in religions in order to help or hinder
them without the impulse to control or destroy them. This intervention can
include granting aid to educational institutions of religious communities on a
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

non-preferential basis and interfering in socioreligious institutions that deny

equal dignity and status to members of their own religion or to those of others
– for example, the ban on untouchability and the obligation to allow everyone,
irrespective of their caste, to enter Hindu temples, as well as, potentially, other
actions to correct gender inequalities. In short, Indian secularism interprets
separation to mean not strict exclusion or strict neutrality but what I call
principled distance, which is poles apart from one-sided exclusion, mutual
exclusion, strict neutrality, and equidistance. Religious groups have sought
exemptions when states have intervened in religious practices by promulgat-
ing laws designed to apply neutrally across society. Principled distance allows
a practice that is banned or regulated in the majority culture to be permitted in
the minority culture because of the distinctive status and meaning it has for
the minority culture members. Religious groups may demand that the state
refrains from interference in their practices, but they may equally demand
that the state interfere in such a way as to give them special assistance, so that
they are able to secure what other groups are routinely able to acquire by
virtue of their social dominance in the political community.
For the promotion of a particular value constitutive of secularism, some
religion, relative to other religions, may require more interference from
the state. For example, suppose that the value to be advanced is social
equality. This requires in part undermining caste and gender hierarchies.
Thus there is a constitutional ban on untouchability, and Hindu temples
were thrown open to all, particularly to former untouchables should they
choose to enter them. Child marriage was banned among Hindus and a
right to divorce was introduced.
A somewhat forced, formulaic articulation of Indian secularism goes
something like this. The state must keep a principled distance from all
public or private and individual-oriented or community-oriented religious
institutions for the sake of the equally significant – and sometimes
conflicting – values of peace, worldly goods, dignity, liberty, equality, and
fraternity in all of its complicated individualistic and non-individualistic
versions (Model 5).

334
 European secularism BHARGAVA

Despite all changes, European states have continued to privilege

Christianity in one form or another. The liberal democratization and the
consequent secularization of many European states have helped citizens
with non-Christian faiths to acquire most formal rights. But such a scheme
of rights neither embodies a regime of interreligious equality nor
effectively prevents religion-based discrimination and exclusion. Indeed,
it masks majoritarian, ethnoreligious biases. These biases are evident in
different kinds of difficulties faced by Muslims. For example, they are
manifest in the failure of many western European states to deal with the
issue of headscarves (most notably France), in unheeded demands by
Muslims to build mosques and therefore to properly practise their own
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

faith (Germany and Italy), in discrimination against ritual slaughter

(Germany), and in unheeded demands by Muslims for proper burial
grounds of their own (Denmark, among others).
So far, I have spoken of the failure of European states to counter
interreligious domination and accommodate some practices of Muslims.
However there are also practices among Muslims that may need to be
reformed which may not be possible without state-backing. There may be
practices including the wearing of niqab to which Muslim women might
object and seek state intervention. Now in such cases some European
states may only be too happy to intervene. But my point is that such
intervention would entail a massive shift in their conception of secularism –
from first separate from and then only support religion to first separate and
then sometimes support, sometimes inhibit religion - in short, to what I call
principled distance then – sometimes support, sometimes inhibit religion,
what I call principled distance. In short, they may have to set aside their rather
moderate stance of accommodating religion (that in practice is not always
extended to Muslim practices) and sometimes even be hostile to religion.
Currently, the practice of most European states is to offer little official
support, to provide no accommodation, and with few exceptions, to stay
indifferent to massive societal intolerance. What might be required is more
support of some religions, less support of others, and active interference in
societal intolerance – that is, an attempt by the state to tackle both inter- and
intrareligious domination.
Not appreciating deep religious and cultural diversity is one of the
central failures of modern Europe. To respond to the challenge of deep
diversity, Europe might be better off with an altogether different
conception of secularism. As of now, European Secularism, at least
when judged by standards of richer conceptions (Models 4 and 5), is not
secular enough.

335
 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES

Rajeev Bhargava is Professor, CSDS and was formerly Professor of Political

Theory, JNU, New Delhi. His books include Individualism in Social Science
(Clarendon Press, 1992), The Promise of India’s secular democracy (OUP,
2010), What is Political Theory and Why do we need it (OUP, 2010), and
Secularism and its Critics (ed. OUP, 1998).

Address for correspondence: Rajeev Bhargava, Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies, 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India.
Email: rbhargav4@gmail.com
Downloaded by [York University Libraries] at 16:50 29 December 2014

336