26 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
apart from the exploited classes a powerful section of the exploiting classes has also adopted the ideology of religion to legitimise exploitation in society. Within the ruling classes secularists and communalists are contending and contesting to push the Indian state towards an ideology legitimised by religion. The divided segments of the ruling classes are ideologically dividing the Indian masses either for secularism or for communalism. Concretely, the Akali Dal represents the rich peasantry of Punjab and as a segment of the exploiting classes it openly proclaims unity between religion and politics. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its front organisation, i.e. the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has taken recourse to religion in politics by involving its petit bourgeois and social base in struggle against secularism. All other bourgeois democratic parties in competition against full-fledged communal parties make compromises with secularism and manipulate communal feelings in politics. The greatest challenge to the secular ideology of the post-independence state emerged in Punjab during the 1980s. The Indian state failed to deal with this challenge because it adopted a strategy of manipulating and compromising with communalism by surrendering its secular ideology. The state apparatus per se has failed to contain the religio-fascism of the terrorists in Punjab. Punjab has clearly revealed the limits of state intervention because an ideological offensive was not launched by the secular state of India. The moral of Punjab is that the ideological legitimation process of the Indian state is weak and fractured and society and state in India are dealing with multiple and competing ideologies. A large section of Indians are conditioned by a world view of a religion based on the historical past and the capitalist modernising state will have to undertake a long journey to establish a secular modem society. India is one of the classical cases where social dialectics is at work and the interpenetrating of opposites is clearly observable. The material and ideological foundations of a secular state are emerging in contest with the material and ideological base of communalism. The base-superstructure relationship in India is characterised by pre-capitalist and emerging capitalist social formations and during this stage of transition the superstructure reveals contradictory and competing ideological tendencies. The past is not dead and the present has yet to establish its dominance. In this historical context, the ideological and legitimation foundations of the Indian state reflects contradictory tendencies and multiple struggles. The end result of such struggles would depend on active interventions by the forces committed to progress and justice.