28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Bill, 1986 and the decision to formally open the Babari Mosque to Hindu devotees in February 1986 were two decisions that not only marked a turning point in the history of Hindu-Muslim relations, but also accelerated the pace of communal polarisation in post-independence India.
II
Secularism in India has often meant two things. The Indian state purports either to be indifferent and neutral to religion or professes equal respect for all religions. Second, appeal to religion and community as a tool of mobilisation should be eschewed. The founding fathers of the Indian constitution and the early Congress leadership were quite aware that it was necessary to avoid an overt politicisation of community identities. But this could not always be achieved, because the Indian understanding of secularism failed to provide a satisfactory relationship between state and religion.1 This resulted in a passive line of least resistance which runs into obvious difficulties. The problem has been further compounded by the fact that the secularisation process has lagged behind the well developed electoral process. This has obviously led to a situation where political parties use narrow caste and communal categories for political mobilisation and shift attention away from developmental to non-developmental issues.
But even the passive varieties of secularism are valuable and functional. They serve to influence and shift the parameters of the debate in a consensual direction based on a complementarity and coexistence of pluralities. Then, why was passive secularism put on the back-burner in the 1980s?
To understand the retreat of secularism we must begin by looking at the nature and character of inter-communal relations in the 1980s. Communal riots were not entirely absent in the Nehru era. But there can be no doubt that there has been a tremendous spurt in communal violence which has, since the late 1960s, so relentlessly bloodied the Indian landscape. Communal forces, kept under check by Nehru's leadership surged forward causing serious damage to India's secular fabric. The last phase of the Indira Gandhi era witnessed a marked polarization of Indian society on communal and sectarian lines. Nearly 4000 people were killed in communal violence.2 This is almost four times the figure of the 1970s which had seen a relative lull after the gruesome 1969 Ahmedabad riots. The number of districts affected increased from 61 in 1960 to 250 in 1986-87. In UP alone, between February 1986 and early 1988, nearly sixty major and minor riots had taken place, killing over 200 people, leaving more than 1000 injured and causing damage to property to the tune of 1.5 crores.3 Another notable feature was that, while in the past these incidents occurred in mainly urban areas, more recently they have also spread to rural areas. Equally significant has been the growth of communal organisations.