ABSTRACT
Situating Edward Said’s Orientalism in the context of modern secular nation states, Gil Anidjar (2006), in his paper Secularism, presents a complex argument on how religion as a category was created by the secular state, which itself was Christian. The formation of the modern state was used by Christianity to mask itself as religious and thereby it produced the category of religion, which referred to religions other than Christianity. While religion becomes an Other to secularism, it became an ‘other’ to Christianity, almost simultaneously. There is little doubt that there exists a model of state and governance in contemporary India, which while continuing to be secular, pursues an active religious agenda. Religion here, functions within the paradigm of the nation-state, and in finding problems with ‘other religions,’ identifies itself to be secular. Hindutva ideology dovetails into the production and functioning of the state. Since the state is defined to be secular, Hindutva identifies other religions and defines them but doesn’t invest in outlining itself. These other religions are religions of minorities, namely Islam in India. In not conforming to the Hindutva ideology and practices, Islam isn’t rendered anti-Hindu but anti-state, and it’s implied that by being anti-state Islam is anti-Hindu. The ‘Hindu state’ creates Islam as the problematic religion, ‘the religion’ which threatens its secular practice as the state. A secular state masking as a Hindu state in evoking the rhetoric of anti-nationalism asks of Muslims in India—are they Indian? Asking the same question, I try and find answers within the discipline of theoretical psychoanalysis in India through the writing of Sudhir Kakar, the noted ‘Indian’ psychoanalyst.
