Hurt Sentiments

Among analyses of secularism in postcolonial nations, India has received much attention for its distinctive approach to the relationship between religion and the state. Eschewing any attempt at a complete separation between these two realms, the Indian Constitution elaborates a complex vision of secularism that both ensures individual religious freedoms while protecting the rights of minority groups like Muslims and Christians. This formulation was seen by the authors of the Indian Constitution as a necessary political strategy to bind diverse religious communities into one unified nation. However, in considering the Indian context alone, many contemporary analyses fail to acknowledge that “Indian secularism” does not exist in a vacuum, but has instead consistently been informed by the statecraft of its neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh. Given their geographical and cultural proximity, as well as their shared experience of partition, these three countries serve as natural reference points for one another, especially when it comes to questions of secularism and national identity. It is this much needed comparative approach that Neeti Nair adopts in Hurt Sentiments: Secularism and Belonging in South Asia.  

Nair outlines how early debates about secularism in India, Pakistan, and later Bangladesh were initially geared towards safeguarding the rights of minority groups in each country. Following the relocation of minority populations during partition, national leaders were deeply concerned with ensuring that these groups would not only be safe in their new homes, but also fairly represented in political processes. However, as Nair notes, these promises went largely unfulfilled as those in power continued to ally themselves with majoritarian interests. This “recurring emphasis at seeking the goodwill of the majority community” (6), be it Hindus in India or Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, came at the expense of a secularism oriented towards protecting minority interests.

It is here that the title of Nair’s book becomes pertinent. As she describes in the introduction, “hurt sentiments” is a legal phrase used to denote the harm caused by deliberate offense by another’s words, gestures, or expressions, often invoked during disputes between members of different religious communities (4). Originating in the colonial era, this phrase has been a part of penal codes across most of the Indian subcontinent since 1837, justifying censorship, bans, and even imprisonment. In her book, Nair contextualizes the claim of “hurt sentiments” against the backdrop of debates about secularism in South Asia to interrogate whose sentiments are vindicated by the state and whose are merely “appeased” without any accompanying legal or structural change.

Citing numerous examples, including the trial of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse (47), right-wing Hindu protests against a secular festival in the Indian city of Ayodhya (128), and the criminalization of Ahmadis in Pakistan (234), Nair successfully demonstrates how the “sentiments” of the majority have consistently dictated the scope of secularism in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh while the sentiments of the minority [and their allies] have been deemed “anti-national” and/or “anti-religion” (15). For Nair, attending to these claims of majoritarian hurt are integral to decoding landmark parliamentary debates about secularism in all three countries. Indeed, her ability to consistently provide this broader context alongside her careful analyses of parliamentary and constituent assembly debates is the most invigorating aspect of her book.

A standout example of this appears in the first chapter on the Gandhi murder trial, which Nair argues was responsible for the lack of minority safeguards in the Indian Constitution (6). In order to support this argument, Nair pairs Godse’s defense statement, in which he accuses Gandhi of “appeasing” Muslims (47), alongside minutes from the Indian constituent assembly detailing debates about whether separate electorates for minorities were a secular imperative. Godse’s claim in court that Muslim appeasement by Gandhi and the Congress had driven a wedge between Hindus and Muslims had a strong effect on the assembly’s proceedings, as they ultimately adopted the same claim to deny minorities separate electorates. Separate electorates, according to leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, would continue to distance minority groups from an already resentful majority and would prevent their complete integration into the national fabric (65). With this example and others, Nair demonstrates the influence of majoritarianism on the supposedly secular politics of the State.

In the second half of her book, Nair also attends to the ways in which ongoing discourses about secularism shape discourses about religion, emphasizing that the two are co-constitutive terms. This is especially clear in Nair’s examination of charged debates among West and East Pakistani (now Bangladeshi) leaders on what it meant to live in an “Islamic State” like Pakistan. As an example, in the third chapter of the book, Nair provides a compelling analysis of how linguistic differences between West and East Pakistanis constituted an “Islamic” issue. While West Pakistani leaders named Urdu and English as national languages of Pakistan, they objected to the inclusion of Bangla on the basis that it was “not Islamic enough” (160). To the millions of Bangla speakers in East Pakistan, this was a brazen rejection of both their religious and cultural identity, prompting them to question the credibility of West Pakistani leaders in adjudicating matters of “proper” religion. It is here that Nair’s claim of the referential nature of national identity and secularism takes full shape: after gaining independence in 1971, Bangladesh would publicly espouse secularism to oppose this kind of “misuse” of Islam for political power and India would reaffirm its own commitment to secularism against the “brutality” (221) of Pakistan’s Islamic approach to statecraft.

Nair’s book is an especially important read this year as India inaugurates a new Ram temple in Ayodhya, thirteen years after the destruction of the Babri masjid. What kinds of conversations about secularism and nationalism will this event catalyze, not only in India, but also in Pakistan and Bangladesh? What will this year mean for minority groups—Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan—whose voices have been steadily drowned out by majoritarian fervor? Nair’s careful and comparative approach prompts us to be discerning about the narratives we encounter and to pay close attention to whose sentiments are being protected and whose silenced.

Prathiksha Srinivasa is a PhD candidate in religion at Emory University.

Prathiksha Srinivasa

Date Of Review:

February 26, 2024