T h e discourse on the question of the individual's and the community's (or caste's) rights to religion in relation to Hinduism must also be viewed from the perspective of strengthening democ- racy in India. It is a known fact that religion is a civil societal system while democracy is a political one. Some recent political theoreti- cians, of course, divided the concept into 'civil democracy' and 'po- litical democracy' only to expand the scope of democracy to non-political spheres—particularly to the sphere of civil society. But the relationship between religion and democracy has always re- mained a dark area in theoretical discourses.
In the day-to-day life of the individual and the castes, religion and democracy both reinforce and operate antithetically to de-legitimize each other. For example, in a country such as ours even in the ab- sence of the right to religion for several caste communities in civil society, in the political sphere they were able to get the right to vote after we adopted constitutional democracy. But if civil society closes some important options to individuals the right to vote in the politi- cal sphere does not make those individuals fully mature democratic beings. Only when all options in civil society are open to all, does a personality that can make use of political rights evolve.
In Hindu civil society, the full range of options in choosing a di- rection in life—spiritual, secular or political—are closed to all except Brahmin youth. For all others, the right to choose a spiritual profes- sion is closed. For Dalit-Bahujans, the Hindu religion does not even
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give an initiation. In the universally known non-Hindu religious civil societies such as Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, all youth (at least male youth—the gender discrimination must be taken note of) are given religious initiation. They can choose to become a Jesuit, a Mullah or a Monk or they can choose a secular profession such as medicine or engineering. Or they can choose to become political leaders. But for all Dalit-Bahujan youth, the option to pursue the spiritual line of life is closed. Thus, a major section of the Indian youth in the present religious system of relationships cannot enter into a religious profession at all. Though this is basically a civil soci- etal right, its absence impinges upon the formation of the personal- ity of the individual and this has implications for democracy. Who is responsible for this situation? What solution does the RSS have for this problem? How does Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the first Indian Prime Minister from a Hindu religious ideological party, resolve this contradiction?
T h e seventy to eighty years' work of the RSS did not do anything to resolve this contradiction. The RSS did not address the basic ques- tion of untouchability, leave alone the right to religion. It worked very hard to politicize Hinduism but never to democratize it. After the BJP came to power, it has been sending a large number of RSS cadres to tribal areas to spread Hinduism. Do all those tribals who are taken into Hinduism get dwija-hood or equal rights within that religion? What is the mode of initiation they undergo to call them- selves Hindus? Can they call themselves Hindus by retaining their historical food culture, which includes beef as well? Within Hindu- ism in which caste will they be located? If the tribals embrace Chris- tianity or Islam these religions offer that scope because they make all food and linguistic cultures inclusive. Vegetarianism for the Shankaracharyas or for that matter for any Brahmin priest, for ex- ample, is not a question of a personal habit but a religious condition. In this mode of religious conditioning how does the tribal essence of life (food, drink and so on) fit in?
T h e attempts of the RSS to communalize the Dalit-Bahujans by constructing an image of Muslims and Christians as their enemy did not make this group Hindus with all the religious rights that other universal religions offer. Within the present understanding of reli- gion, the RSS is not going to make the Dalit-Bahujans Hindus through mere declarations. It has failed to construct Hinduism as a religion of love and brother-sisterhood. The RSS has not expanded
Rel igion and Democracy 111 the civil societal space to include Dalit-Bahujans and there is no in- dication that it will expand it for the tribals either. Expansion of such space is based on opening up the spiritual line of promotion to people who are said to be part of such a religious society. Neither Golwalker's writings nor those of Vivekananda show any way out for this contradiction in Hinduism. But this question remains central for its survival—leave alone expansion.
T h e right to choose a spiritual mode of life and to reach the top position in that line is part of the set of larger civil societal demo- cratic rights of every individual. This issue acquires a political demo- cratic significance when some individuals or communities are said (or claimed) to be part of that religion but denied that right. When the civil societal right to be equal with all its members are denied, the state and the judicial institutions have the right to intervene.
This is where the Indian state and judiciary have failed all these years. T h e Indian judiciary while examining questions relating to Hinduism must keep this inequality in mind. The judiciary must also remember that without a foundation of 'social democracy' at the base level, political democracy will remain fragile. This was the point that Ambedkar stressed, much before he embraced Buddhism. Sur- prisingly, Hindu priests, politicians and judges seem to think even now that religious inequality and political equality can exist side by side. Such inequalities do not and cannot co-exist. Any amount of suppression of Dalit-Bahujans while winking at the real problem, whether within the Sangh Parivar (as happened in the case of Kalyan Singh) or outside, is not going to stop the structural fragmentation of civil society. Christianity or Islam provide to those who want a civil societal democracy in day-to-day life an equalitarian identity differ- ent from anything Hinduism can think of in the near future. This is where the crisis of Hinduism lies, and this is going to haunt it in the twenty-first century.
In the western context, Christian religious relationships and civil and political democratic relationships have evolved as a historical social mishmash. Once the Church emerged as an institution, the serf and the feudal lord got equal rights to worship and to become mem- bers of one spiritual civil society. This, however, did not give them equal political rights. These were given as capitalism and democracy evolved hand-in-hand.
T h e Hindu religion, strangely, right from its inception negated that elemental spiritual democracy. In the Bhakti movement some
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Sudras fought for the right to worship Hindu deities. With great re- luctance, and in the face of a major threat from Islam, the right to worship was granted to only those Sudras. But this was not a great change. It was just one step from the Ramayana period when Shambhuka lost his life only for asking for the right to worship. Till today, Hindu organizations, including the RSS, have not altered the religious position of the Sudras. T h e situation of the Scheduled Castes is worse.
In the modern period two people tried to reform Hinduism from two different ends—Gandhi from above and Ambedkar from below. Gandhi failed to democratize it and the world was to be shocked by his murder by a Hindutva fanatic. Ambedkar attempted to reform it for a long time. Having realized that it was impossible, he embraced Buddhism just before his death. Nehru must have thought that the modernization of India would automatically reform Hinduism too. But his agenda too failed. Even today Hindu civil society stands in contradiction with the democratic essence of undistorted human so- ciety. What solution does the RSS put forward for this fundamental problem? If the RSS and the Brahmin clergy do not understand this historical contradiction, Indian democracy will collapse more irre- trievably than that of Pakistan. Do they want that to happen?