Secularism's threat to tradition: A reading of Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism

ABSTRACT

This article offers a reading of Jakob De Roover's important book, Europe, India and the Limits of Secularism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016). It invokes the way in which the English courts have re-described Sikh tradition as religion in order to illustrate the relevance of Jakob De Roover's hypothesis about secularism, explaining its dependence on Christian theology and its inbuilt normative dynamic, which reframes tradition and poses a lethal threat to it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Prakash Shah http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2149-0040

Notes

1 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh) v Governing Body of Aberdare Girls’ High School [2008] EWHC 1865 (Admin), available online at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2008/1865.html.

2 The references to ‘race’ need some further explanation. As noted, Sarika claimed both religion and race discrimination. In the Race Relations Act 1976 (and now the Equality Act 2010), ‘race’ extends to ethnic origins discrimination. That Sikhs are an ethnic group had already been decided in famous decision of the House of Lords, Mandla v. Dowell Lee [1983] 2AC 548, available online at https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1982/7.html.

3 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 4.

4 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 20.

5 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 25.

6 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 27.

7 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 26.

8 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 29.

9 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 59.

10 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 56.

11 R (on the application of Watkins-Singh), para. 66.

12 By contrast, the decision of the UN's Human Rights Committee in the case of Ranjit Singh v France, Communication No. 1876/2000, 22 July 2011, involved a finding of a breach of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the provision on religious freedom, for the prohibition placed upon the applicant from having an identity photograph taken while wearing a turban. Although the applicant had made submissions on discrimination also, having found a violation of the freedom of religion, the Committee decided not to make a specific finding on the discrimination point.

13 On how the Protestant polemic of Jews has a bearing on the production of the Hindu caste system, see De Roover (2017).

14 The process that Ballantyne describes with respect to Sikhism is thus part of a more general picture that De Roover elaborates. See Ballantyne (2006). More broadly on ‘anti-caste’ movements, see Fárek (2017).

15 I have also noted elsewhere that the theological loading of the concept cluster tied to religious freedom means that those from Semitic religions often appear to be able to make claims upon it that those from say Asian traditions do not. See Shah (2013).