CHENNAI:In a charged session, Madhu Kishwar, Senior Fellow at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said, that she didn’t see institutions — secular or religious — playing any role in instilling a secular mindset among students. “A great chunk of young men who join terrorist organisations like ISIS are educated in elite and secular institutes. But the call for religious fanaticism is making them leave their lucrative jobs and secular values,” she said.
Stoking the debate in a liberal sense, Dinesh Singh, former Vice Chancellor of University of Delhi, said “The most important thing about religion is to come to believe in something and find your true calling and any religious insttution that doesn’t allow it can never create secular minds.”
Moderating the session, Kancha Ilaiah, Director for Center for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, said he did not see Indian democracy safe in an age where secular values propagated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru were being given a negative name - pseudo-secularism - by groups that only believe in one religion. “Nehru was an an atheist and somebody who did not believe in any religion. It is this detachment that helped him strategically instill secularism in schools, offices, assemblies and the parliament. But today with Nehru himself being branded a liberal and his values called pseudo-secular, I see the rise of a mindset that will be detrimental for Indian democracy,” he said.
G Joseph Antonysamy, Principal of Loyola College, Chennai, said any religious institution that understood and respected inclusiveness, pluralism and diversity was the place where secular minds could be created. “That’s because the basic idea of Indian society is pluralistic. When I say I love my mother and respect her, I don’t say I hate your mother. Now, just replace mother with religion,” he explained his stance.