INDIAN BRAND OF SECULARISM– AN ANTITHESIS

Christian Concept of Hell & Heaven

A basic Christian tenet is that humans are born in sin, as a consequence to the inheritance of sin from the “first parents”, Adam and Eve. Christians believe that Jesus, the messenger of God, was sinless despite being born in sin; they also believe that Jesus died to redeem all of humanity of its sin.

Yet, another dogma of Christianity is that humans have an afterlife after death. Their faith is that after death only faithful Christians get to enter heaven, the abode of the “righteous dead” and the place where God resides. Heathens (or, non-Christians) get consigned to hell.

There are eschatological variations though in Christianity, such as, second coming of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, rapture, tribulation, Last Judgment, millennialism, and so on. Regardless of denominational differences, there is a life and (eventually) an afterlife for all humans in the Christian faith.

Need for Secularism

In medieval Europe, the ruling class, comprising of kings, monarchs and emperors, had domain over the worldly, tangible lives of humans. On the spiritual, incorporeal front, the Church and its priestly order had jurisdiction. Pope, as vicar of Jesus, believed in being vested with supreme, divinely-ordained powers; so much so that, the Vatican often felt that the ruling class was subordinate and subservient to it.

This rivalry, between the ruling and priestly classes, for exercising supreme powers over the subjects lead to violent clashes. Martin Luther came up with the “Two Kingdom Theory”– one, the worldly, corporeal Kingdom of Life; and two, the spiritual, non-material Kingdom of Afterlife.

The “Two Kingdom” concept laid the seed for the concept of “Secularism”, which separates the Church from the State. It essentially meant, the ruling class could not interfere in matters of faith and conscience, over which the Church had jurisdiction and, hence, wielded exclusively powers over religious rituals and sacred sacraments. On its part, the Church could not interfere in the functioning of the ruling class over worldly matters, such as, law, order and justice.

Belief System in Hinduism

There is no equivalent of the Christian concept of “afterlife” in Sanātana Dharma, or Hinduism, which espouses instead samsāra, the eternal cycle of “birth and death”. The effort to attain moksha, that is, liberation from the cycle of “birth and death” is a central aspect of the Hindu faith. Hence, there is no concept in Hinduism of an “incorporeal kingdom”, where humans reside in upon divine judgment with eternal life or damnation in their afterlife. Neither is there a concept of “heaven”, where “God” resides.

In Hinduism, God, or Divinity personified resides amidst us in his abode, the Hindu temple. Divine, cosmic energy is invoked to consecrate the icon, or Deity within the temple. The icon is then believed to be a living entity and is not only worshipped, but also cared for and attended to ritually.

Hindu Ruler-Religion Separation

Thus, In the Hindu faith there is a single “worldly, corporeal domain” where humans exist along with Deities, or Divinity personified, residing in temples. Therefore, in the past, the ruling class exercised power and patronage over temples indirectly through the priestly class.

Then again, the Hindu “varṇa” system, i.e., social class system based on occupation, is inherently secular. For instance, "brahmaṇa" was a distinct class from "kshatriya". The former class included priests and preachers, while the latter were rulers and warriors.

Thus, de facto separation of religion and ruler-ship or governance in the past was accomplished. Faith expressed itself freely in a multitude of ways. Besides, the dominant faith of the Indian people never had a central seat of power to dictate dogmas that conflict with the sovereignty of the ruler.

The ruler too, on his part, supported all faiths and sampradāyas equally with little or no interference. Further, Sanātana Dharma looks at all beliefs as paths leading to one supreme truth. Hence, there was really no need for the ruler to either intervene in religious affairs or administer religious institutions.

Constitution and Secularism
The incorporation of the term "Secular" in the Constitution has transplanted, or rather, force-fitted an alien concept into a system, which had mutual exclusivity between and segregation of faith and governance. The purpose of its insertion in Article 25(2)(a) of the Constitution was “regulating or restricting...secular activity which may be associated with religious practice”. In other words, the objective was to facilitate, through regulation or restriction, the separation of faith and governance (which is Church and government in the Christian context).

Our founding fathers, with their tremendous collective wisdom, had great clarity in their thought and were gifted with lucidity of expression. They drafted Article 25(2)(a) precisely to empower government for regulating or restricting “economic, financial, political or other secular activity”. The intent was indeed to regulate or restrict: (a) 'economic, financial, political' activities; and, (b) any other secular activity, that is, 'activity that separates government from religion' associated with religious practice.

Under the garb of regulating and restricting various “activities associated with religious practice”, government has been managing and administering Hindu religious institutions. This is just the antithesis of what secularism espouses.

It is unethical...unlawful...and, UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

THE GORY PAST OF SECULARISM IN EUROPE

Historical Origin of the Concept

The concept of "Secularism" is perceived to be a lofty ideal in most democratic nations. However, the evolution of the term has a long history of violence and bloodshed, particularly in Europe where it was conceived. 

The etymological origin of the "Secular" or "Secularism" can be traced to the birth of Christianity. After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, Christianity was spread through his disciples. Despite persecution during the early days, Christianity survived in pockets across Europe. Eventually in the 3^rd Century AD, Emperor Constantine I adopted it as the religion of the Roman Empire.

Main Tenet of Christianity

A fundamental dogma of Christianity is that humans are born in sin, which dates back to the days of mythical Adam and Eve, the couple guilty of committing the “original sin”. The merciful God Almighty sent his only son, Jesus Christ to earth to save humanity. So Lord Jesus redeemed humans by dying for their sins on the cross; he then rose from the dead and joined his Father up in heaven. However, Christianity professes that only baptized Christians can benefit from Jesus’ sacrifice; and, non-Christians will be consigned to eternal hell on Judgment Day.

While Christianity recognizes an afterlife in heaven, the abode and Kingdom of God, it does not believe in rebirth. That Christian tenet inherently implies the existence of two worlds - a physical, temporal world and an incorporeal, spiritual world. This belief was accepted during the Middle Age prior to the Italian Renaissance in the 14^th Century, since the Church and state were intertwined. Heresy was punished under harsh laws of brutal and barbaric torture and death.

The Middle Age

For centuries, many monarchs believed they had a divinely ordained right to rule their kingdoms. At times, they even exercised control over the churches within the boundaries of their respective kingdoms. On the flip side was the Catholic doctrine that the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, should have the ultimate authority over the Church, and indirectly over kings and their kingdoms. Besides, throughout the Middle Age, the Pope claimed and exercised the right to depose Catholic kings of Western Europe, sometimes successfully, other times not.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, many popes challenged the authority of European monarchies to name or invest bishops of cities and abbots of monasteries. The conflict ended when Emperor Henry V and Pope Calixtus II signed the Concordat of Worms in 1122, which demarcated royal and spiritual powers. The outcome, vesting monarchs with limited authority in ecclesiastical matters, was a victory for Roman pontiff and his claim that he was God's chief representative in the world.

Later, in early 14^th century, Pope Boniface VIII attempted to bring both temporal and spiritual powers under the pope’s jurisdiction. In his Bull of 1302, Unam Sanctum, he stated that since the Church is necessary for salvation, it is absolutely necessary for even rulers to subject themselves to the papacy.

Many European rulers resented the autocratic papal attempt to infringe on “temporal” affairs of the state. So they denounced the move and declared Boniface VIII a heretic. The Pope retaliated by excommunicating the King of France. This infuriated king joined hands with other European rulers and the coalition army launched an attack on Boniface VIII and demanded his resignation. Despite release from captivity after three days, Boniface VIII reportedly committed suicide by bashing his skull against a wall. He was found to have "gnawed through his own arm".

The Protestant Reformation

In the early 16^th Century, some priests like Martin Luther challenged the authority of the Pope. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses was the fountainhead of the Protestant Reformation. He was an exponent of the Two-Kingdoms Doctrine― to be precise though, he termed it Two-Governments. This doctrine enunciated that the church should not exercise worldly government, and princes should not rule the church or have anything to do with the salvation of souls. Thus, the modern conception of separation of church and state was born.

The attempt of Luther and other priests was to rid the Roman Catholic Church of certain false doctrines, systemic corruption and ecclesiastic malpractices. Protests against papal corruption began in Germany and soon spread to other parts of Europe, eventually culminating in a series of religious wars in Continental Europe between Roman Catholic House of Habsburg and Protestant princes. The Thirty Years’ War ended when the Peace of Westphalia treaties were signed.  

The main tenets of the peace treaties were that: (a) each prince would have the right to determine the religious denomination of his own state, the options being Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism; and, (b) Christians, living in principalities where their ecclesiastical denomination was not the established, were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at will.

The treaties effectively ended the papacy’s pan-European political power. European sovereigns, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored Pope Innocent X’s protests and diktat against the Peace of Westphalia. Thus, the first step towards segregation of religion and state was taken in the continent.  

The English Reformation began in the late 1520s, when Pope Clement VII’s refused to annul the marriage between King Henry VIII of England and Catherine of Aragon. Infuriated by the Catholic Church’s decision, the King declared himself as the ruler of the new Church of England. The monarchs of England and Great Britain have retained ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England since.

After King Henry VIII usurped ecclesiastical power, strict penal laws were enacted in England against Catholics and other dissenters who did not owe allegiance to the Church of England. To escape the persecution, many dissenters sailed voluntarily to the American Colonies in the hope of religious freedom. Later the Constitution of United States was specifically amended to make it secular by banning the establishment of religion by Congress.

The Age of Enlightenment

The idea that reason, and not blind belief in a ‘revealed truth’, should guide society, began to take root in the 17^th Century. The concept of secularism is often credited to the writings of English philosopher John Locke, who argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control.

Enlightenment writers, including Voltaire, often stressed anti-clericalism and attacked the Catholic Church. The idea gained support from the anti-church violence during the French Revolution. This led to the process of separation of Church from state. Such separation is called secularism. The George Jacob Holyoake was the first to coin the term “secularism” in 1851.

Concluding Remarks

As can be seen, a lot of violence and bloodshed has preceded the birth of the concept of "Secularism" in Europe. The 'invention' of the tenet was necessary because of conflicting claims in Europe over the right to rule the subjects of the state. 

Today, most western democracies are ‘secular’, that is, the Church cannot push its agenda through state power. The long and short of it is that secularism implies the exclusion of religion in the running of government. 

Yet ironically, many western democracies still grant Christianity preferential treatment. For example, the German Constitution guarantees that the Christian philosophy is taught in government schools.

DATA SOVEREIGNTY RIGHTS: The Cardinal Need for Legislative Action

This is my Op-Ed piece published in the "February 2, 2020" issue of ORGANISER 

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A report prepared by the cyber-security company, Innefu Labs, reveals that around 1,079 Twitter accounts were created in Pakistan to spread hate and propagate violence in India over the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019. The report showed that Pakistan is the hotspot for disseminating fake content and anti-national sentiment aimed at creating internal conflict, disrupting social harmony and destabilizing government.

So, questions that beg answers:

1. Can inherent fault-lines and vulnerabilities in our socio-political edifice be permitted to be easily leveraged for hijacking the narrative; and, waging a proxy war against India using social media?
2. Should bots, handles, hashtags and influencers overseas be recklessly allowed to derail the destiny of our nation founded after centuries of trials and tribulations?

No. Never!

This sets the context for examining the need for “data sovereignty” laws in India.

Enduring Concept of Sovereignty

“Sovereignty” refers to the exercise by any State of its supreme power and authority over a distinct polity and territory. The legal tenets governing sovereignty owe their origin to the Peace of Westphalia treaties signed in the 17^th Century and are applied when a new political order emerges in some part of the world and an independent State is established. Thus, notion of “sovereignty” of the State extends over people and property; agents and authorities within its territories.

The supreme authority that imbues “sovereignty” is always derived from a widely acknowledged source of legitimacy― be it Divinity; conquest; hereditary succession; customary laws; act of the comity of nations; or, a drafted Constitution. Regardless, sovereignty is asserted as a legitimate claim to authority and the ideal exercise of power for affording opportunity to all people to achieve optimal good within the collective.

Sovereignty and the Republic of India

In post-colonial India, sovereignty is robustly manifested in our Constitution, which has a potent framework for resisting hegemonic forms of colonialism and imperialism. Our visionary founding fathers were wary of diversity and divisiveness destroying the fabric of the nation. Hence, they strove to subtly coalesce a pluralistic society and unite its disparate populace without erasing the syncretic character therein.

Our nuanced Constitution vests sovereignty in the people, who have transferred some of their powers to the Republic created with the fervent hope and firm desire that a strong State would better protect their individual rights and safeguard national interests. Therefore, any legislative initiative, policy measure or regulatory formula has to be viewed from the prism of balancing societal needs with personal goals of citizenry.

Against the backdrop of national imperatives being accorded paramountcy over individual aspirations within our constitutional schema, the concept of “sovereignty” is witnessing renewed relevance in today's information age.

What is data sovereignty?

There is no singular articulation of the emerging concept of “data sovereignty”, which refers to not only the right of natural persons and juristic entities to manage the creation, storage, ownership and application of their own data; but, also the power of sovereign nations to govern and regulate the residency, collection and transmission of such data.

The term broadly denotes forms of independence, control and autonomy over data creation, content sharing, information usage and electronic transactions in a connected, border-less world and with ubiquitous computing environments. Most crucially, it is about the jurisdiction where data resides; the legal, regulatory, and tax rules to be adhered therein for compliance purposes; and, the challenges thereof.

The Internet revolution has afforded “anytime-anywhere-anyhow” data access and information availability over secure networks and heterogeneous computing resources. It has enabled the real-time access, sharing and processing of data even across borders and over mobile platforms. Data-driven insights can be generated 'on-the-cloud' with greater flexibility and scalability than with 'exclusively on-premises' computing environments.

Thus, several business needs, computing trends and emerging technologies have brought the concept of 'data sovereignty' into sharp focus.

Data Sovereignty in contra-distinction to Data Colonialisation

In on-premises computing, data hosting in centralised repositories is the norm; so, data gravity ensures residency (of data). It suffices to protect the perimeter in situ— through the imposition of physical and virtual access controls, restrictions and privileges to maintain secrecy, privacy and confidentiality of data and information.

Per contra in cloud-based, network computing, data is stored in different places and accessed globally; it navigates seamlessly across national borders and geo-political boundaries and created border-less workflows.

Territorial sovereignty plays a dominant role in the conceptualization of data sovereignty. The underlying assumption is that data, like tangible assets and intangible properties, has a local or national 'home'. Hence, data sovereignty has evolved to mean the laws and governance structures that apply to data collected and stored within; or, owned and transferred by a country's citizens, regardless of where the data resides, either within national borders or on servers elsewhere around the world.

Overseas Data Sovereignty Regulations

Several countries and regions have data regulatory mechanisms in place― examples include USA's Patriot Act; EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); China's Cyber-security Law; Brazil's General Data Privacy Law; Japan's Personal Information Protection Act; Chile's Law for the Protection of Private Life; and, so on.

Data sovereignty laws are often difficult to interpret. For instance, Chinese laws require localization of 'important data', which is defined nebulously and often interpreted loosely. Other countries, such as Germany, France and Russia, too have 'safe harbour' provisions that mandatorily require data to be housed in servers within their borders.

Many nations, including the USA, have expanded the scope of evidence discovery methods― writ summons; subpoena processes; surveillance procedures; etc. Despite concerns over 'ex parte orders' and 'gag restrictions' prohibiting public announcement of official demand for disclosure of private data, these enactments are vital for intelligence acquisition, criminal investigations, anti-terror operations and counter-insurgency action.

Nevertheless, such provisions affect the legislative landscape of data sovereignty significantly. They introduce new legal complications, business challenges and compliance constraints for those wanting to share content across locations and borders.

Regulatory Regimes and Data Compliance Requirements

Privacy and data-hosting laws and stringency thereof vary by country. The need for adherence to ever-evolving compliance rules and real-world regulations on the way data is stored, shared and managed across geographically dispersed data centers is mandatory. Anyone infringing rules, wittingly or unwittingly, faces penal action in most jurisdictions.

Therefore, navigation through the “international legal maze” is daunting and time-consuming. Further, benefits are often tempered by the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) of complex and changing nature of data sovereignty. National data protection laws act as roadblocks to adoption of cloud computing and cross-border data storage.

Several challenges are posed to managing the potpourri of data sovereignty requirements for: (a) protecting data; (b) providing regulatory access; (c) certifying data residency; (d) securing and safeguarding data assets; (e) blocking malicious attacks; and, (f) complying with current and emerging data privacy needs.

Compliance frameworks must enable verification of how and where data is: (a) stored, located and protected; and, (b) used, shared, accessed, processed and consumed at any point. Law enforcement measures must encompass data creators, custodians and consumers for employing good governance to control data loss, erosion and corruption.

Data Protection Laws in India

No express, comprehensive legislation exists in India to deal with data privacy and protection. Further, policy mandates do not cover all stages in the data lifecycle— data at rest; in use and transit; during creation, transport and processing; and, on delivery. To prove compliance and meet evolving regulatory demands, ability to demonstrate control over data at all points in the content lifecycle is a sine qua non.

Legal concepts and normative constructs are entangled with the vision treating data as a resource. Notions of data ownership and its visualisation as property dominates public discourse. Data privacy and autonomy of citizens too find mention in policy documents. The government vision, as enshrined in policy drafts, imagines the State as the sentinel of data sovereignty within India.

Industry observers and watchdogs though allege that individual rights are not fleshed out effectively in law and are often envisaged as subservient to larger collective agendas like economic enrichment from data mining and user profiling. Further, activists are also apprehensive of laws that afford authorities with unfettered data access.

Thus, the myth of data sovereignty curtailing freedoms of people in India is perpetuated. On top, it is fallaciously believed that people must control the data they generate, if personal liberties, autonomy and empowerment are to be genuinely facilitated.

No doubt “red herrings” that must be assailed resoundingly.

Concluding Remarks

Hostile and inimical forces are eagerly conspiring to weaken and destabilize the Indian Republic through covert means. Risk exists of political exploitation of insights gained from data, specifically to manipulate the outcome of elections. The monolithic, perhaps archaic Information Technology Act, 2000 needs urgent revamping to deal with risks posed by social data, viral media and transnational content.

Therefore, India is well-advised to enact elaborate laws and adopting comprehensive procedures to regulate the digital world and ubiquitous data therein. Territorial integrity and national interests must serve as guiding beacons for legislation on the subject, pretty much like what the USA, Russia and China have done.

It behooves legal activists and judicial luminaries among us to remember that in the seesaw constituent-versus-community battle, personal privacy and individual liberties cannot transcend above or subordinate public good, societal needs and national interests.

Article 21 of the Constitution surely has a flip side. It casts a duty on the State― that of protecting and securing the rights to life and liberty conferred on all constituents.

That duty entails restricting mala fide acts and restraining malicious forces within and without!

Providing homeland security and preserving our nationhood...are indeed paramount!

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