| Secondly,
the dominant concern of Hindus over the last 200 years has been with
achievements in the secular realm - education, trade, industry,
equality with the British before independence and with the West
since independence. The upsurge I have been speaking about, in fact,
relates wholly to the secular realm. This does not mean that our
spiritual-religious heritage has no place in this scheme. But it
does mean that Hindus have recognized once again, as they did in the
past, that the secular realm has to be secured if a culture and a
civilization has to flourish. Swami Vivekanand emphasized the
importance of secular achievements and so did Sir Aurobindo.
Society and culture, it need hardly
be said, are inter- linked. Social changes brought about by secular
forces are duly reflected in culture in course of time. That has
been happening in the case of Hinduism. It is not being Semitized
and it cannot be semitized as a result of a deliberate design on the
part of some individuals or groups. But from being a confederation
of ways life, it differently, the small society has had to give way
to larger ones as small economies and polities have had to give way
to larger ones. Only a secular and modern intelligentsia could have
presided over these changes. The task would have been beyond the
reach of traditional elites. That is the true significance of
secularism.It may be called the midwife of Hindu nationalism.
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