The Hindu Business Line : Politics in India is the binding secular religion

Jinnah was secular, it's a fact, says Jaswant. If Jinnah were secular, why call us pseudo-secular, asks the Left. A `secular bear' will still have time for nice bull runs, says an investors' Web site, even as Sharad Pawar calls for consolidation of secular forces. Before coming to a conclusion on who is or was secular, we should first know what secular is.

The word means "not religious, sacred, or spiritual," if you religiously look into Concise Oxford English Dictionary. "Adjective, concerning those not members of the clergy," explains www.onelook.com as a `quick definition' and provides an example: "The choir sings both sacred and secular music." New foes arise, threatening to bind our souls with secular chains, said Milton, referring to worldly bonds on what are essentially free. "To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction," is a quote of Joseph Addison that may be as tough as the word. "Information on secular or humanist funerals and memorials is sometimes hard to find on the Internet, even more so than for secular weddings," rues www.atheism.org, and provides a few appropriate quotes such as those of Robert G. Ingersoll for sombre occasions.

Secular power is that which superintends and governs the temporal affairs of men, the civil or political power, while the opposite is spiritual or ecclesiastical power, states Webster's 1828 Dictionary. However, Abraham Joshua Heschel may blur the difference between the two when saying that the road to the sacred leads through the secular. Likewise, the Archbishop of Canterbury does not hesitate to think of Thomas Cook as a secular saint, because he took travel "from the privileged and gave it to the common people."

A quote of Theodore H. White — that politics in the US is "the binding secular religion" - brings the opposites together. `Will the `Secular Priests' of Bioethics Work Among the Sinners?' is the title of an article at www.bioethics.net. "Of, or relating to, the worldly or temporal," says Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. "Occurring once in an age or a century, existing or continuing through ages or centuries, of or relating to a long-term of indefinite duration," is also how secular is defined at www.m-w.com. This meaning can be traced to the origin of the word, as Encarta puts it thus: "14th century. Formed from Old French seculer, from Latin saecularis, from saeculum `world, generation, age."

Online Etymology Dictionary elaborates on the roots: "c.1290, living in the world, not belonging to a religious order," also "belonging to the state," from O.Fr. seculer, from L.L. sæcularis "worldly, secular," from L. sæcularis `of an age, occurring once in an age,' from sæculum "age, span of time, generation."

Interestingly, the dictionary postulates that secular is "probably originally cognate with words for `seed,' from PIE base se(i)- `to sow'." You would also learn that "Ancient Roman ludi sæculares was a three-day, day-and-night celebration coming once in an `age' (120 years)."

A saeculum isn't normally used for a fixed amount of time, states www.explore-dictionary.com, in its Dictionary of Weights and Measures. "In common usage it stands for about 90 years. It can be divided into four `seasons' of approximately 22 years each; these seasons represent youth, rising adulthood, midlife, and old age." As a unit, one saeculum is roughly equal to the length of one's lifetime.

"The term was first used by the Etruscans. Originally, it meant the period of time from the moment that something happened (for example the founding of a city) until the point in time that all people who had lived at the first moment had died," traces the dictionary. After one saeculum is over, another would start, and the unit was helpful for historians to timeline events and wars. Probably with better longevity, the Romans decided during the reign of emperor Caesar Augustus that a saeculum be 110 years. "In 17 BC Caesar Augustus organised Ludi saeculares (`century-games') for the first time to celebrate the `fifth saeculum of Rome'." By the second century B.C., Roman historians were using the saeculum to periodise their chronicles and track wars. `Secular' may well periodise a party that finds itself bereft of a president.

Secularism is the rejection of religion or its exclusion from a philosophical or moral system, notes http://encarta.msn.com. It is the "doctrine that morality should be based on the well-being of man in the present life, without regard to religious belief or a hereafter first recorded 1846," informs www.etymonline.com. "In France and some other French-speaking countries, Laïcité is a prevailing conception of separation of church and state and the absence of religious interference into government affairs (and conversely)," says www.absoluteastronomy. com about a concept related to secularism.

The word was originally the French equivalent of laity, but after the French Revolution, "it came to mean keeping religion separate from executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government." Law 2004-228 that came into force in France from September 2004 bans school students from wearing signs or attire through which they exhibit conspicuously a religious affiliation. There is a rankling, however, that the ban is directed at Muslim girl students wearing veils. "According to statistics from the French government, out of 12 million students, only 240 young women attempted to come to school with a veil; 170 agreed to take it off, and 70 conciliation procedures were started... At the end of the first semester, 48 students have been expelled under the new law," are data you can cull out from www.nationmaster.com. "The public school has become the established church of secular society," said Ivan Illich to extol the virtues of secular schools, but Saint Thomas Aquinas can frighten us of secular penalties, when saying, "If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy."

In numerical descriptions, such as of a time series of numbers, a secular trend is the long-term trend in the numbers, as opposed to a smaller cyclical variation in the time series, with a periodic short-term duration, explains Wikipedia. "For example, in the business operating cycle, revenue might fluctuate during the fiscal year; an experienced management can then ignore the cyclical fluctuation in revenue, and concentrate on the `year over year' trend, hopefully a secular trend upward."

Secular describes a long-term time frame, usually at least 10 years, according to www.investopedia.com. Financial Glossary at www.bloomberg.com defines the word as "long-term time frame (10-50 years or more)." You may be shaken to know that secular features in a glossary of earthquake terms posted at http://earthquake.usgs.gov and the entry reads:

"Secular refers to long-term changes that take place slowly and imperceptibly. Commonly used to describe changes in elevation, tilt, and stress or strain rates that are related to long-term tectonic deformation. For example, a mountain that is growing is getting taller so slowly that we cannot see it happen, but if we were to measure the elevation one year and then the next, we could see that it has grown taller." Settling of the current `secular' dust storm may not, however, be such a secularly long affair.

Secular, in astronomy, is what is gradual, taking aeons to accomplish, as per http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu. `Secular acceleration' is "apparent acceleration of the Moon and Sun across the sky, caused by extremely gradual reduction in speed of the Earth's rotation (one 50-millionth of a second per day)." And `secular stability' is "the condition in which the equilibrium configuration of a system is stable over long periods of time." It is doubtful if the ongoing `secular' debate can threaten stability. Yet, it is amazing how an unattached word like secular can stir up such deeply religious passions as to merit a redefinition.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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