Relationship Between the Spiritual and the Secular: Vivekananda, Gandhi and Radhakrishnan

AuthorVijendra Singh
DOI10.1177/2321023019838650
Published date01 June 2019
Date01 June 2019
Article
Relationship Between the Spiritual
and the Secular: Vivekananda,
Gandhi and Radhakrishnan
Vijendra Singh1
Abstract
This article explores the repeated invocation of the spiritual by Vivekananda, Gandhi and Radhakrishnan.
It attempts to understand the nature of the relationship they established between the spiritual and
the secular domains while invoking the spiritual. The article argues that what was distinctive about
frequent usage of the spiritual was its usage to articulate both the secular and the otherworldly goals
in different ways. Moreover, none of them are strictly secular, if it means differentiation of the social and
political domain from religion on the one hand and rise of ‘exclusive humanism’ on the other. For them,
the domain of secular is the domain of realizing the spiritual. They are not two separate domains but
constituted an integral whole where the activities of secular were defined and redefined in the light of
the quest for the spiritual and vice versa.
Keywords
Vivekananda, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, spiritual, secular, religion, Taylor
Introduction
The idea of spiritual was repeatedly invoked by the wide range of modern Indian thinkers, like Swami
Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo Ghose, Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and others. It was repeatedly used to articulate anti-
colonial politics, the idea of service, love for others, nationalist agenda, identity of Indian culture and
civilization and so forth. Thinkers like Tilak, Gandhi and Radhakrishnan often appealed to spiritualize
politics. Along with repeated usage of the spiritual for temporal goods, it was also used to enunciate
higher goods beyond ordinary material existence.
What was this recurrent idea of spiritual in the writings of key Indian thinkers? Why was it frequently
invoked in the socio-political realm and what were its diverse predicaments? What kind of relationship
Studies in Indian Politics
7(1) 56–69, 2019
© 2019 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/2321023019838650
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1 School of International Studies, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.
Corresponding author:
Vijendra Singh, Assistant Professor, School of International Studies, Central University of Gujarat, Sector 29,
Gandhinagar, Gujarat 382030, India.
E-mail: jnu.vijendra@gmail.com

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