Secularism in India

Secularism refers to Separation of Religion from the state. The Indian Constitution allows individuals the freedom to live by their religious beliefs and practices.

With the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976, the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation. It separated the power of religion and the power of the state.

Relevant constitutional provisions pertaining to Secularism

Fundamental rights

Article 14: Equality before law.

Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Article 16: Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment.

Article 19: Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech etc.

Article 21: Protection of life and personal property.

Article 25: Freedom of consigns and free profession, practise, and propagation of religion.

Article 26: Freedom to manage religious affairs.

Article 27: freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.

Article 28: freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions.

Articl2 29: Protection of interest of minorities.

Article 30: Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institution.

Directive Principles of State Policy

Article 44: Uniform civil code for the citizens.

Article 48: Organization of agriculture and animal husbandry.

Article 51 A: Fundamental duties

Clause (e): To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all people of India transcending religious linguistic and regional or sectional diversities and to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women.

Clause (f): To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture

How state prevents domination by the religious group.

1. State should be non-theocratic:- A state must not be run by the heads of any particular religion. A state governed directly by a priestly order is called theocratic. For example- the Papal States of Europe in the Medieval period, Taliban controlled states in recent times.

For this, states should have a separation from religion at the primary level, but this is not sufficient.

2. States should have no formal, legal alliance with any religion:- Many non-theocratic states have a close alliance with a particular religion.

For example- England in the 17^th century was not run by a priestly class but clearly favoured the Anglican Church and its members. England had an established Anglican religion, which was the official religion of the states. Today Pakistan has an official state religion, namely Islam. Such regimes may leave little scope for internal dissent on religious equality.

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Two modes of secularism

1.Western secularism

All secular states have one thing in common, they are neither theocratic nor do they establish a religion.

Features of the Western concept of secularism:

State and religion have a separate sphere of its own, with independent jurisdiction i.e. Mutual exclusion of state and religion, the principled distance of state from religion and no illegitimate intrusion of religion in the state.
The state cannot aid any religious institutions.
The state cannot hinder the activities of religious communities as long as they are within the broad limits set up by the law of the land.

For example – if religious women forbid a woman from becoming a priest, then the states cannot do anything. Like this, if a particular religion forbids the entry of some of its members in the sanctum of its temple, then the states have no option but to let the matter rest exactly where it is.

Drawbacks:

Such states focus on intra-religious domination by the strict separation of state from religion to realise among other things individual freedoms, issues of inter-religious (and therefore minority rights) equality are often neglected. This model leaves no scope for the idea of the state-supported religious reforms.

2. Indian Secularism

Nehru’s view was – “Equal protection by the state to all religion“. He wanted a secular state to be one that “protects all religions but does not favour one at the expense of others and does not itself adopt any religion as the state religion.”

Indian secularism is fundamentally different from western secularism. It does not focus only on Church-State separation and the idea of inter-religious equality is crucial to the Indian conception.

Features

There was already a culture of inter-religious ‘tolerance’ in India. Tolerance is compatible with religious domination. It may allow some space to everyone but such freedom is usually limited.

The advent of western modernity, brought to the notice, neglected and marginalized notions of equality in Indian thought. It ushered ideas of inter-community equality to replace the notion of hierarchy. Its operation is done through three factors- Scientific and rational education, Legislation, social reforms, Urbanization and industrialization.

So, Indian secularism took on a distinct form as a result of an interaction between what already existed in a society that had religious diversity and the ideas that came from the west. It resulted in an equal focus on intra-religious and inter-religious domination.

Major concerns regarding Secularism:

The grievance of the majority Hindus that rules, regulations and restrictions are applicable only to their religious institutions.
Non-implementation of the uniform civil code.
Appeasement of radical and orthodox Muslim elements by the passage of Muslim Women’s Divorce Act.
Propagation of religion and large scale religious conversions by Muslims and Christians especially in the tribal belts and among poor people.
Provision of unjustified protection to minority educational institutions.

Thus, we can conclude that India is totally secular constitutionally but socially it is not.

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Measures to make India truly Secular :

Separation of religion from politics

Suitable legislation has to be immediately passed to separate religion from politics.

Right to propagate religion

There is considerable controversy over placing Right to propagate religion as a fundamental right. In this area, there have been many verdicts delivered by the Supreme Court and the High Court all of which have stated that the right to propagation is not a right to conversion. This problem has to be addressed by removing the word “propagation” from Article 25.

Withdrawing protection of minority educational institutions

Article 30(1) of the constitution gives the right to minority educational institutes the right to establish and administer educational institutions. There was significant opposition to this article in the Constituent assembly. It is the right time to do away with this right as it encourages separate identities and undermines the spread of secular education. With globalization and spread of information technology, there is no justification to continue this right even to linguistic minorities.

Rationalize prohibition of cow slaughter

There is no universal demand for the ban of cow slaughter form all the Hindus and the prohibition cannot only be solely justified only based on the religious sentiments of the Hindus. This demand is unviable especially in drought-hit areas in a number of states like Maharashtra.

Restructuring police departments

Weaknesses and inadequacies of police have been attributed for starting or escalating of communal violence. Politicization and Communalization of police in various states have to be prohibited.

A Commission on secularism

A commission on secularism has to be set up by amending the constitution to ensure adherence to the constitutional mandate on secularism. The commission should be made to be presided over by a former chief justice of India. The report of the commission has to be submitted to the Parliament and also has to be simultaneously released to media and public.