Secularism in India

India since its independence in 1947 has been a secular state. The secular values were
enshrined in the constitution of India. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru is
credited with the formation of the secular republic in the modern history of the country. [1][2]

With the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976,[3] the
Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation.[4][5] However, the
Supreme Court of India in the 1994 case S. R. Bommai v. Union of India established the fact
that India was secular since the formation of the republic.[6] The judgement established that
there is separation of state and religion. It stated "In matters of State, religion has no place.
Any State government which pursues nonsecular on policies or nonsecular course of action
acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under
Article 356".[6][7][8] Furthermore, constitutionally, state-owned educational institutions are
prohibited from imparting religious instructions, and Article 27 of the constitution prohibits
using tax-payers money for the promotion of any religion.[9]

Officially, secularism has always inspired modern India.[4] However, India's secularism
does not completely separate religion and state.[4] The Indian Constitution has allowed
extensive interference of the state in religious affair.[10] The degree of separation between
the state and religion has varied with several court and executive orders in place since the
birth of the Republic.[11] In matters of law in modern India, personal laws – on matters such
as marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony – varies if one is a Muslim or not (Muslims have
an option to marry under secular law if they wish).[12][13] The Indian Constitution permits
partial financial support for religious schools as well as the financing of religious buildings
and infrastructure by the state.[14] The Islamic Central Wakf Council and many Hindu
temples of great religious significance are administered and managed (through funding) by
the federal and the state governments in accordance with the Places of Worship (Special
Provisions) Act, 1991, and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains
Act, 1958, which mandates state maintenance of religious buildings that were created
before August 15, 1947 (the date of Indian independence), while also retaining their religious
character.[13][15][16] The attempt to respect religious law has created a number of issues in
India, such as acceptability of polygamy, unequal inheritance rights, extra judicial unilateral
divorce rights favorable to some males, and conflicting interpretations of religious
books.[17][18]

Secularism as practiced in India, with its marked differences with Western practice of
secularism, is a controversial topic in India. Supporters of the Indian concept of secularism
claim it respects "minorities and pluralism". Critics claim the Indian form of secularism as
"pseudo-secularism".[4][19] Supporters state that any attempt to introduce a uniform civil
code, that is equal laws for every citizen irrespective of his or her religion, would impose
majoritarian Hindu sensibilities and ideals.[20][13] Critics state that India's acceptance of
some religious laws violates the principle of Equality before the law.[21][22]
History

Ellora Caves, a world heritage site,

are in the Indian state of
Maharashtra. The 35 caves were
carved into the vertical face of the
Charanandri hills between the 5th
and 10th centuries. The 12
Buddhist caves, 17 Hindu caves
and 5 Jain caves, built in
proximity, suggest religious co-
existence and secular sentiments
for diversity prevalent during pre-
Islamic period of Indian
history.[23][24]

Ashoka about 2200 years ago, Harsha about 1400 years ago accepted and patronised
different religions.[5] The people in ancient India had freedom of religion, and the state
granted citizenship to each individual regardless of whether someone's religion was
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or any other.[25] Ellora cave temples built next to each other
between 5th and 10th centuries, for example, shows a coexistence of religions and a spirit
of acceptance of different faiths.[26][27]

There should not be honour of one's own (religious) sect and condemnation of
others without any grounds.
 — Ashoka, Rock Edicts XII,
about 250 BC, [25][28]
This approach to interfaith relations changed with the arrival of Islam and establishment of
Delhi Sultanate in North India by the 12th century, but it was not the only cause the enmity in
minds of Hindu lower caste had risen to the top because of the discimination by Brahmins
followed by Deccan Sultanate in Central India.[25] The political doctrines of Islam, as well as
its religious views were at odds with doctrines of Hinduism, Christianity and other Indian
religions.[5][29] New temples and monasteries were not allowed. As with Levant, Southeast
Europe and Spain, Islamic rulers in India treated Hindus as dhimmis in exchange of annual
payment of jizya taxes, in a sharia-based state jurisprudence. With the arrival of Mughal
era, Sharia was imposed with continued zeal, with Akbar – the Mughal Emperor – as the
first significant exception.[25] Akbar sought to fuse ideas, professed equality between Islam
and other religions of India, forbade forced conversions to Islam, abolished religion-based
discriminatory jizya taxes, and welcomed building of Hindu temples.[30][31] However, the
descendants of Akbar, particularly Aurangzeb, reverted to treating Islam as the primary
state religion, destruction of temples, and reimposed religion-based discriminatory jizya
taxes.[5]
 Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, near
Agra India. Akbar's instruction for
his mausoleum was that it
incorporate elements from
different religions including Islam
and Hinduism.

After Aurangzeb, India came into control of East India Company and the British Raj. The
colonial administrators did not separate religion from state, but marked the end of equal
hierarchy between Islam and Hinduism, and reintroduced the notion of equality before the
law for Hindus, Christians and Muslims.[17] The British Empire sought commerce and trade,
with a policy of neutrality to all of India's diverse religions.[25] Before 1858, the Britishers
followed the policy of patronizing and supporting the native religions as the earlier rulers
had done.[32] By the mid-19th century, the British Raj administered India, in matters related
to marriage, inheritance of property and divorces, according to personal laws based on
each Indian subject's religion, according to interpretations of respective religious
documents by Islamic jurists, Hindu pundits and other religious scholars. In 1864, the Raj
eliminated all religious jurists, pandits and scholars because the interpretations of the same
verse or religious document varied, the scholars and jurists disagreed with each other, and
the process of justice had become inconsistent and suspiciously corrupt.[17] The late 19th
century marked the arrival of Anglo-Hindu and Anglo-Muslim personal laws to divide
adjacent communities by British, where the governance did not separate the state and
religion, but continued to differentiate and administer people based on their personal
religion.[17][33] The British Raj provided the Indian Christians, Indian Zoroastrians and others
with their own personal laws, such as the Indian Succession Act of 1850, Special Marriage
Act of 1872 and other laws that were similar to Common Laws in Europe.[34]

Although the British administration provided India

with a common law, its divide and rule policy For several years past it has
contributed to promoting discord between been the cherished desire of
[37]
communities. The Morley-Minto reforms the Muslims of British India
provided separate electorate to Muslims, justifying that Customary Law should in
the demands of the Muslim league. no case take the place of
Muslim Personal Law. The
In the first half of 20th century, the British Raj faced
matter has been repeatedly
increasing amounts of social activism for self-rule
agitated in the press as well as
by a disparate groups such as those led by Hindu
on the platform. The Jamiat-
Gandhi and Muslim Jinnah; the colonial
ul-Ulema-i-Hind, the greatest
administration, under pressure, enacted a number
Moslem religious body has
of laws before India's independence in 1947, that
supported the demand and
continue to be the laws of India in 2013. One such
invited the attention of all
law enacted during the colonial era was the 1937
concerned to the urgent
Indian Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application
necessity of introducing a
Act, which instead of separating state and religion
measure to this effect.
for Western secularism, did the reverse.[38]

It, along with additional laws such as Dissolution of —

Muslim Marriages Act of 1939 that followed,
established the principle that religious laws of Indian
Muslims can be their personal laws. It also set the
Preambl
precedent that religious law, such as sharia, can
overlap and supersede common and civil laws, that e to
elected legislators may not revise or enact laws that
supersede religious laws, that people of one nation Muslim
need not live under the same laws, and that law
enforcement process for different individuals shall Persona
depend on their religion.[38][17] The Indian Muslim
Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937
continues to be the law of land of modern India for
l Law
Indian Muslims, while parliament-based, non-
religious uniform civil code passed in mid-1950s (Shariat
applies to Indians who are Hindus (which includes
Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsees), as well as to )
Indian Christians and Jews.[17][39]
Applicat
Current status ion Act,
1937,
The 7th schedule of Indian constitution places
religious institutions, charities and trusts into so- [35][36]
called Concurrent List, which means that both the
central government of India, and various state
governments in India can make their own laws about
religious institutions, charities and trusts. If there is a conflict between central government
enacted law and state government law, then the central government law prevails. This
principle of overlap, rather than separation of religion and state in India was further
recognised in a series of constitutional amendments starting with Article 290 in 1956, to the
addition of word 'secular' to the Preamble of Indian Constitution in 1975.[17][5]

The central and state governments of India finance

and manage religious buildings and infrastructure.
Above, the inauguration of National Waqf
Development Corporation Limited in 2014 for Waqf
properties.[40]

The overlap of religion and state, through Concurrent List structure, has given various
religions in India, state support to religious schools and personal laws. This state
intervention while resonant with the dictates of each religion, are unequal and conflicting.
For example, a 1951 Religious and Charitable Endowment Indian law allows state
governments to forcibly take over, own and operate Hindu temples,[41] and collect revenue
from offerings and redistribute that revenue to any non-temple purposes including
maintenance of religious institutions opposed to the temple;[42] Indian law also allows
Islamic and other minority religious schools to receive partial financial support from state
and central government of India, to offer religious indoctrination, if the school agrees that
the student has an option to opt out from religious indoctrination if he or she so asks, and
that the school will not discriminate any student based on religion, race or any other
grounds. Educational institutions wholly owned and operated by government are prohibited
from imparting religious indoctrination, but religious sects and endowments may open their
own school, impart religious indoctrination and have a right to partial state financial
assistance.[5]

In terms of religions of India with significant populations, only Islam has religious laws in
form of sharia which India allows as Muslim Personal Law.[43]

Secularism in India means the separation of religion from state. Religious laws in personal
domain, for Muslim Indians; and currently, in some situations such as religious
indoctrination schools the state partially finances certain religious schools. These
differences have led a number of scholars[13][44] to declare that India is not a secular state,
as the word secularism is widely understood in the West and elsewhere; rather it is a
strategy for political goals in a nation with a complex history, and one that achieves the
opposite of its stated intentions. The attempt to have a Uniform Civil Code has long been
discussed as a means to realize a secular Indian state.[13][44] The overlap between religion
and state has created tension between supporters of Indian form of secularism and the
supporters of Hindu nationalism. Hindu nationalists use the Uniform Civil Code platform to
agitate their base, even though there has been no actual implementation.[45] They
characterize secularism as practiced in India as "pseudo-secularism", a camouflaged
hypocrisy for the political "appeasement of minorities".[19][46][47] As of 28 July 2020, there
were pleas going on Supreme court of India to remove the words secular and socialist from
the Preamble to the Constitution of India.[48][49]

Demand for Hindu Rashtra

Most Right Wing Hindu organisations like RSS, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad have
demanded that India should be declared a "Hindu nation" by constitution to safeguard the
rights and life of Hindus in this largest democracy.[50][51][52] As far citizens concerned, only
7/20th Indian Hindus are in the favour of making India as Hindu Rashtra.[53] Nearly two-
thirds of Indian Hindus (64% of the population) say that it is very important to be Hindu to
be truly Indian or citizen of India.[54]

As of 28 July 2020, there were pleas going on Supreme Court of India to remove the words
secular and socialist from the Preamble to the Constitution of India.[55] Recently ex-Rajya
Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy appealed to the Supreme Court of India for deletion of
"Socialist" & "Secular" words from Preamble to the Constitution of India.[56][57]

Comparison with Western

secularism
In the West, the word secular implies three things: freedom of religion, equal citizenship to
each citizen regardless of their religion, and the separation of religion and state (polity).[58]
One of the core principles in the constitution of Western democracies has been this
separation, with the state asserting its political authority in matters of law, while accepting
every individual's right to pursue his or her own religion and the right of religion to shape its
own concepts of spirituality. Everyone is equal under law, and subject to the same laws
irrespective of his or her religion, in the West.[58]

In contrast, in India, the word secular means thorough-going separation of religion and
state.[59] According to the Constitution of India, states Smith, there is no official state
religion in India, schools that are wholly owned by the state can not mandate religious
instruction (Article 28), and tax-payers money cannot be used to support any religion
(Article 27).[9] Overlap is permitted, whereby institutions that are not entirely financed by the
state can mandate religious instruction, and state can provide financial aid to maintain
religious buildings or infrastructure in accordance with law.[60] Furthermore, India's
constitutional framework allows "extensive state interference in religious affairs".[10]

According to R.A. Jahagirdar, in the Indian context, secularism has been interpreted as the
equality before law, including of all religions, while the state is neutral.[61] Article 44 of the
Directive Principles of State Policy adds, "the state shall endeavor to secure for the citizens
a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India."[12] This intent for secular personal
laws has been unsettling especially to Indian Muslims, states Smith, in part because they
view the alteration of Muslim personal law to be a "grave violation of their freedom of
religion".[62]

The term secularism in India also differs from the French concept for secularity, namely
laïcité.[4][63] While the French concept demands absence of governmental institutions in
religion, as well as absence of religion in governmental institutions and schools; the Indian
concept, in contrast, provides financial support to religious schools. The Indian structure
has created incentives for various religious denominations to start and maintain schools,
impart religious education (optionally), and receive partial but significant financial support
from the Indian government. Similarly, the Indian government has established statutory
institutions to regulate and financially administer the historic Islamic Central Wakf Council,
historic Hindu temples, Buddhist monasteries, and certain Christian religious
institutions.[13][64]

Law
Indian concept of secularism, where religious laws are applicable to certain minorities and
the state is expected to even-handedly involve itself in religion, is a controversial
subject.[17][20][44] Any attempts and demand by the Indian populace to a uniform civil code is
considered a threat to right to religious personal laws by Indian Muslims.[5][65]

Shah Bano case

In 1978, the Shah Bano case brought the secularism debate along with a demand for
uniform civil code in India to the forefront.[20][21]

Shah Bano was a 62-year-old Muslim Indian who was divorced from her husband of 44
years in 1978. Indian Muslim Personal Law required her husband to pay no alimony. Shah
Bano sued for regular maintenance payments under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure
Code, 1978.[21] Shah Bano won her case, as well as appeals to the highest court. Along with
alimony, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India wrote in his opinion just how
unfairly Islamic personal laws treated women and thus how necessary it was for the nation
to adopt a Uniform Civil Code. The Chief Justice further ruled that no authoritative text of
Islam forbade the payment of regular maintenance to ex-wives.[20][43]

The Shah Bano ruling immediately triggered controversy and mass demonstrations by
Muslim men. The Islamic Clergy and the Muslim Personal Law Board of India argued
against the ruling.[43] Shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling, the Indian government with
Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister,[66] enacted a new law which deprived all Muslim women,
and only Muslim women, of the right of maintenance guaranteed to women of Hindu,
Christian, Parsees, Jews and other religions. Indian Muslims consider the new 1986 law,
which selectively exempts them from maintenance payment to ex-wife because of their
religion, as secular because it respects Muslim men's religious rights and recognises that
they are culturally different from Indian men and women of other religions. Muslim
opponents argue that any attempt to introduce Uniform Civil Code, that is equal laws for
every human being independent of his or her religion, would reflect majoritarian Hindu
sensibilities and ideals.[20][67]

Islamic feminists
The controversy is not limited to Hindu versus Muslim populations in India. The Islamic
feminists movement in India, for example, claim[68] that the issue with Muslim Personal Law
in India is a historic and ongoing misinterpretation of the Quran. The feminists claim that the
Quran grants Muslim women rights that in practice are routinely denied to them by male
Muslim ulema in India. They claim that the 'patriarchal' interpretations of the Quran on the
illiterate Muslim Indian masses is abusive, and they demand that they have a right to read
the Quran for themselves and interpret it in a woman-friendly way. India has no legal
mechanism to accept or enforce the demands of these Islamic feminists over religious law.
Women's rights in India
Some religious rights granted by Indian concept of secularism, which are claimed as
abusive against Indian women, include child marriage,[65] polygamy, unequal inheritance
rights of women and men, extrajudicial unilateral divorce rights of Muslim man that are not
allowed to a Muslim woman, and subjective nature of shariat courts, jamaats, dar-ul quzat
and religious qazis who preside over Islamic family law matters.[17][18] Triple Talaq was
banned in India, following a historic bill being passed on 30 July 2019.[69]

State subsidy for religious

pilgrimage
India continued offering liberal subsidies for religious pilgrimage after 1950, under its
polymorphous interpretation of secularism.[70] The largest and most controversial has been
the Haj subsidy program for the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, which was criticized as
benefitting affluent Muslims and discriminatory against Hindus and Christians who did not
get similar subsidy for trips to their own holy places.[70] The central government spent about
$120 million in Haj subsidies in 2011.[71] In 2012, the Supreme Court of India ordered an end
to the religious subsidies program within 10 years.[72] According to a Wall Street Journal
article, Indian Muslim leaders supported an end to the Hajj subsidies, because "hajj must be
performed with money righteously earned by a Muslim, and not on money from charity or
borrowings. ."[71]
Goa
Goa is the only state in India which has Uniform Civil Code.[73] This system is derived from
Portuguese colonization and is maintained until today.[74] The Goa Civil Code (http://mmasc
goa.tripod.com/id12.html) , also called the Goa Family Law, is the set of civil laws that
governs the residents of the Indian state of Goa. In India, as a whole, there are religion-
specific civil codes that separately govern adherents of different religions. Goa is an
exception to that rule, in that a single secular code/law governs all Goans, irrespective of
religion, ethnicity or linguistic affiliation. It suggests the possibility to establish uniform civil
code within a country having rich religious diversity like India.[74] There are still problems in
terms of actual implementation in everyday life.[75]

Views

A Hindu temple in Jaipur, India,

merging the traditional tiered
tower of Hinduism, the pyramid
stupa of Buddhism and the dome
of Islam. The marble sides are
carved with figures of Hindu
deities, as well as Christian Saints
and Jesus Christ.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume criticises Indian "Secularism" as a
fraud and a failure, since it isn't really "secularism" as it is understood in the western world
(as separation of religion and state) but more along the lines of religious appeasement. He
writes that the flawed understanding of secularism among India's left wing intelligentsia has
led Indian politicians to pander to religious leaders and preachers including Zakir Naik, and
has led India to take a soft stand against Islamic terrorism, religious militancy and
communal disharmony in general.[22]

Historian Ronald Inden writes:[76]

Nehru's India was supposed to be committed to 'secularism'. The idea here in its
weaker publicly reiterated form was that the government would not interfere in
'personal' religious matters and would create circumstances in which people of all
religions could live in harmony. The idea in its stronger, unofficially stated form
was that in order to modernise, India would have to set aside centuries of
traditional religious ignorance and superstition and eventually eliminate
Hinduism and Islam from people's lives altogether. After Independence,
governments implemented secularism mostly by refusing to recognise the religious
pasts of Indian nationalism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and at the same time
(inconsistently) by retaining Muslim 'personal law' .[76]

Amartya Sen, the Indian Nobel Laureate, suggests[77] that secularism in the political – as
opposed to ecclesiastical – sense requires the separation of the state from any particular
religious order. This, claims Sen, can be interpreted in at least two different ways: "The first
view argues the state be equidistant from all religions – refusing to take sides and having a
neutral attitude towards them. The second view insists that the state must not have any
relation at all with any religion," quotes Minhaz Merchant.[78] In both interpretations,
secularism goes against giving any religion a privileged position in the activities of the state.
Sen argues that the first form is more suited to India, where there is no demand that the
state stay clear of any association with any religious matter whatsoever. Rather what is
needed is to make sure that in so far as the state has to deal with different religions and
members of different religious communities, there must be a basic symmetry of
treatment.[78] Sen does not claim that modern India is symmetric in its treatment or offer
any views of whether acceptance of sharia in matters such as child marriage is equivalent to
having a neutral attitude towards a religion. Critics of Sen claim that secularism, as
practised in India, is not the secularism of first or second variety Sen enumerates.[78]

Pakistani columnist Farman Nawaz in his article "Why Indian Muslim Ullema are not popular
in Pakistan?" states "Maulana Arshad Madani stated that seventy years ago the cause of
division of India was sectarianism and if today again the same temptation will raise its head
then results will be the same. Maulana Arshad Madani considers secularism inevitable for
the unity of India." Maulana Arshad Madani is a staunch critic of sectarianism in India. He is
of the opinion that India was divided in 1947 because of sectarianism. He suggests
secularism inevitable for the solidarity and integrity of India.[79]

See also

George Holyoake, who coined the

term in modern sense.
Freedom of religion in India
Indian Humanist Union
Irreligion in India
Pseudo-secularism
Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava

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er-of-all-india-hindu-conference-1117
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53. "Does India belong to only Hindus?
Nearly 75% of Hindus say 'No', finds
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Further reading

Scholarly works

Smith, Donald Eugene (2011) [first

published 1963]. India as a Secular
State (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=8zXWCgAAQBAJ) . Princeton
University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-
7778-2., Archive (https://archive.org/
details/indiaassecularst0000smit/pag
e/n5)
Chatterjee, Nandini (2011). The
Making of Indian Secularism: Empire,
Law and Christianity, 1830-1960 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=vCO
GDAAAQBAJ) . Palgrave Macmillan
UK. ISBN 978-0-230-29808-8.
Larson, Gerald James, ed. (2001).
Religion and Personal Law in Secular
India: A Call to Judgment (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=HGV3noHZ
1QMC) . Indiana University Press.
ISBN 0-253-21480-7.
Cossman, Brenda; Kapur, Ratna
(2001). Secularism's Last Sigh?:
Hindutva and the (mis)rule of Law (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=-x8
vAAAAYAAJ) . Oxford University
Press. ISBN 978-0-19-565798-2.
Rajagopalan, Swarna (2003).
"Secularism in India: Accepted
Principle, Contentious Interpretation"
(https://books.google.com/books?id=
U9gONC5qDfwC&pg=PA241) . In
William Safran (ed.). The Secular and
the Sacred: Nation, Religion, and
Politics. Psychology Press. pp. 241–.
ISBN 978-0-7146-5368-6.
Vivek Swaroop Sharma (2016).
"Secularism and Religious Violence in
Hinduism and Islam (https://www.res
earchgate.net/publication/299526439
_Secularism_and_Religious_Violence
_in_Hinduism_and_Islam) " in
Economic and Political Weekly 51
(18), pp. 19–21.
Popular works

Dalwai, Hamid Umar (1968). Muslim

Politics in Secular India (https://book
 s.google.com/books?id=pwYLAQAAI
AAJ) . Hind Pocket Books.
Vivek Swaroop Sharma (2015). "The
Myth of a Liberal India" (https://www.
researchgate.net/publication/2830167
15_The_Myth_of_a_Liberal_India) in
The National Interest 140 pp. 66–71.

External links

India: Secularism and Wikiqu

ote has
Freedom of Religion
quotati
(http://courses.cs.vt.e ons
related
du/cs3604/lib/Freedo
to
m.of.Speech/Internati Secular
ism in
onal/india.secularism.
India.
html) University of Vermont, United
States
Legalizing Religion: Indian Supreme
Court and Secularism (http://scholars
pace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/ha
ndle/10125/3499/PS030.pdf?sequenc
e=1) Ronojoy Sen, University of
Hawaii
Republic of India - Legal systems,
constitutional history and secularism
(http://www.law.emory.edu/ifl/legal/i
ndia.htm) Emory Law School, Atlanta
Secularism In India : History,
Implications and Alternatives (http://in
 diafacts.org/secularism-india-history
-implications-alternatives/)

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