In India Secularism hs been highlighted in the Preamble & in the Fundamental rights .
Articles 25, 26, 27 and 28, provides religious freedom to all citizens of India & article 29 & 30 provide Cultural and Educational rights while one of the directive primciples provides for creation of a uniform civil code.

In the West, the word secular implies : freedom of religion, equal citizenship to each citizen regardless of his or her religion, and the separation of religion and state.
In contrast, in India, the word secular does not imply separation of religion and state. It means equal treatment of all religions,& an open possibility of state supported religious reform .

The overlap of religion and state, 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 & has created a number of issues such as acceptability of child marriage,polygamy, unequal inheritance rights, extrajudicial unilateral divorce rights favorable to some males, conflicting interpretations of religious books & public management of Hindu temples.

The Indian Penal Code (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2018, mooted and passed by the Government of Punjab seeks to amend Article 295-A to make the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib, Koran, Bible and Bhagavad Gita a punishable offence attracting life imprisonment.

The arguments made against the anti blasphemy laws and how those arguments lack a thorough understanding of the concept of secularism:-

• One line of criticism faults the bill for defiling the sacred or the transcendental character of holy texts by using this-worldly state power to protect it.
  1. This attempt to expose the apparent irony underlying the bill is inadequate, for it misses the very political purpose of blasphemy laws.
  2. To deem certain ideas/thoughts/norms/values to be out of bounds for criticism or contestation is to argue that certain forms of power are beyond criticism or contestation.
  3. The creation, delimitation and expansion of the domain of the sacred is always a political (and not merely theological) exercise to create barriers of defiance for entrenched power.
• A second line of criticism faults the bill for importing the “Judaeo-Christian” concept of blasphemy into Hinduism by including the Bhagavad Gita among the holy books. This is taken as a violation of traditions of pluralism and tolerance.
• The Punjab legislation can lead to other states similarly pandering to the demands of different communities and groups. Such legislation would hinder the possibility of the immanent critique of religious/community practices, beliefs, and norms, as blasphemy laws strengthen the position of the dominant within the community by accepting their interpretation as authoritative.
• Even more serious is the danger of such legislation indicating to the extremist and vigilante groups that their actions have the overt or tacit backing of state power. Therefore, the bill needs to be seen as a vigilante legislation that could potentially legalise vigilantism. 
• Legal protection for the text in the domain of the sacred, even as hate speech and hate crimes against human individuals and collectives go unabated and unpunished, is a definite indicator of the extent of erosion of the secular principle in polity and society. 
• International example :-In Pakistan, the progressive strengthening of anti-blasphemy laws during the Seventies was a sign of a toxic combination of greater intolerance and authoritarianism.
• Rather than being luminous, potent and transcendent texts, their status is now reduced to a section of the Indian Penal Code. 
• Liberal state needs two sensibilities which are neglected in this scenario:-
  1. The first is that many good things are good and derive their authentic meaning precisely from the fact that there is no coercion behind them.
  2. The second is that beliefs and faith, even if entirely sound, do not by themselves provide sufficient ground for the state using its coercive power to enforce them.
  3. The argument that the state needs to use coercive power in deference to religious sentiments is illiberal.
• The law is still sectarian in that it protects four texts, and the state has decided which texts get protection.
• Any law that empowers the state to give upto life imprisonment for injury to the book will create a pall of fear. Its effect will not be the number of prosecutions. Its effect will be more palpably felt in people not even daring to push the boundaries of protest.