Introduction:

• The below article deals with India’s unique concept of ‘secularism’ and how its definition is confusing and clearly unworkable.

Unique definition of Secularism

According to the founding fathers of the Constitution, “the Indian state must be equidistant from all religions while allowing religions equal space in the public sphere”.

Western concept of secularism defines mutual exclusivity between state and religion. Indian concept of secularism believes in equality of all religions and respect for all religions by state.

In other words, unlike western notion of secularism, here in India the state is not separated from religion rather the government is obliged to take steps so that all religions are treated equally.

• For several reasons this definition of secularism has created a lot of confusion as to what the term stands for.
• The framers of the Constitution, Nehru and B.R. Ambedkar included, failed to erect an unbreachable firewall between state and religion that would clearly prevent the intrusion of religious idioms, practices and agendas into the political arena and insulate the state from the religious sphere.
• The innate religious nature of Indian society and the after-effects of Partition on religious grounds precluded this option.

Issues:

Secularism is one of the fundamental principle meant for uniting the society, given huge religious cultural diversity. However, inspite of uniting it has led to animosity between different religious groups in following ways:

• No clear distinction between state and religion- State interferes in religious issues when they involve human rights, for example banning untouchability, Sabarimala judgment and passage of triple talaq bill.
• Vote bank politics– propounding the religious beliefs of one community over other. Ban on caw slaughter has been envisaged under DPSP, but the way it has been implemented, not keeping in mind the livelihood of many, especially the Muslims has resulted into violence. Eg- The Mohammad Akhlaq incident- he was beaten to death by a mob. Vote bank politics has resulted in minority appeasement at the cost of basic pillars of democracy.
• Appeasement policy of the government– Petty matters converts into riots as in Muzaffarpur because of administrative negligence.
• Rise of communalism- Riots, Mandir-Masjid issues keep cropping up every now and then.
• Uneven development among different religious groups- Political mileage has prevented necessary interventions in some communities resulting in their backwardness.
• The Uniform civil code debate rather than being an informed one, with an objective of improving lives of Muslim women, the debate took a turn which made it seem as majoritarianism dominating over minorities.
• The social gap between the OBCs, SCs and STs on one hand and the communities like Jat(Haryana), Patidars(Gujarat) has widened furtherbecause of the reservation policy.

Conclusion:

From above analysis it can be concluded that it is not the concept of secularism per se but the misconception around it which has resulted into polarization of Indian society hurting the growth and development of those alienated.

However, in this context, to call the ideological foundation of the Constitution secularism, although the term was not explicitly included in the document until 1976, has done great harm to the concept.

The formula that the state must remain equidistant from all religions, the unique Indian definition of secularism, is clearly unworkable.