Secularism and Its Effects on Modern-Day India

When early man examined natural happenings, he was determined to find an explanation. Knowledge for natural phenomena, as well as the desire to control them, pushed our forefathers to seek refuge in the concept of a supernatural power, which evolved into religion. Religion is more than just belief in God; it is a way of life, a source of guidance for befuddled humans, and a means of distinguishing between right and wrong. However, civilizations went through a modernisation process that changed men’s worldview. The modern man is no longer reliant on religious beliefs to guide his life. The modern man’s disconnection from religion has given rise to the fairly new concept of secularism.

The Western world strengthened its hold on secularism by deciding that divine and earthly matters needed to be separated, and the Church’s influence over state issues were limited. Let us now come closer to home. The Indian Constitution characterizes India as a secular state, making it all the more important for us to understand the concept of secularism.

Though secularism refers to a theory that rejects religion and religious considerations, in a larger sense, secularism can be interpreted in two ways. Secularism may refer to the separation of state and religion, or it may refer to the equal rights of all religious views.

Secularism, in its most basic form, denotes a condition in which there is no state religion and the state is unconcerned with any religious beliefs or activities. It broadens the state’s mandate, allowing residents to choose any faith of their desire, and the state is not to discriminate against citizens based on their faiths. The second meaning is unusual in a country such as India, where secularism means treating all religious groups equally. However, we must distinguish between secularization and secularism.

Secularization is not required for a state to adopt secularism as a state policy, and both can exist independently of one another. Secularization is a modern phenomena in which, in the age of scientific knowledge, people no longer rely on a collection of religious beliefs to structure their lives, instead allowing their brains and rationality to do so. Faith is not meaningless, and secularization does not suggest that it is, but rather that the presence of faith in society has far less influence on people’s political and social lives.Certain conceptions provide validity to secularization. The separation of political and religious affairs has resulted in the state’s independence from religion. The power of faith is not required to legitimize the state’s authority over citizens. The state leaves it to individuals’ personal circles to continue with their religious commitments unless it jeopardizes the state’s secular ideals. It is up to the people to reconcile the non-religious and religious parts of society, allowing the state to be free of all religious issues.

Thinkers on secularism

Gandhi as follows: He was the primary force in disseminating all communal identities and integrating people from all walks of life into an everyday national movement for independence. His doctrine of “sarva dharma sambhava,” or equal rights for all religions, was designed to bring people of all faiths together while without diminishing the importance of religion in people’s life.

Nehru: He believed in “dharma nirapekshata,” which signified that the state would not take any religious considerations right into account while constructing policies. Nehru’s ideal state freed all religions and honored all faiths equally while asking the state to be devoid of being linked to any particular religion. Previous Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar.

He emphasized that a resident’s socioeconomic difficulties were not dependent on his religion, despite the fact that the state should not be linked to one religion and should guarantee equal freedom to everyone.

Rajeev Bhargava: According to Bhargava, there are three types of secularism. The first type of hyper-substantive secularism divides religion and state by autonomy, development, or reason. Following that is ultra-procedural secularism, which separates religion from the state by bureaucratic and technocratic rationalism. The third type is contextual secularism, which involves a non-absolutist separation of the state and the faith. He prefers this type over the previous two.

The downside of secularism

India’s secularism has been attacked on several occasions, and sectarian violence has found its way into traditional politics. Situations such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid are just a few examples of how India’s credibility as a non-religious state has been called into question.

The destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, represented a catastrophic degradation of India’s Muslim minority. The mission carried out by a federal government and party officials resulted in numerous riots, affecting the Indian state’s secular nature.

The Shah Bano case from the mid-1980s included a Muslim woman seeking alimony from her divorced husband, and the court ruled in her favor. Her spouse, on the other hand, petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming that he was not compelled to pay upkeep after oi iddat. In the interest of India’s secularism, the Supreme Court denied his claim. However, the Muslim community, particularly the ulama, protested the decision, and there was a widespread outcry. Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, relented, and the Muslim Women Bill was passed, ensuring that Muslim males are not required to pay alimony to their divorced spouses following the iddat. As a result, the state reverted to its secular nature by exposing its preference for a single religious group.

Countless more incidents of communal violence have occurred, disturbing the foundations of non-religious concord in Indian civil society and prompting the state to expose its affection for a specific religious group or the state directly engaging in religion-centricity activities.

As a result, it is past time for us to take action to preserve the secular nature of the Indian state. To counter any rising communal power, all parties should band together. The administration should not be afraid of falling out of favor and should take firm action to oppose any occurrences that could shake India’s non-religious bedrock. Non-religious actors must be more active than ever before in order to ensure peace in a strictly secular sense. Only then will India’s non-religious past be preserved, and the land of multiple religious faiths can continue to live in harmony as it historically does.

Originally published on Sociologygroup.com. Read the original article.