SECULARISM AND POLITICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY SHUBHANGI AGRAWAL, A STUDENT OF HIDAYATULLAH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, RAIPUR

Politics and secularism being two parallel lines which should never intersect each other but end up doing so sometimes maybe. Both politics and secularism have a deep-rooted history that we can trace from as long as we want to go back. With the increasing interference of politics and religion in the whole working system there is a need to study the whole idea of secularism and analyse the same.

Living in India or not just the matter of concern is to take and move hand in hand with the development of the country as well as increasing emergence of the country as an ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.

Secularism thus forms a very important place in the Indian constitution so that there is equality with diversity.

India being a country with second largest population presence of diverse cultural and religion is of no surprise as being a democratic country the constitution under Article 25 provides every person to follow their own religion we will discuss about this further in the article.

To no surprise government parties sometimes may turn be a little biased towards some religious group or a particular religion in general being a human being they can also be trapped in the emotions attached to their own religion and might end up just thinking for the benefit of the individual community or group rather than thinking about the benefit of the whole society or country at large to stabilise this and keep this under control, to put a check that same doesn’t happen there is the concept of secularism and a need of secularism.

Leaving or not providing resources to a particular person just because he/she is of particular religion or belongs to a particular group is against the whole idea of democracy and justice.

As long as 50 years are passed since the time secularism was made a concept under the Indian constitution, but still, it makes equal sense to discuss about, to debate about and to just in general talk about secularism.

To understand these theories, it is firstly very important to understand about some basic concepts and definitions that shape the foundation.

Secularism is a basic feature of constitution.

Secularism if defined by a layman would just not having any special preference for any particular religious group considering each and every religion equal and not giving importance to any one of them.

The term Secularism is truly a non-Indian word which now we use in a daily basis.

When we say India is a secular state what we mean? Have you ever given this a thought? I bet most of you already know it, but if you don’t then let me tell this because India do not have any state or national religion, constitution is not drafted as per any religious group and also is not biased towards a religion at least on paper.

The whole SECULARISM word first came in recognition in 1976 when the 42^nd amendment was done to the constitution which we often consider as a mini constitution as this particular amendment was rising sun after many days of rain.

Secularism is just not limited to letting one follow the religion of his/her wish but also has ambits extending to the level that secularism includes respecting one’s decision to not follow any religion or absence of religion and vice versa to actively following a religion.

How important is secularism is never a question being in the preamble of India that states the objectives of the constitution simply states how much Secularism have and hold. Also being protected under the basic structure doctrine as stated in Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala[1]

Under Article 25 of The Indian Constitution, we have it all written “Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.”[2]

The articles mention three very important words those are Profess, Practice and Propagate which explains the applicability of the article to further extent.

Right to Religion is also a fundamental right granted under the Constitution of India. Even tough being the fundamental right it also has its limits and restrictions subject to public interest and policies.

Secularism as mentioned above was integrated in the Indian constitution in 1976 before that also The Indian Constitution had various other articles which were set to provide something on the grounds of secularism. Other articles of The Indian Constitution which talk about are Article 14, 15, 16, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 325 all these articles were major players for secularism before the introduction of the term Secularism.

The introduction of state in the matter of secularism should be made very clear that its part is not to uplift or be biased towards a religion but is to maintain the equal respect to each religion and also to maintain neutrality towards very religion.

India’s constitutional secularism necessitates that the Indian state be neither entirely deferential nor impolite to religions. Basic regard for all religions is the sign of Indian secularism.

Class, upsetting strict gathering, illegal entering internment places, and so on. Despite the fact that these activities may be endorsed by the guilty party’s own religion, these are offenses under the law. As expressed as of now, ‘the privilege to opportunity of religion’ is additionally dependent upon different arrangements of Part III of the Constitution identifying with Fundamental Right 21. The significance of the statement can be clarified with models, “The practice of untouchability (prohibited in Article 17) couldn’t be ensured under Article 25. Land can be obligatorily obtained by the state with remuneration under Article 31, in spite of the way that it is a part of a religious endowment.

The composers of the Constitution neutralized the setting of two incredible occasions of human slaughter — World War II and the Partition of India. Both were the consequence of an emphasis on peculiarity of gathering characters and their subsequent regional boundaries, which avoided the individuals who didn’t fall inside the prevailing gathering. All the while, the cycle of combination of legal states implied that individuals not presented to try and restricted vote-based system became citizens of a republic that guaranteed equity, freedom, equity and brotherhood for all.

Several decades prior, Indian secularism was unjustifiably charged by its adversaries for being hostile to strict. It was consequently marked as a supportive of minority convention. Lately, we have been encouraged to pick among secularism and improvement, as though secularism was an enemy of advancement ideolog

Various experts regarding the matter have additionally embraced the view that this restriction of the freedom of conscience of the individual is because of either awful drafting of the article or rash getting as opposed to any cognizant longing with respect to the makers of the Constitution. From the discussions of the Constituent Assembly, it turns out to be extremely evident that individuals were a lot worried about ensuring to the individual outright freedom as respects the selection of his religion.

To comprehend these elements, it is important to characterize essential ideas and audit pertinent history. This is on the grounds that political business people who advance ethnoreligious personalities—particularly Hindu patriot ideologues—have made a lot of disarray around the thought of secularism, guaranteeing that its defenders have tried to make the state threatening or not interested in religion. That was positively not the expectation of the planners of current India, whose foe was not religion, but rather communalism.

Indeed, Nehru often articulated that India’s composite culture was probably the best strength. The Hindu patriots who later came to populate the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and its different philosophical partners have reliably held an unmistakably extraordinary view; they imagine India as a majoritarian country state, not a multicultural one. The strains inalienable in these contending dreams of Indian nationhood have gone to the front as of late, particularly since the BJP’s milestone constituent triumph in 2014.

Patriot powers aside, everything isn’t well with Indian secularism. Indeed, even before Hindutva powers started assaulting India’s mainstream custom, the Congress Party had just begun subverting secularism by critically manoeuvring for the help of various democratic coalitions and by stirring up troublesome issues of social personality (a training known as vote banking).

The relations between state, society and religion are not all around characterized, individual laws differ with strict networks, the unsafe situation of strict minorities, the affiliations of political arrangements with strict fundamentalists, expanding significance of the Hindu and all the more significantly the Hindutva ways of thinking present serious difficulties to the achievement and eventual fate of secularism in India. It should be surrendered that secularism in India today is excessively politicized and statist going about as an ideology of the state and an instrument of force. It is important to discover approaches to depoliticize secularism and to move it further into the area of common society.

The degeneration of protected political secularism to what, for need of a superior term, may be call party-political secularism.

Be that as it may, over the most recent 40 years or somewhere in the vicinity, we have built up another secularism, what is called ‘party-political secularism’, an odd, odious ‘doctrine’ rehearsed by political coalitions, especially the alleged “mainstream powers”. This secularism has dissipated standards from the centre thought and supplanted them with advantage; artful separation from all strict networks is its trademark. It has eliminated ‘basic’ from basic regard and decreased regard to making manages the most intense, generally over the top, forceful segments of each strict gathering. Subsequently political factions keep off religion or intercede as and when it best suits their party or discretionary interests.

In India, the circumstance till at any rate the twentieth century was totally unique in light of the fact that, here, there has been no endeavour to liquidate strict diversity. The state has consistently discovered methods of managing every single strict gathering. Barely any state existed that didn’t belittle every current religion.

In equal, the judiciary—particularly at the lower levels—has embraced a majoritarian feeling on certain dubious cases

To conclude we can say that Secularism needs to gain an advancement of common rules that are of foremost significance in the Indian body politics. Secularism requires more than adherence to an arrangement of strict lenience. It is tantamount to a strategy of social change constantly. The universalization of common standards should empower secularism not to decline into a standardized approach of pacification or mastery of strict gatherings dependent on the necessities of the day.

A state that emerges from majority rules system need not be carefully common. Vote based systems are totally fit for giving a significant job to religion in the issues of the state. It is the issue of collection that is of most extreme significance. A majority rule state will in general reflect in its own cosmetics the unpredictability of the people it speaks to

India’s established secularism necessitates that the Indian state be neither completely conscious nor impolite to religions. Basic regard for all religions is the sign of Indian secularism.

[1] Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1983) 4 SCC 225, (India)

[2] The Indian Constitution,1950, Art. 25