Ch 18Secularism — Class 11 Political Science, concept-first.

The previous chapter asked how a democratic state can guarantee equality to every group when a country contains many different cultures and communities living side by side.

Secularism did not become important only in India. Jewish communities faced centuries of discrimination across Europe, and today, within the state of Israel itself, Arab minorities -- both Christian a…

The Indian Constitution promises every citizen the right to live with freedom and dignity anywhere in the country. In practice, though, many forms of exclusion and discrimination continue.

Some people believe religion is merely, in the famous phrase, the 'opium of the masses' — that once everyone's basic material needs are met, religion will simply disappear.

One route to preventing religious discrimination is working towards mutual enlightenment — education can help change people's mindsets, and individual acts of sharing and mutual help across communitie…

Every secular state shares one thing in common: it is neither theocratic, nor does it establish any single religion as the state's own.

It is sometimes said that Indian secularism is simply an imitation of western secularism. A careful reading of the Indian Constitution shows this is not the case — Indian secularism is fundamentally d…

Despite — or perhaps because of — its central place in Indian public life, Indian secularism has faced fierce and sustained criticism.

The first and most common criticism is that secularism is anti-religious. This chapter has already shown that secularism is directed against institutionalised religious DOMINATION, not against religio…

A second criticism is that secularism is a western concept and, for that reason, unsuited to Indian conditions.

A third accusation levelled against secularism is 'minoritism' — the charge that Indian secularism unfairly champions minority rights.

A fourth criticism holds that secularism is coercive — that it interferes too much with the religious freedom of communities. This criticism misreads Indian secularism.

A fifth criticism is that secularism encourages vote-bank politics. As a plain empirical claim, this is not entirely false. But the charge needs to be put in perspective.

A final, more cynical criticism holds that secularism simply cannot work, because it is trying to solve a problem that has no solution — that people with deep religious differences will never be able…