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Question
What are the different senses in which ‘secularism’ has been understood in India?
Solution
- The Indian meanings of secular and secularism imply that state does not favour any religion. This implies equal respect for all religions rather than separation or distancing.
- In the western context, secularism implies the separation of church and state. This implies the progressive retreat of religion from public life, as it was converted from a mandatory obligation to a voluntary personal practice.
- Secularization was related to the arrival of modernity and the rise of science and rationality as alternatives to religious ways of understanding the world.
- One difficult issue that arises from this is the tension between the western sense of state maintaining distance from religion and the Indian sense of the state giving equal respect to all religions.
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| Another set of complications is created by the tension between the Indian state’s simultaneous commitment to secularism as well as the protection of minorities. The protection of minorities requires that they be given special consideration in a context where the normal working of the political system places them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the majority community. But providing such protection immediately invites the accusation of favouritism or ‘appeasement’ of minorities. Opponents argue that secularism of this sort is only an excuse to favour the minorities in return for their votes or other kinds of support. Supporters argue that without such special protection, secularism can turn into an excuse for imposing the majority community’s values and norms on the minorities. |
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